Someone mentioned his first autobiography, The Ragman's Son. Douglas himself was sexually assaulted as a child, but unfortunately, he didn't see it for what it was, because he was conditioned into thinking he was "lucky" to have that experience.
There are also some disturbing passages, including:
In Chapter 12 "Israel", Douglas meets General Moshe Dayan and his family, including his "precocious" TWELVE year-old daughter, Ya'el. The following paragraph is reproduced in full:
"Ya'el was a very bright girl, sexy even at that young age. Jokingly, I said, 'Listen, Ya'el, here's a dime. When you get to be seventeen or eighteen, if you're around Hollywood, call me.' Sure enough, about five or six years later, I got a call in Los Angeles. It was Ya'el Dayan. 'Well, here I am.' Israelis are amazing people."
*In Chapter 19 "Stateside", Douglas describes his after-filming activities in Jamaica thus:
"There were beautiful, young (I hate to think how young) copper-colored girls dancing and singing Calypso songs - 'Please, mister, don't touch my tomatoes'. Afterward, I would take them up to my bungalow. I'm glad I never asked them how old they were. I think I should have been in jail."
His engagement to Pier Angeli in the early 1950s (she was 19 when they met, but he loved the fact that she looked younger), is also disturbing to read about. He referred her to as "a virginal child" and he ended their engagement when he realized that she was not going to have sex with him before marriage.
There is also a much-talked-about episode where he bragged about using sex to punish and degrade an anti-Semitic woman.
He had a lot of anger issues, and I absolutely believe that he assaulted Natalie Wood, and he probably did it to others too. As for the disappearance of Jean Spangler, there are a lot of theories and a few other plausible suspects (such as her ex-husband) but I think it's possible that Douglas knew more than he admitted.
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Otter (24464)
a year ago
I read his autobiography years and years and years ago. I don't remember any details at this point, but even though he was doing this damndest to present himself in the best possible light, he still came across as an asshole. Someone who had a hard upbringing, dirt poor and with the usual family issues, but also someone who never lost the resulting chip on his shoulder no matter how wealthy, famous, and respected he became. The sort of person who spends his life complaining that others don't respect him as much as he deserves, while treating everyone else like shit.
That was years before the rape allegations began. And having read the book, I didn't react to the allegations with the kind of "He couldn't have!" feeling you get about some people.
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TrentnQuarantino (8417)
a year ago
Well, Douglas is dead and gone now, so I guess the question is how does the world handle this today and going forward.
I've always thought that sex is a natural urge that, despite denials by society even children have. I remember being very attracted to girls my age as you as when I was in first grade, and they attracted back to me.
The issue is coercion, or force which is should be up to the woman, or girl, or maybe even her parents to decide. It's too complicated a subject that humans do not really understand themselves and will probably always argue about.
But the artificial cutoff point of 18, adulthood is a poor decision, but the best we can do.
Having been exposed to feminist through and literature starting in my mid-teens, I get the ideas and theories. Seems to me as a socialist the best we should be able to do it is to remove the coercive necessity for women around the world to have to sell themselves for sex by human right ... but also the necessity for men, all people, to have to be economically exploited in order to survive. That is a dehumanizing, barbaric system that has been the norm in human society since forever, and if we are to count ourselves as "intelligent beings", and "human" we need to change that.
The problem is that we are just as addicted to using each other as we are to using drugs or other mind changing experiences like war and violence.
Humanity has a long way to go, but it doesn't look like we are going to have time because global warming is going to curtail civilization and reset life on this planet very soon.
Oh, yeah, I know "global warming is BS" ... but only for blind Republicans
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