Natalie Wood (July 20, 1938 – November 29, 1981) was a three time Academy
Award nominated American film actress.
Early life and acting career
Wood was born Natalya Nikolaevna Zakharenko in San Francisco,
California, to Russian immigrants, Nikolai
and Maria Zakharenko. Her parents changed their surname to "Gurdin", and by the age of 4 she was billed as Natasha Gurdin.
Her mother tightly managed and controlled the young girl's career and personal life from her start in films at the age of five.
She starred in multiple films as a child including both Miracle on 34th
Street and The Ghost and Mrs Muir in 1947. Her father is described by Wood's biographers as a passive alcoholic who went along with his wife's demands. Her sister, Lana Wood,
is also an actress, notably a Bond girl, and was featured in a Playboy pictorial (she was not, however, a Playmate).
At age sixteen, Natalie won the role of Judy in Nicholas Ray's Rebel Without a Cause, co-starring James Dean,
Sal Mineo, and Dennis Hopper. Most biographers say that
she slept with Ray and Hopper in order to advance her career.[1] Wood became one of the relatively few child stars to make the transition to adult stardom. By the
time she was 25, she was already a three-time Oscar nominee, for Rebel Without a Cause, Splendor in the
Grass and Love With the Proper Stranger.
Another of her widely noted films was the Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise musical West Side Story, in which she
played Maria. Wood was initially signed to do her own singing, but in the end, she was dubbed by professional singer
Marni Nixon, which is said to have disappointed her. Nonetheless, she enjoyed worldwide
celebrity status, comparable to that of Elizabeth Taylor. Her own singing voice was used when she played the title role in the
1962 film Gypsy, and she also starred with Jack
Lemmon and Tony Curtis in the slapstick comedy, The Great Race in 1965. As a restless on-screen companion of James
Dean and an off-screen date of Elvis Presley, she was much admired and envied by
the young girls of the day. She once stated about Elvis, "He can sing, but he can’t do much else."
Although critically acclaimed for her work and despite her box office success, her acting was also criticised by many, and in
1966 she won the Harvard Lampoon Worst Actress of the Year Award. She was the first
performer in the awards history to accept in person, winning respect from the instiution for being such a good sport.[2]
After appearing in the hit film, Bob & Carol & Ted &
Alice in 1969, she retreated from the spotlight in order to start a family, working sporadically in films and TV
movies until her death.
Relationships
Among the men Wood frequently dated were singer Elvis Presley and actors
Raymond Burr, Dennis Hopper, Warren Beatty, Nick Adams, Tab
Hunter, Michael Caine and Scott Marlowe.
According to Mary F. Pols, the teenaged Wood went on studio-arranged dates, often with closeted gay actors. In
1956, one of these was Tab Hunter, seven years her senior, with
whom she developed a genuine friendship. They would attend parties to promote the two films they co-starred in that year, The
Burning Hills and The Girl He Left Behind. Wood biographer and Hollywood screenwriter, Gavin Lambert, also confirms that Wood had studio-arranged dates with homosexual or bisexual actors, the
first of which was with Nick Adams. Hunter in his autobiography elaborates on how a Hollywood
studio's publicization of a sham romance between two actors each under contract to it was a strategy to stimulate public desire
for seeing that studio's forthcoming films. The demographic segment he in particular appealed to was the newly influential
teenage girl market segment, since he had swiftly established himself as a leading "heartthrob" for that demographic.
According to Lambert and his reviewer David Ehrenstein, Wood financially supported homosexual playwright Mart Crowley in a manner that made it possible for him to write his play, The Boys in the Band.
Concerning a possible relationship between Wood and allegedly homosexual actor Raymond
Burr, 21 years her senior, Wood's biographer, Suzanne Finstad, cites
Dennis Hopper as saying, "I just can't wrap my mind around that one. But you know, I saw
them together. They were definitely a couple. Who knows what was going on there."
