Posted on 02/06/2020 8:12:04 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Before World War II, Depression-era Americans wanted their Hollywood male leads to be suave and sophisticated, whether they were in dramatic or humorous roles. After World War II, however, Americans craved authentic men on the screen — and in Kirk Douglas, they got a movie star so authentic, so searing, that even today Douglas is still a cultural touchpoint.
Issur Danielovitch Demsky, better known as Kirk Douglas, was born into poverty on December 9, 1916, in Amsterdam, New York. He died on February 5, 2020, at age 103, in Beverly Hills, California, not only wealthy, but also one of the most admired actors Hollywood has ever produced.
Douglas's life trajectory epitomized the opportunities available to hardworking first-generation American children hungry for success. He started on the bottom-most rung of the American ladder, writing in his autobiography The Ragman's Son:
"My father, who had been a horse trader in Russia, got himself a horse and a small wagon, and became a ragman, buying old rags, pieces of metal, and junk for pennies, nickels, and dimes[.] ... Even on Eagle Street, in the poorest section of town, where all families were struggling, the ragman was on the lowest rung on the ladder. And I was the ragman's son."
Douglas knew he could do better. Through hard work and intelligence, he put himself through St. Lawrence University, graduating in 1939 with a B.A. During college, he worked as a gardener, a janitor, and even a carnival wrestler. After graduating, Douglas earned a scholarship to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City.
In December 1941, after Pearl Harbor, Douglas joined the U.S. Navy, serving as a communications officer in anti-submarine warfare. He was medically discharged in 1944. By that time, he had married, and his first child was on the way.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
You have got to be one of the least knowledgeable persons about movie making history that I have ever conversed with. Its all make believe. In real life the guys who played good guys were often complete scumbags and the ones who played bad guys were often total straight arrows. It doesn't make much to continue arguing with you about this. You are star struck and know basically nothing about what you are expounding on, and you have no desire or ability to look into it without your preconceived notions. Comical but sad.
You can repeat everything you just said, which you have done already in several posts.
The fact still is this -— ALL ARE RUMORS. Her family DID NOT NAME KIRK OPENLY even at a time when doing so would have been acceptable.
Your only “best” evidence is that the description of the rapist “fits” him.
That’s it!! You expect to convince based on this?
Also we part ways with an actress losing her stature and ability to find work after she comes out to accuse a sexual predator. THINGS HAD CHANGED BY THE 1970’s. This was the decade when explicit sex and 4 letter curse words started to proliferate on screen.
If Natalie was raped and she Ided Kirk say in 1975, her career would NOT be affected.
1. She was an established actress with millions of adoring fans.
2. She was the victim. If she were truthful, most Americans would support the victim.
3. She would have had corroboration from people close to her. That’s additional support.
That she never said anything despite all that does NOT give support to your contention.
You want to convince? At least show me something she wrote privately. In her diary, or an old tape where she named him. Better still, show me a blue dress with his sperm on it like Clinton had.
Absent that, I am well within my rights to doubt the story.
“I fail to see how any of those stories substantiates a rape allegation against Kirk Douglas.” [Boogieman, post 56]
On a forum populated by posters who pride themselves on having already learned “the lessons of history,” it’s always a surprise to encounter someone whose sense of the long term is nonexistent.
But if you’ve already decided that being moral is more important than being effective, there probably isn’t anything I can post, that will improve your understanding.
The horribly judgmental people here are destroying this thread.
I have faith that God will judge Kirk, Natalie, and these righteous posters. It ends there and is properly dealt with.
R-i-g-h-t... Weinstein, Cosby, Clinton, Prince Andrew, Epstein, and all the other folks who were not exposed until the last few years were all just getting started in the 70s. It wasn't until the last few years that this type of abhorrent behavior started being exposed and shouted down.
I do want to congratulate you and the others who have stepped up to the plate here to defend another leftist pedophile. Obviously politics are not as important to you as looks and fantasies about your favorite manly man actor. Go ahead and throw common sense to the wind and stand up for Kirk until the end.
I do feel a little bad for the other leftist pedophiles just mentioned and many more who you let hang out to dry when they were accused by scores of heartless young women of disgusting and even criminal behavior. /s
One of my favorite Douglas movies.
I AN NOT DEDENDING A PEDOPHILE. LET’S MAKE ONE THING CLEAR.
