Natalie Wood
She is one of the greatest talents and most beautiful women ever to grace the screen, and remains one of the most popular and controversial actresses of our time more than a quarter century after her tragic, untimely death from drowning. From child star to teen idol to American icon, Natalie Wood made 56 films for TV and the silver screen and received 3 Oscar nominations before turning 25.
Her real name was Natasha Gurdin, and she was born in San Francisco on Wednesday, July 20th, 1938, to Russian émigrés Maria and Nicholas Zakharenko (they had changed their last name to Gurdin before coming to America). Natalie has one sister, Lana Wood, who is younger. They have a half-sister, Olga Viriapaeff, who is older. When she was just 4 years old, Natalie made her film debut in Happy Land(1943), although she had less than 10 seconds of screen time. When she was 7, she was cast in a major role opposite the legendary Orson Welles in Tomorrow Is Forever (1946). The following year, she starred as Susan Walker in one of the most famous films of all time, Miracle on 34th Street (1947), which for many people has become a traditional viewing every Christmas. Natalie stayed very busy as a child actress and appeared in over 20 films, including The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay! (1948), Our Very Own (1950). During her childhood and adolescence, she performed with such veteran stars as Maureen O'Hara, James Stewart, Marilyn Monroe, Fred MacMurray, Paul Newman, Bing Crosby and Bette Davis.
When she was 16, Natalie got her big break when she was cast as Judy in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), starring opposite screen legend James Dean and Sal Mineo. Her performance earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. The film was hugely popular and is now considered a classic. Both of her male co-stars in the film also died young under tragic circumstances, and the main cast has become known as the "tragic three," The following year, she played a small but crucial role in the classic western The Searchers (1956), with John Wayne and, in a small role, Lana. Natalie was a rebellious teenager, started smoking and dated famous older men, including Dennis Hopper, Elvis Presley, and Robert Wagner (aka RJ). She and Wagner became involved in the spring of 1957 when she was 18 and he was 27, and they married later the year on Saturday, December 28th, 1957. The newlyweds became financially stressed, when both of their careers started to decline. Natalie's career was ailing with flops, especially Marjorie Morningstar (1958). She and Wagner made a film together called All the Fine Young Cannibals (1960), which bombed at the box office. But this period of decline did not last long.
In 1961 Natalie starred in two blockbuster films. The first was Splendor in the Grass (1961), a drama about teen love co-starring Warren Beatty. Natalie received her second Academy Award nomination for her role, this time as Best Actress. The other film she made that year was West Side Story (1961), a musical about rival gangs in New York. During this time her marriage to RJ crumbled. Although he said that their careers conflicted with the marriage, biographer Suzanne Finstad says that she caught him "in a compromising position with another man." Their divorce was final in April 1962, and she began a relationship with Warren Beatty. Natalie's next two films were very successful: the musical,Gypsy (1962), and the melodrama, Love with the Proper Stranger (1963), in which her character becomes pregnant after a one night stand with a musician. The latter film earned her a third Academy Award nomination. Natalie was just 25 years old at the time, and to this day remains the youngest person to ever receive 3 Academy Award nominations. After this she starred in Sex and the Single Girl (1964) and The Great Race(1965), which were poorly received. She delivered some of her best work in years by playing southern depression-era teens with big dreams in the similar films Inside Daisy Clover (1965) and This Property Is Condemned (1966), both of which co-starred Robert Redford and earned her Golden Globe nominations. Although they were not box-office hits upon release, many consider the latter to be Natalie's greatest performance. In addition, her personal life was also suffering after her breakup with Warren Beatty and her suicide attempt in November of 1966. She began seeing a psychiatrist and stopped working for 3 years. She turned down opportunities to star in Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Barefoot in the Park(1967) and Goodbye, Columbus (1969) among others, and later regretted her decisions. In 1969, Natalie starred as a swinger in the hit film Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969). She played Carol, the trophy wife of Bob, who is swapped with Alice to have sex with Ted. The film embraced the sexual revolution of the hippie era and increased Natalie's star status. Her salary for the film was a record-breaking $3 million after she was given a percentage of the film's profits. In addition to her movie success, her personal life was improving as well. On Friday, May 30th, 1969, 30-year old Natalie married British producer Richard Gregson after a year-and-a-half of dating. Within a few months, Natalie was pregnant.
