In 2018, Natalie’s younger sister, Lana, claimed on a podcast that 16-year-old Natalie had been raped by a “big star” at the Chateau Marmont hotel.
“I remember that Natalie looked especially beautiful when Mom and I dropped her off that night at the Chateau Marmont entrance,” Lana writes in her upcoming memoir, Little Sister: My Investigation Into the Mysterious Death of Natalie Wood , per the Associated Press.
Their mother, Maria Zakharenko, had reportedly scheduled Natalie’s meeting with Douglas, hoping that “many doors might be thrown open for her, with just a nod of his famous, handsome head on her behalf.” Lana, then about eight years old, remembers “it seemed like a long time passed before Natalie got back into the car and woke me up when she slammed the door shut.” She writes that Natalie “looked awful,” adding, “She was very disheveled and very upset, and she and Mom started urgently whispering to each other.
I was terrified, I was confused.” According to Lana, her sister and mother had decided that it would tarnish Natalie’s Hollywood standing to publicly accuse Douglas.
Douglas mentions Natalie in his 1988 memoir, The Ragman’s Son, detailing the night “a pretty little girl wearing a suede jacket hopped out” of a car and ran to him.
Suspicions surrounding the circumstances of Natalie’s drowning cast doubt on the manner of her death, prompting the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to reopen its investigation in 2011.
“With no one still around to protect, I’m sure she’ll forgive me for finally breaking that promise,” Lana writes.
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