You and I both agree that ANY RAPE perpetrated againt a person OF ANY AGE is evil and should be punished.
But so is bearing false witness!
What convincing evidence have you presented to implicate Kirk?
All I get from you is a documentary you saw where the rapist seem to fit the actor’s description. NOT EVEN A NAME! And to top it all, Natalie herself never, EVER mentions his name!
Go to the Wikipedia pages of either Kirk Douglas or Natalie Wood and tell me if you see the names of either one mentioned in the other’s bio... NONE!
Try posting your accusations on either one of their wiki pages and see whether the moderators will allow them.
And then on that basis, you call me a pedophile defender! Unbelievable!
You’re no different from Diane Feinstein in this regard.
The ignorance that you have repeatedly shown about the two characters involved is sad but amusing. But I certainly would not hold it against you that you do not have a clue about a couple of movie stars from a couple generations back. But it is funny that when you have been corrected in multiple instances, you don't dispute that you were completely wrong, you just pretend like the new information that you were confronted with somehow supports your point of view. You really ought to consider becoming a lawyer or politician if you are not one already. LOL!
The real knee slapper however is your ignorance of the time-line of historical cultural development in our country. You don't seem to understand even relatively recent developments. It feels like your knowledge of the 50s and 60s came from watching “Happy Days” reruns, a sitcom written in the 70s and 80s; and your knowledge of the 70s seems to have come from “That 70s Show” a sitcom written in the late 90s into the 2000s. Big suprise... those shows were meant only to be funny, not accurate representations of American culture during those time periods.
I find your repeated falsehoods and judgments about the way that you feel Natalie Wood should have reacted to a horrible event in her life disturbing. I also find your repeated mischaracterizations about what she and her family told to many others about the event during the 25 year period from when it happened and her tragic demise disturbing. I am sorry but Wikipedia is not actually a reliable source of information about this type of event, or global warming if you are into that also.
I understand that your proclamations are coming from someone who is not knowledgeable about what he is discussing. My goal was not to change your point of view, only to make a tiny chink in your coat of ignorance. I am sad, that at this point I appear to have failed completely in this effort. But as long as you don't forget to forget to vote for Donald Trump next November and help take back the house from the Democrats all will be forgiven. At least we have one less Douglass voting for our country's demise.
Thank you also for your hilarious description of my so called ignorance of the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s.
The fact that you would mention “Happy Days” simply shows how you want to caricature my point of view rather than understand where I’m coming from and what I demand to see in order to switch my point of view.
I was not born yesterday and I clearly remember the sexual revolution of the 60’s, Woodstock, youth rebellion and the evolution (for the worse) of Hollywood movies. I don’t need you to lecture me about my so-called naivete.
I also know of several cases in New York, where I live, where powerful business executives were brought down in the 1970’s by CREDIBLE ( Emphasis ) accusations of sexual assault and rape from common women. IT HAPPENED. If these women could triumph, I see no reason why a big star like Natalie Wood would not.
Suffice it to say that your attempts at telling me that the 70’s were different to the 21st century DOES NOT COMPORT with my experience reading the news.
I still believe that had Natalie Wood and her family and support came out to tell their story of rape, IF CREDIBLE, they would be supported. I also believe that she, being a big star WOULD NOT SUFFER CAREERWISE, if she could show that her accusations are true.
You want me to come to your point of view? I already told you how. I don’t dwell on hearsay or rumors. Show me evidence! A note, a diary entry, or even her close friends and relatives NAMING KIRK DOUGLAS !
Alas, from you, such evidence is not forthcoming. I am not a stubborn fellow as long as you can meet my evidential criteria. So far, you have not. Tsk, tsk.
http://classichollywoodactresses.blogspot.com/2017/12/did-kirk-douglas-rape-natalie-wood.html
Oh, Lets not kid ourselves!!! I have said repeatedly that my goal has never been to change your point of view. I am sure you spotted the link I just included previously. But there is no link, no news source, no blog, no testimony, nothing, not even if you were shown video of the actual event by an eye witness that could ever shake your faith or image of Kirk Douglass. There would always be some reason why it wasn’t credible to you. This is the definition of hero worship. I recognized it from your first posts. Why you Issur Danielovitch Demsky, aka Kirk Douglass is one of your chosen heros you hasn’t really been explained. But if you prefer to worship good looking people who make their living pretending to be heros that is your choice. I am sure there are a lot of other professional keyboard jockeys who do the same thing.