On Tuesday, September 29th, 1970, she gave birth to a daughter, Natasha Gregson Wagner. She loved being a new mother and devoted all her attention to her newborn. Sadly, it turned out that Gregson was having an affair with her secretary, and the couple separated in August of 1971 when their daughter was just ten months young. In 1971 and 1972, Natalie dated politician Jerry Brown and actor Steve McQueen, but neither relationship lasted very long. At this time she was quoted saying that she would never marry again. However, she reconciled with Robert Wagner in February 1972 and within a few months they were engaged. On Sunday, July 16, 1972, 33-year old Natalie and 42-year old Wagner re-married in Malibu, just 3 months after her divorce from Gregson was finalized. Natalie took a career hiatus to take care of Natasha and attempt to be a better wife than she had been before. On Saturday, March 9th, 1974, Natalie gave birth to her second child, daughter Courtney Wagner. Natalie named Courtney after her character in The Affair (1973) (TV) (she became aware that she was pregnant during filming). Once again she procrastinated on returning to acting in order to care for her baby. Her projects were few and far between, and usually had something to do with her husband (they starred in a television remake of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1976) (TV) and she made cameo guest appearances on his shows "Switch" (1975) and "Hart to Hart: Hart to Hart (#1.0)" (1979). Her only feature film during the decade was Peeper (1975), which received only a limited release and was an instant flop. Although Natalie loved being a wife and mother, cherished her daughters and made them her main priority, she feared she would be forgotten if she stayed away from Hollywood for too long.
As her daughters reached school age, Natalie returned to making movies. In 1979 she had three projects awaiting release. The most significant was "From Here to Eternity" (1979), a mini-series film that co-starred Kim Basinger and William Devane. Natalie gave a subtle yet very sexy and powerful performance, and it won her a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in 1980. She also starred in the science-fiction disaster, Meteor(1979) with Sean Connery, but it was severely bashed by critics and performed very poorly at the box office. Her next film, the sex comedy, The Last Married Couple in America (1980), with George Segal was also poorly received, despite the praise of her spunky performance. Natalie was unhappy that her film career was ailing because she had been an actress nearly all her life and loved the craft. Determined to re-ignite her film career, Natalie made an unusual choice by moving to North Carolina (something her husband hated her for doing) in late 1981 to make Brainstorm (1983), a compelling science fiction drama in which she and Christopher Walken played a husband-and-wife team of scientists who create a device that can record human thoughts.
Natalie returned to L.A. for an open house Thanksgiving and brought Walken with her. She invited him to join her, Wagner, and boat captain Dennis Davern on a boat trip to Catalina Island. On Saturday, November 28th, 1981, they dined at a restaurant on Catalina where Natalie became very intoxicated. That night, the four of them returned to their yacht, the "Splendor." The rest is a mystery, and the stories about how she ended up in the water have been conflicting. On the morning of Sunday, November 29th, 1981, her body was found floating in a cove. Rumors of foul play immediately surfaced, but Dr. Thomas Noguchi concluded that Natalie attempted to get out of the water into a rubber dingy, but was unable to due to her drunkenness. Ironically, according to her mother, a gypsy once told her that Natalie would die of drowning, which caused Natalie to have nightmares as a child. She was 43 years old. Natalie was scheduled to make her stage debut in "Anastasia" in February 1982 and star opposite Timothy Hutton in a film called "Country of the Heart." She had not completed all of her scenes in "Brainstorm," and a stand-in and sound-a-likes were used to replace her. Since then her death has continued to cause controversy.
Wagner gained custody Natalie's daughter Natasha and raised her. He also cut off all contact with the rest of Natalie's family. In 1984, her sister, Lana wrote the best-selling tell-all "Natalie: a Memoir by Her Sister," in which she expressed her disappointment concerning Wagner's behavior. This only worsened the rift between the family. Natalie had only outlived her father, Nick, for a year after he died of a heart attack. Her mother, Maria, never stopped grieving for Natalie and developed Alzheimer's disease. She died of pneumonia in Lana's home in 1998 at age 85.
Natalie does not have any grandchildren, but her legacy lives on in her sisters, nieces, nephews, and daughters. She inspired everyone who knew her and everyone who watched her. She made a great impact in modern film, and her memory will live on for generations to come through her friends, family and fans.
Her real name was Natasha Gurdin, and she was born in San Francisco on Wednesday, July 20th, 1938, to Russian émigrés Maria and Nicholas Zakharenko (they had changed their last name to Gurdin before coming to America). Natalie has one sister, Lana Wood, who is younger. They have a half-sister, Olga Viriapaeff, who is older. When she was just 4 years old, Natalie made her film debut in Happy Land(1943), although she had less than 10 seconds of screen time. When she was 7, she was cast in a major role opposite the legendary Orson Welles in Tomorrow Is Forever (1946). The following year, she starred as Susan Walker in one of the most famous films of all time, Miracle on 34th Street (1947), which for many people has become a traditional viewing every Christmas. Natalie stayed very busy as a child actress and appeared in over 20 films, including The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay! (1948), Our Very Own (1950). During her childhood and adolescence, she performed with such veteran stars as Maureen O'Hara, James Stewart, Marilyn Monroe, Fred MacMurray, Paul Newman, Bing Crosby and Bette Davis.
