A daughter of the late Klaus Kinski, the German actor who starred in films such as Fitzcarraldo, has accused him of raping her as a child over a period of 14 years.

"I kept quiet for years because he forbade me from talking about it," Pola Kinski, now 60, told Stern magazine. "The terrible thing is that he once told me that it was completely natural, that fathers all over the world did that with their daughters."

Klaus Kinski, who died in 1991 aged 65, was best known for playing manic, obsessive figures for the German director Werner Herzog in films such as Aguirre: the Wrath of God and Nosferatu the Vampyre. He appeared in David Lean's Doctor Zhivago and in spaghetti westerns such as For a Few Dollars More.

Born in Poland in 1926, he served in the German army in the second world war. His long working relationship with Herzog was marked by temperamental, sometimes violent clashes.

Pola Kinski's new autobiography, Kindermund (From the Mouths of Children), tells of him subjecting her to violent rape and abuse and then showering her with expensive presents. "He was paying for me to be his little sex object, placed on silk cushions," she told Stern.

Klaus Kinski had two other children with his second and third wives: the film star Nastassja Kinski and a son, Nikolai. All three children became actors. Attempts to contact representatives of Nastassja and Nikolai Kinski for comment, in the United States and Germany respectively, did not get an immediate response.

Pola Kinski said she had written the book to help "others who have lived through something similar", and because she was sick of hearing how people revered her father. "I couldn't stand hearing it any more: 'Your father! Cool! Genius! I always loved him!' I always replied 'Yeah, yeah'. Since his death this adulation has got even worse," she said.

The German newspaper Bild said Pola Kinski should be considered a heroine for having the courage to talk about "what probably thousands of daughters do not dare to say".