1. I have no “heros”. I can admire a person’s work without having to admire is politics or his personal life.
I separate the two.
I don’t know how you would gather from my post that Kirk Douglas is an idol of mine. That is an unwarranted extrapolation on your part.
Based on our exchanges so far, I can see that you fancy yourself as a mib reader (a very poor one at that )?
2. The blog you referred to tells us that Natalie Wood spent years in therapy. Who is the therapist? Can we gather his notes now that both Kirk and Natalie are dead?
Even more important, if her family wants to get the truth out there, all it would take is to allow the release of the therapist’s notes.
Absent that, absent Natalie not even mentioning any event nor Kirk Douglas’ name, how are we to believe this blog?
Look, there’s a woman today alive who insisted that Trump tried to rape her. We can at least cross examine her openly. Without any word from Natalie Wood herself, no name of this therapist, no notes from him, why should we believe this blogger?
Yesterday I was at a military associations quarterly meeting. We talk there and learn more about about those we admire and the real deeds that they accomplished. So much different than the sports figure and acting world “heroes” that you and so many others spend their time and effort paying homage to. A few of them are fine upstanding people but most are just jokes.
RE: Oh please! You are the one who started this thread.
Yes, and you were the one who started the accusations.
RE: But thank you for taking the bait and doing exactly what I predicted that you would.
So, you now admit that your purpose is to bait people, and your interest is not to pursue the truth of the matter?
RE: Yesterday I was at a military associations quarterly meeting. We talk there and learn more about about those we admire and the real deeds that they accomplished. So much different than the sports figure and acting world “heroes” that you and so many others spend their time and effort paying homage to. A few of them are fine upstanding people but most are just jokes.
Well, we have been going back and forth about this so called “rape” of Natalie Wood. I’ve been asking for convincing evidence. I’m still waiting....
On the other hand despite your glassy eyed ignorance about social norms and the attitudes at that time, there were a lot of reasons for her and her family, her friends and her associates to keep their mouths shut.
It would actually have made Ms. Wood less credible if she had come forward during that time period and tried to get money or other forms of compensation. She was a fragile person and would have been drug through the mud. It would not have made sense.
My wife's dad beat her, her mother, and her brothers and sister over an extended period of time. He did all sorts of other unspeakable things as well. My wife walked to school with her face all bloodied. At one point he knocked her front teeth out, so for several years she was a little girl with no front teeth. When she was asked what had happened, she always replied that she had fallen down.
Everyone knew what was really going on in that household, the teachers, the neighbors, the doctors and nurses, the dentist, and their extended family... everyone. But unlike Kirk, her dad was a real decorated war hero who served from before WWII, through Korea, and into the Vietnam era. He was fearsome in battle and at home. And like Kirk he had a drinking problem. My wife's mother eventually died of a brain aneurysm that was related to multiple head injuries.
Before you even start thinking of all that you will believe the victims in this case could have done to end this abuse, let me remind you again that it was a different time. None of the nonsense that is going through your mind would have helped. And even though it all happened exactly as I told you and actually worse than you can probably imagine. There is no proof that I could present to you that would convince you that if instead of my wife's dad we were talking about Kirk Douglass... Nothing...
My wife still has plenty of problems both physical and emotional from her horrific childhood. She does not tell people about it because this ALWAYS results in negative consequences. But despite this she is one of the most remarkable people that I have ever known. She is still strikingly beautiful. She is now a retired nurse. When I met her she had been teaching “fat boy” programs on two different military bases in the area, and had just won the Northwest Regional Aerobics Instructor Championships.... I didn't even know there was such a thing at the time. For the first time in my life I fell madly in love the moment that I laid eyes on her. For some strange reason she fell in love with me despite being pursued by many other suitors on those bases especially. Thirty years later I feel the same way. She can still fit into her wedding dress... People still mistake her for a well known movie star. Successful people like my wife and Natalie Wood move on despite the bullsh@t evil bastards have done to them.
RE: When evaluating claims of this type, it is important to try and understand what the motivation would be for the victim to make it up. There was no obvious motivation for Natalie Wood to tell her mother and her sister that she had been raped and for them to take her to the hospital for her injuries other than the fact that she had been raped.