Gavin Lambert wrote that, contrary to popular belief, Wood's casting in Rebel
Without a Cause did not lead to a romance with co-star James Dean: "Like many
people, she was fascinated by his charm. He had this magnetic quality on the screen and in life... They got on very well, they
liked each other a lot." However, most biographers write that she slept with Hopper and director Nicholas Ray.[3] Lambert added that both Dean and Ray helped renew her passion for acting
after a diet of lackluster movies like Chicken Every Sunday, Dear Brat and Father Was a Fullback.
Wood's two marriages to actor Robert Wagner were publicized and stormy, but they were
reconciled at the time of her death. According to Suzanne Finstad, she ended her first marriage to Wagner after she caught him
"in a compromising position with another man."[4] Wagner is
aware of Finstad's claim, and he has called it untrue.
Drowning at Catalina Island
On November 29, 1981, at the age of 43, Wood drowned while
the yacht she and Wagner owned, The Splendor, was anchored near Catalina Island. An investigation by Los Angeles County coroner Thomas Noguchi
resulted in an official verdict of accidental drowning, although speculation about the circumstances continues.
Wood was on board the yacht with Wagner and Christopher Walken. The couple had
invited the character actor to join them during the Thanksgiving break from the filming of the science-fiction screenplay
Brainstorm. Wood and Walken, who co-starred in the project, had shot love
scenes several days earlier on an MGM soundstage. [5] In
September and October, they had filmed on location in Raleigh, North
Carolina.[6] The Tar Heel State had recently become
known to Hollywood executives as an excellent production site. Wood and her husband had stayed together in Raleigh for weeks
without causing any trouble or negative rumors in the vicinity of her filming location.[7] (Wagner was on a break from filming his Aaron
Spelling — produced hit TV series Hart to Hart.) Mart Crowley, employed as Natalie's personal assistant since 1960, accompanied her to North Carolina. He
joined the actress, her mother and sisters and Wagner for Thanksgiving dinner in Los Angeles, but he declined Natalie's
invitation to spend the holiday weekend on the yacht.
Anchored in the Pacific Ocean on the Saturday night of the holiday weekend, Wagner and
Walken reportedly had a loud argument about how Walken was behaving around Wood on the yacht and possibly in a Catalina Island
restaurant where they all had partied earlier that day. Wood apparently tried either to leave the yacht or to secure a
dinghy that was banging against the hull when she accidentally slipped and fell overboard. A
woman on a nearby yacht said she heard cries for help from the water at around midnight, along with voices replying "Take it
easy. We'll be over to get you."[8] The woman, a
commodities broker who had never met Wood, Wagner, or Walken, said this "call and response" continued for more than 15 minutes.
She added that the woman who kept repeating "Help me" did it in a curiously flat, unemotional tone of voice. To quote the witness
directly, "There just wasn't much credibility in that droning repetition." For that reason the commodities broker did nothing,
and said that she felt "a lot of guilt" when she learned that Wood had drowned.[citation needed]
Wagner has always refused to discuss the events of that night. Walken said in a New
York Times interview in 1992 that there was no argument and that neither he nor Wagner witnessed Wood's fall. He added
that her small physical stature (five feet tall) was a major factor in the accident.[9] The skipper of the yacht, Dennis Davern, videotaped a rambling and confusing
interview in 1992 for the TV documentary program Now It Can Be Told, hosted by Geraldo
Rivera. At one point during the interview, his girlfriend, who never met any of the yacht's passengers, appears to goad
him into making an accusation, and Davern hesitates.
Of the three witnesses who have talked, only the commodities broker told her story to the media without being pressed and
within a reasonable amount of time. (She gave reporters her whole story less than two days after Wood's body was discovered;
Walken and Davern both waited more than ten years to say anything.)
Dr. Noguchi revealed that Wood was legally intoxicated when she died and that there were marks and bruises on her body, which
could have been received as a result of her fall. In Noguchi's memoir, Coroner, he stated
that had Natalie not been intoxicated, she likely would have realized that her heavy down-filled coat and wool sweater were
pulling her underwater, and would have removed them. Noguchi said he found Natalie's fingernails still embedded in the rubber
boat's side.
