Before there was Harvey Weinstein

 

Judaism and I parted ways a long time ago, when I was a poor kid growing up in Amsterdam, N.Y. Back then, I was pretty good in cheder, so the Jews of our community thought they would do a wonderful thing and collect enough money to send me to a yeshiva to become a rabbi. Holy Moses! That scared the hell out of me. I didn't want to be a rabbi. I wanted to be an actor. Believe me, the members of the Sons of Israel were persistent. I had nightmares – wearing long payos and a black hat. I had to work very hard to get out of it. But it took me a long time to learn that you don't have to be a rabbi to be a Jew.

As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.

Kirk Douglas, Issur Danielovich, was a 38 year old man, when he raped the 16 year old child, Natalie Wood.

Suzanne Finstad's 2001 biography of Wood alleges that she was raped by a powerful actor when she was 16, though Finstad did not name the assailant. Through the recollection of Wood's close friends, which included actors Scott Marlowe and Dennis Hopper, Finstad said:

Though her five close friends' memories of some details or timing differ after forty-five years, the essence of what each recalls Natalie confiding to them is the same: that the same married film star lured or tricked Natalie, raped her so brutally she was physically injured, and she was too frightened or intimidated to report it to the police. Natalie "hated" her former screen idol afterward, "shuddering" if she heard his name. She would keep the horrible secret, and behave as if nothing happened whenever their paths intersected, too schooled by Mud [her mother] in the politics of Hollywood to cross a powerful movie star.

During a 12-part podcast about Wood's life in July 2018, Wood's sister Lana said that Wood was raped as a teenager, and that the attack had occurred inside the Chateau Marmont during an audition and went on "for hours". According to professor Cynthia Lucia, who studied the claim, Wood's rape was brutal and violent. In 2021, a year after the death of Kirk Douglas, Lana published the memoir Little Sister: My Investigation Into the Mysterious Death of Natalie Wood and identified Douglas as Wood's alleged assailant.

Lest we forget. Never again.

Nuff Said

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