There’s only one problem with your above statement, EVEN HER MOTHER DID NOT NAME HIM. So, what evidence do you have other than some “powerful” man did it to her ( if he ever did ).
RE: Their was no motivation for Natalie Wood to tell many different acquaintances and her therapists over the years that Kirk Douglass had raped her other than it happened.
Motivation? Simple -— JUSTICE. To prevent such things from happening again. She has nothing to lose by doing so. She was already famous by the 1960’s and the 70’s. She would have been given a lot of credibility.
RE: On the other hand despite your glassy eyed ignorance about social norms and the attitudes at that time, there were a lot of reasons for her and her family, her friends and her associates to keep their mouths shut.
I don’t need you to lecture me about social norms. I was not talking about the 1950’s. Natalie had ADEQUATE TIME later to spill the beans, especially when she became famous. Social norms in the 1970’s BY MY EXPERIENCE are sympathetic to women who were raped who can CREDIBLY tell their story. I already told you. In New York, I read about at least TWO cases where lower ranked employees brought down powerful executives with their rape charges <— CREDIBLE BOTH.
Don’t tell me about social norms. Not when it involves famous women like Natalie Wood.
RE: It would actually have made Ms. Wood less credible if she had come forward during that time period and tried to get money or other forms of compensation. She was a fragile person and would have been drug through the mud. It would not have made sense.
It would even make her more sympathetic to the wider public. It would even make her a HERO if she could credibly bring out her story and let everyone know what a monster the movie idol everyone admired was.
RE: None of the nonsense that is going through your mind would have helped.
Except you haven’t shown that what’s going on in my mind is nonsense. I ASKED for clear evidence, all you tell me is what happened to your wife ( for which I am sorry to hear about ). But even then the analogy is not exactly apt. The wife beater is RELATED to her. Kirk Douglas is NOT RELATED to Natalie Wood.
You can and should vent your anger at the bully who affected your wife’s life. But that is still different from Natalie Wood in the following ways:
1) Kirk Douglas is NOT her father or unrelated to her.
2) You yourself IDENTIFIED OPENLY to me and to FR WHO the perp is. We know now that it was your wife’s dad. We can find out his name, etc.
Natalie and her family on the other hand -— NEVER MENTIONED the rapist BY NAME. How are we going to know if it was Kirk Douglas?
As much as I sympathize with your wife, her case is DIFFERENT from what happened to Natalie ( if it ever did ).
I congratulate you; it is amazing to me the web of nonsense that you are capable of weaving to delude yourself into believing whatever you wish. It is not that this “gift” is unique to you but you are much better at it than most folks. I suppose that the experiences of someone living in New York is somewhat different than those living in the rest of the country, but your impression of the 70s is so far off the mark that it is hard to believe that you are more than 15 or 20 years old.
Hello Captain Obvious!!! LOL!!! But, what happened to my wife extended into the 70s. Everyone familiar with her knew about it, so your threats to look up who we are and expose her father's identity are laughable as well. Except that your response illustrates that you yourself threaten to use a survivors story against her. This makes you a pathetic excuse for a man, just like your hero the pretend tough guy.
In the 70s, no one, not the police, not my wife's dad's superiors in the army, not her teachers, not her mother's family, not her doctors, or dentists ever did anything about it. And when she did tell people about it later, many did not really feel sympathetic to her, many used it against her... just like you. In the 70s, despite your sheltered rosy portrayal, things were a lot different than now.
Someone should lecture you on historical social norms because you are an ignorant fool. You have obviously led a sheltered life. I worked for 25 years on the streets of a large city known to be the most crime ridden city in a three state area. I saw so much of this kind of crap that I got sick and tired of it. How very special that you read about two women in New York who got their boss in trouble in the 70s. The reality was probably somewhat different. You are a real worldly guy!
Over the weekend I spoke to a woman who joined the army in the 70s. Her drill sergeant got her pregnant, and she wasn't the first. She got kicked out of the army, nothing happened to him. They didn't even change his assignment. The brass blamed her and the other women he got pregnant. That is the 70s you ignorant fool.
These days people get arrested for domestic violence all the time. I can't even tell you how many drunk a$$holes I saw the police haul off while my crews and I treated the victims. In the 70s domestic violence wasn't even a term that people used. And short of an actual murder it was basically ignored. PTSD wasn't a term used either and people didn't get treatment for it, they beat and abused their wives, kids, and anyone else who got in the way.
