Evil? This guy?

Klaus Kinski was a Polish-born German actor best known for being the leading man in five or six Werner Herzog films in the seventies and eighties. He was famous as a bit player in the US, playing a supporting role in Doctor Zhivago, and eventually even got offered a part in Raiders of the Lost Ark, which he turned down, saying in his book Kinski Uncut “as much as I’d like to do a movie with Spielberg, the script is as moronically sh*tty as so many other flicks of this ilk.” He was also so crazy that Werner Herzog eventually made a documentary about their relationship, called My Best Fiend in 1999 (Kinski died in ’91).

Now Kinski’s daughter Pola has alleged in an autobiography and an interview with a German newspaper that her father raped and abused her for 14 years, beginning when she was just five. Yeesh, you wonder why Herzog can work with wild personalities like Nic Cage and Val Kilmer without batting an eye, this is why.

“He ignored everything, including that I tried to defend myself and said ‘I don’t want to,’ Pola Kinski says in the interview which hits newsstands on Thursday, according to Germany’s The Local newspaper.

Now 60, she claims that her father would often rape her and then assuage his guilt by plying her with expensive gifts after she moved out of the home of her mother, singer Gislinde Kuhlbeck, Kinski’s first wife, shortly after their divorce in 1955. [NYDailyNews]

In a new autobiography published in Germany entitled Kindermund – which can be roughly translated as Out of the Mouths of Babes - Pola Kinski, now 60, details the abuse she said she suffered at his hands

She said he was violently abusive towards her, throwing her against the wall and raping her and then compensating by showering her with expensive gifts. He saw her as “his little sex object, bedded on a silk cushion,” Pola Kinski said. “I didn’t want to, but he didn’t care. He just took whatever he wanted.”

Pola Kinski – like her half-siblings Nastassja and Nikolai Kinski – is also known for her acting work, having appeared in several German TV movies, as well as on stage. A mother of three, she is now retired.

“I can’t hear it anymore: ‘Your father! Great! A genius! I always liked him,” she said. “The idolization has only gotten worse since his death.” [THR]

Excuse me one second…

Okay, I’m back. Man, that’s awful. I also absolutely hate that every celebrity or psuedo-celebrity can’t publish a book nowadays without concurrent revelations of past drug addictions and tales of childhood abuse. It dulls the public’s reaction to something that’s pretty horrible. Not that they should cover it up, it’s just terrible that it’s become almost standard practice.

Not for nothing, Klaus Kinski was also quoted as once saying:

“As soon as I f*ck a girl or she’s sucked me off, I want to leave her immediately. If one sucks me over for so long that I let her sleep with me and she wants to cuddle up to me, I kick her away.”

Still… sweet guy though, loved his dog, always paid his taxes, etc… Sheesh.

On a lighter note, here’s a Kinski anecdote from Ebert:

Jack Lemmon told me that he was in line at Ace Hardware in Beverly Hills, and the sales clerk kept looking past him. “I may not be the biggest star in the world” he said, “but, jeez, usually when I stand in line, the clerk will notice me. I turned around, and there was Klaus Kinski with an ax.”

Me, I’m not a Kinski historian, all I know is what I read, and that “Klaus Skinski” would be a great name for a German porn star.

[banner image via Tumblr]