Kirk Douglas sexually assaulted Natalie Wood, according to new memoirs

The late Natalie Wood was sexually assaulted by Hollywood A-lister Kirk Douglas when she was a teenager, a new book claims.

In "Little Sisters", a memoir written by Ms Wood’s younger sister, Lana, it is claimed that Douglas attacked Wood in the summer of 1955, when the two met in a hotel.

"I remember that Natalie looked especially beautiful when Mom and I dropped her off that night at the Chateau Marmont entrance," Lana Wood writes. The meeting had been arranged by their mother, Maria Zakharenko, who thought that "many doors might be thrown open for her, with just a nod of his famous, handsome head on her behalf."

Mr Douglas, who was nearly twice Wood’s age at the time, was one of the most famous faces in Hollywood, having starred in Spartacus and Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.

"It seemed like a long time passed before Natalie got back into the car and woke me up when she slammed the door shut," Lana claims. "She looked awful. She was very dishevelled and very upset."

“Something bad had apparently happened to my sister, but whatever it was, I was apparently too young to be told about it."

Lana, who was eight at the time, claims that Natalie and her mother agreed not to report the incident for fear of ruining her career - “suck it up” was apparently her mother's advice.

It was not until years later that Natalie told Lana what happened, apparently saying that she was taken into Douglas’s suite before "he hurt me".

Ms Wood died in 1981 in a mysterious drowning. Initially ruled an accident, the verdict was altered to “drowning and other undetermined factors” in 2012.

Kirk Douglas died in 2020. Rumours that he had assaulted Ms Wood were so prevalent throughout his life that her name trended alongside his on Twitter when his death was announced.