But you are not just a fool you are a liar also. Some things have not changed. You don't sympathize with my wife, you pay lip service to her. You are just like so many others who pretended to care about her when she confided in them and instead used the info against her later.
My wife's dad saw horrors that people who were not there cannot even imagine, so she forgave him. Issur Danielovitch, aka Kirk Douglass was a communications officer on a ship. In his own words he was a drinker and a womanizer. If he had hurt my wife, her dad, the dog faced, mean little pile of bricks that he was, would have beaten your handsome pretend tough guy into a bloody pulp and left him for dead. And if Issur Danielovitch hadn't been a celebrity nothing would have happened to my wife's dad for doing it, because there were a few upsides to the 70s.
RE: Hello Captain Obvious!!! LOL!!! But, what happened to my wife extended into the 70s. Everyone familiar with her knew about it, so your threats to look up who we are and expose her father’s identity are laughable as well.
You see, you can’t even understand what a person is thinking.
You use the word “threats” as if I am doing this to you.
What I am saying is this -— PEOPLE WILL KNOW HER FATHER’s IDENTITY SHOULD SEE DECIDE TO TELL HER STORY.
RE: Except that your response illustrates that you yourself threaten to use a survivors story against her. This makes you a pathetic excuse for a man, just like your hero the pretend tough guy.
1) I never threatened anyone (please re-read my post). I said PEOPLE WILL KNOW. Heck people she knows and who know her probably already know who her father is.
Should someone tell her story and (like the Natalie Wood articles supposedly told hers ), and cloak it in words like “someone related to her”, heck, people can put two and two together.
Such is NOT the case with Natalie Wood. There were many powerful Hollywood moguls then, how do you know that it is Douglas they were referring to when they never gave a name?
2) That you would repeat that silly tripe that Kirk Douglas is some sort of “hero” to me (Your words not mine ) despite my total denials and caveats simply shows that your intent is NOT to understand my point ( after I already repeated them ad nauseuam ) but to ATTACK ME PERSONALLY.
In fact, your use of the words “Pedophile defender” to attack me already shows that you are losing the argument.
Any decent, reasonable person would accomodate my demands by providing me with the evidence I asked for. You have not done that. What you are doing is simply insulting me and then insinuating that I am “threatening” you.
I even wonder whether you bother to understand what I am asking for for me to change my mind. No wonder you’re not convincing.
RE: In the 70s, no one, not the police, not my wife’s dad’s superiors in the army, not her teachers, not her mother’s family, not her doctors, or dentists ever did anything about it. And when she did tell people about it later, many did not really feel sympathetic to her, many used it against her... just like you.
STOP THERE. What do the words “just like you” mean? You are again trying to read my mind.
I WOULD BELIEVE HER. ESPECIALLY IF HER MOTHER, HER BROTHER AND SISTER SUPPORTED WHAT SHE SAID. especially if her mother had the bruises to show for it. Her brain aneurysm is EVIDENCE as well. You have PLENTY OF EVIDENCE TO SHOW. Where are Natalie Wood’s evidence?
I am sorry again that as you said, nobody believed her. BUT THAT IS DIFFERENT FROM SAYING THAT JUST BECAUSE IN YOUR PARTICULAR CASE, IT UNFORTUNATELY HAPPENED, IT WOULD HAPPEN IN EVERY CASE.
I am not so stupid to believe that just because there was injustice in Place X in America, injustice would occur everywhere.
But again, I repeat, your wife’s case is DIFFERENT from Natalie Wood’s case.
Your wife has PLENTY OF EVIDENCE. Natalie Wood has not shown one evidence.
Had her mother pressed charges, there were PLENTY OF EVIDENCE TO SHOW.
RE: Someone should lecture you on historical social norms because you are an ignorant fool.
NOPE, DISAGREE. YOU ARE USING YOUR PERSONAL EXPERIENCE TO EXTRAPOLATE IT TO AN ENTIRE COUNTRY. The 1970’s was not the 1950’s and neither was the 1960’s. I reject your characterization.
RE: You have obviously led a sheltered life. I worked for 25 years on the streets of a large city known to be the most crime ridden city in a three state area.
HA HA HA. Sheltered heh. I worked in 5 different countries, speak 5 different languages and have experienced the good and bad of many cultures. I lived in New York City, the most culturally diverse city in America. Don’t lecture me about your mean streets experience.
