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Today she is one of Hollywood's top stunt drivers, the owner of her own highly successful business, and a devoted mother and grandmother. It's a life that's a world away from the one she was living in 1967, when 18 year-old Georgia Durante was raped by her brother-in-law when her sister was out of town.
In the wake of her attack, the attitudes that Georgia encountered in her upstate New York hometown were, in her own words, "More damaging than the rape itself. It was a small town - think about that movie, Peyton Place and you've got the idea - and word of what my brother-in-law did spread like wildfire. I couldn't go anywhere where people weren't whispering behind my back. People actually thought he was the victim because I had the nerve to charge him with rape - some thought I should 'let it go.' They were willing to pounce on me and blame me without knowing any of the facts."
"There are days when I think that so much has changed since then - we have crisis centers, shelters, celebrities willing to say the word 'rape.' Other days - when I pick up the paper and read an article that blames the victim - I realize how far we still have to go. It took me years to regain my self-esteem, and it shouldn't have. I didn't deserve to feel so unworthy for so long."
"I think if I had a group of women to talk to who had had the same experience, I would have understood that being raped caused all of those feelings. We just didn't have that then. When I talk to a rape victim today, I remind her to find other survivors, to talk to other women. They will get you through this."
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