At the time of her death Wood was filming Brainstorm. Released in
theaters two years later without a climactic scene that Wood was scheduled to film the week after Thanksgiving, it turned out to
be a box-office disaster. Wood was also scheduled to make her stage debut in an Ahmanson
Theatre production of Anastasia, opposite Dame Wendy Hiller. She was
scheduled to begin rehearsals shortly after wrapping Brainstorm.
She is buried in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery. She
was survived by her husband, Robert Wagner, and two daughters, Natasha Gregson
Wagner (from her marriage to Richard Gregson), and Courtney Wagner, her daughter with Robert Wagner. Other survivors
included her stepdaughter Katie Wagner (from Robert Wagner's previous marriage to
Marion Marshall), her sister, Lana Wood,
sister Olga Virapaeff, and her mother. Lana Wood later published a biography about Natalie.
Trivia
- When she was nine she had an accident on a movie set that left a slight but permanent bone protrusion on her left wrist. For
the rest of her life, on camera or in public, she wore a bracelet to cover it. The nighttime accident, in which a footbridge
holding Wood collapsed, caused her to fear dark water and drowning for the rest of her life.
- Wood's fear became an issue during the filming of at least three of her films in which her character becomes immersed in
water. During the making of This Property Is Condemned, she was so
scared of performing a skinny-dipping scene that co-star Robert Redford held her feet
underwater to help steady her while shooting it.
Awards and Honors
Filmography
Television work
Bibliography
- Gavin Lambert, Natalie Wood: A Life. London: Faber and Faber, 2004. ISBN
0-571-22197-1
- Suzanne Finstad, Natasha: The Biography of Natalie Wood. Three Rivers Press,
2001. ISBN 0-609-80957-1
- Warren G. Harris, Hollywood's Star-Crossed Lovers "Natalie and R.J.". Doubleday, 1988. ISBN 0-385-23691-3
- Christopher Nickens, Natalie Wood: A Biography in Photographs. Doubleday, 1986. ISBN 0-385-23307-8
- Lana Wood, Natalie: A Memoir by Her Sister. Putnam Pub Group, 1984. ISBN 0-399-12903-0
- Frascella, Lawrence and Weisel, Al : Live Fast, Die Young: The Wild Ride of Making Rebel Without a Cause. Touchstone, 2005. ISBN 0-7432-6082-1
References
- ^ According to Suzanne Finstad, Wood
slept with director Nicholas Ray while she was trying to land the leading role in what became her breakthrough picture, Ray's
Rebel Without a Cause. See Suzanne Finstad, Natasha: The Biography of Natalie
Wood (Three Rivers Press, 2001). See also Chris Foran, "Natalie Wood deserved a better ending". The Milwaukee Journal
Sentinel, July 31, 2001.
- ^ http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=493919
- ^ According to Douglas L. Rathgeb, The Making of Rebel Without a Cause
(2004), p. 90, "Dennis Hopper and Natalie Wood were involved in 'the youngest romance on the [Warner Bros.] lot these days.'
Unknown to Dennis Hopper, and the Hollywood gossips, sixteen-year-old Natalie Wood had also began a romance with 43-year-old
Nicholas Ray. Hopper discovered what many in the cast already knew when he made an unannounced visit ... and found Ray and Wood
together in bed."
- ^ See Finstad, Natasha: The Biography of Natalie Wood (2001). See also
Chris Foran, "Natalie Wood deserved a better ending". The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, July 31, 2001.
- ^ front page of Los Angeles Times edition of Monday, November 30, 1981.
- ^ front page of Los Angeles Times edition of Monday, November 30, 1981.
- ^ front page of Raleigh News & Observer edition of Monday, November 30,
1981.
- ^ Time magazine, December 14, 1981
- ^ New York Times, June 24, 1992, page C1
External links
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