The best you can say is that Your experience is DIFFERENT from mine and you are trying to extrapolate it to what might or might not have happened had Natalie Wood spilled the beans on Kirk Douglas ( IF HE DID IT ).
RE: Over the weekend I spoke to a woman who joined the army in the 70s. Her drill sergeant got her pregnant, and she wasn’t the first. She got kicked out of the army, nothing happened to him. They didn’t even change his assignment. The brass blamed her and the other women he got pregnant. That is the 70s you ignorant fool.
I saw two cases in NYC where secretaries charged their bosses ( big Wall Street executives ) with attempted rape. TWO SEPARATE CASES. Both successfully prosecuted because they could provide evidence. Yes, this was the 1970’s you fool. And such cases have been successfully prosecuted in the 80’s and 90’s up to now.
People are product of their experiences. You are trying to overgeneralize your experience to show that it happens in EVERY CASE. Again, I sympathize with you, but this sympathy does not mean that I should believe an accusation against someone else without good evidence.
So, here is what I want to say -— JUSTICE STILL WORKS IN THIS COUNTRY. It worked 50 years ago and it still works now. Otherwise, we might as well scrap all laws and all courts.
I’m sorry that your experience has caused you to feel that the oppressed women did not have a voice. But this is an error in reasoning. You are confusing SOME with ALL.
Now, I don’t want to talk about your wife at all. It is NONE OF MY BUSINESS and I wish you had never brought her up.
I want to talk specifically about Natalie Wood.
When the incident is alleged to have occurred, there was published news that at the time, was having an affair with 43 year old Nick Ray – director of her first big break in a mature role, Rebel Without A Cause.
Yep, this was in 1954 and 1955. She was still a teenager then. Don’t believe me? Here are some links:
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/natalie-wood-death-rebel-without-266053
TITLE: How Natalie Wood Seduced Her Way Into ‘Rebel Without a Cause’
Director/Producer Nick Ray was already 44 years old.
Do you believe this article or not? If so, this does not sound like a girl who was traumatized by rape not too long ago.
READ THIS ARTICLE FROM THE BALTIMORE SUN:
https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-2001-07-08-0107080329-story.html
The article states that she also had a “serious friendship” ( whatever that means ) with Frank Sinatra as a teen ( Sinatra was close to 40 then ). If true, then she does not look like the innocent, traumatized teen who was raped that you depict. Who to believe?
Then we have articles like this:
Wood’s romantic relationships seemed typically dysfunctional and short-lived. She had flings with, among others, Warren Beatty, Elvis, Steve McQueen, Frank Sinatra, and American politician Jerry Brown (whose manhood she described as being “like a wand”.)
So many stories about her relationships with men that we can’t make head or tail of what to believe.
Suffice it to say that if these stories are true, how do we know that the one who raped her ( if it happened ) was not any one of these men ( especially the Director Nick Ray )?
NOTE: knowing that you are a person who likes to jump into conclusions without bothering to try to understand what I am trying to say, let me clarify -— I don’t KNOW if I can believe half the allegations in these newspaper articles about Natalie Wood. All I am saying is this -— THERE ARE TOO MANY STORIES ABOUT HER such that we have to sort out fact from fiction. The difference is this -— you are peddling the Kirk Douglas “rape” story as A FACT without showing any evidence at all. You refer to other people’s writings just as I refer to these articles.
So let’s examine Kirk in 1955, described by the conspiranoids as “ultra-powerful in Hollywood, and a one-man money machine at the box office”.
Here’s what I gathered though: Douglas hadn’t been nominated for anything since 1952, and had still to make the films Paths of Glory (1957), The Vikings (1958), Spartacus (1960), Lonely are the Brave (1962) and Seven Days in May (1964). HIS BIGGEST AND MOST FAMOUS ROLES.
It was thought by some at the time, in fact, that Douglas made the Disney potboiler 20,000 Leagues under the Sea in 1954 because he needed the money.
At this point, other elements of the rape accusation begin to look increasingly feeble. Kirk Douglas did indeed need money, because he was busy putting a production company called Bryna together, in order to make himself independent of studio control. Far from seeing him as the golden boy, at least two studios were pissed off with him walking away from their contracts. The idea that – at such a sensitive time – Douglas would risk all as a result of an isolated sexual brainstorm is pretty far-fetched.
Natalie, meanwhile, was already a 3-time Oscar nominee fully tied up making Rebel Without a Cause and then publicising the movie as James Dean’s reputation grew during production. She was also already committed to a role in John Ford’s classic The Searchers.
She had no reason, motive or need to go visit Kirk Douglas about a part for an indie production company that might fold at any time.
But there is far more to the Douglas’s lifetime desire for independence than just money: only the previous year, he had married his wife Anne, with whom he stayed for 65 years.
He didn’t have a film to “cast” for in 1955, and he did not act in a casting role for Bryna: his only two motives were to make money and thus fund general quality control at all times. To describe him as some sort of all powerful Harvey Weinstein like character in Hollywood is simply an exaggeration.
But back to you -— SHOW ME. Again let me repeat this SHOW-ME EVIDENCE OTHER THAN SOME DOCUMENTARY THAT NEVER NAMED THE ALLEGED RAPIST in order for me to overlook the other articles about Natalie Wood.
Let me help you here so that you don’t have to refer to your wife or anybody in your life that I don’t know:
* The notes of Natalie’s therapist ( if it exists )
* A contemporaenous diary written by either her or those close to her who were supposedly in the know
* Any convincing document that NAMED — Kirk Douglas in the 1950’s.
Absent these -— I’m sorry, I remain skeptical.
The idea that she went to Douglas’s Hotel room about casting for a part without knowing the Hollywood score is thus, shall we say, a little open-minded? This was, lest we forget, 1955.
If that is not a threat, I do not know what is??? But you are right no one can read your mind. After trying to follow your posts I have concluded it is a jumbled mess of conflicting reasoning and attitudes. More than a few negative stereotypes come to mind
Probably the biggest flaw in your reasoning is that you refuse to acknowledge that there was a social stigma in the 50s, and in the 70s, that caused rape victims not to want to come forward. I had a fiancé who was raped in the 80s who refused to come forward. Even now most studies conclude that a third or less of rapes are reported. As I read through your posts it is pretty easy to understand why no woman has ever confided in you that she was raped.
Here we have an example of you threatening to expose my wife, her dad and me about domestic violence that she experienced growing up. There is less of a stigma against victims of domestic violence than there is against victims of rape, yet you felt that threatening us with exposure would cause me to shut up. I am not sure that you are even consciously aware of how your actions and words can and will be interpreted and would result in people and especially women not confiding in you.
As far as you being a New Yorker... from your writing style I doubt that would be any big surprise to anyone reading your posts. But no matter where you have resided, your mannerisms and thought process has most likely prevented many people both women and men from confiding in you. I know that I have shared way too much. Unfortunately, that has resulted in you leading a very sheltered life regardless of where you have worked. It is very obvious from your posts.
RE: If that is not a threat, I do not know what is???
It is NOT A THREAT YOU FOOL, IT IS A PROCESS THAT CAN DETERMINE WHO A PERP IS *ASSUMING* A CREDIBLE ACCUSATION IS MADE.
You can’t even differentiate between a theoretical concept and a real threat. And here you are trying to psychologize me.
I have NOTHING PERSONAL against you, I even sympathize with your story so CUT IT OUT.
RE: Probably the biggest flaw in your reasoning is that you refuse to acknowledge that there was a social stigma in the 50s, and in the 70s, that caused rape victims not to want to come forward
Listen, I can only be a product of my upbringing and the places I have lived and my experiences. Just because you experienced something does not mean that this experience is replicated everywhere in this big country.
RE: As far as you being a New Yorker... from your writing style I doubt that would be any big surprise to anyone reading your posts. But no matter where you have resided, your mannerisms and thought process has most likely prevented many people both women and men from confiding in you.
All I can say is this — you presume to know me when all you can surmise is from what you’ve read so far. Also, you have DONE NOTHING to change my mind ( and I BADLY want to ). All I can say is this -— YOU ARE WRONG IN YOUR PRESUMPTIONS ABOUT ME.
BTW, let me repeat this — I don’t want to talk about your wife because doing so only bring’s out the personal accusatory imp in you.
Let’s stick to the issue at hand -— THE EVIDENCE. Where is it? And I’d like you to refute all the articles that I just presented above. They seem to tell a different story about young, traumatized Natalie Wood, and Powerful, Hollywood mogul Kirk Douglas ( NOT ).
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