When she was 16, Natalie got her big break when she was cast as Judy in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), starring opposite screen legend James Dean and Sal Mineo. Her performance earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. The film was hugely popular and is now considered a classic. Both of her male co-stars in the film also died young under tragic circumstances, and the main cast has become known as the "tragic three," The following year, she played a small but crucial role in the classic western The Searchers (1956), with John Wayne and, in a small role, Lana. Natalie was a rebellious teenager, started smoking and dated famous older men, including Dennis Hopper, Elvis Presley, and Robert Wagner (aka RJ). She and Wagner became involved in the spring of 1957 when she was 18 and he was 27, and they married later the year on Saturday, December 28th, 1957. The newlyweds became financially stressed, when both of their careers started to decline. Natalie's career was ailing with flops, especially Marjorie Morningstar (1958). She and Wagner made a film together called All the Fine Young Cannibals (1960), which bombed at the box office. But this period of decline did not last long.
In 1961 Natalie starred in two blockbuster films. The first was Splendor in the Grass (1961), a drama about teen love co-starring Warren Beatty. Natalie received her second Academy Award nomination for her role, this time as Best Actress. The other film she made that year was West Side Story (1961), a musical about rival gangs in New York. During this time her marriage to RJ crumbled. Although he said that their careers conflicted with the marriage, biographer Suzanne Finstad says that she caught him "in a compromising position with another man." Their divorce was final in April 1962, and she began a relationship with Warren Beatty. Natalie's next two films were very successful: the musical,Gypsy (1962), and the melodrama, Love with the Proper Stranger (1963), in which her character becomes pregnant after a one night stand with a musician. The latter film earned her a third Academy Award nomination. Natalie was just 25 years old at the time, and to this day remains the youngest person to ever receive 3 Academy Award nominations. After this she starred in Sex and the Single Girl (1964) and The Great Race(1965), which were poorly received. She delivered some of her best work in years by playing southern depression-era teens with big dreams in the similar films Inside Daisy Clover (1965) and This Property Is Condemned (1966), both of which co-starred Robert Redford and earned her Golden Globe nominations. Although they were not box-office hits upon release, many consider the latter to be Natalie's greatest performance. In addition, her personal life was also suffering after her breakup with Warren Beatty and her suicide attempt in November of 1966. She began seeing a psychiatrist and stopped working for 3 years. She turned down opportunities to star in Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Barefoot in the Park(1967) and Goodbye, Columbus (1969) among others, and later regretted her decisions. In 1969, Natalie starred as a swinger in the hit film Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969). She played Carol, the trophy wife of Bob, who is swapped with Alice to have sex with Ted. The film embraced the sexual revolution of the hippie era and increased Natalie's star status. Her salary for the film was a record-breaking $3 million after she was given a percentage of the film's profits. In addition to her movie success, her personal life was improving as well. On Friday, May 30th, 1969, 30-year old Natalie married British producer Richard Gregson after a year-and-a-half of dating. Within a few months, Natalie was pregnant.
On Tuesday, September 29th, 1970, she gave birth to a daughter, Natasha Gregson Wagner. She loved being a new mother and devoted all her attention to her newborn. Sadly, it turned out that Gregson was having an affair with her secretary, and the couple separated in August of 1971 when their daughter was just ten months young. In 1971 and 1972, Natalie dated politician Jerry Brown and actor Steve McQueen, but neither relationship lasted very long. At this time she was quoted saying that she would never marry again. However, she reconciled with Robert Wagner in February 1972 and within a few months they were engaged. On Sunday, July 16, 1972, 33-year old Natalie and 42-year old Wagner re-married in Malibu, just 3 months after her divorce from Gregson was finalized. Natalie took a career hiatus to take care of Natasha and attempt to be a better wife than she had been before. On Saturday, March 9th, 1974, Natalie gave birth to her second child, daughter Courtney Wagner. Natalie named Courtney after her character in The Affair (1973) (TV) (she became aware that she was pregnant during filming). Once again she procrastinated on returning to acting in order to care for her baby. Her projects were few and far between, and usually had something to do with her husband (they starred in a television remake of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1976) (TV) and she made cameo guest appearances on his shows "Switch" (1975) and "Hart to Hart: Hart to Hart (#1.0)" (1979). Her only feature film during the decade was Peeper (1975), which received only a limited release and was an instant flop. Although Natalie loved being a wife and mother, cherished her daughters and made them her main priority, she feared she would be forgotten if she stayed away from Hollywood for too long.
As her daughters reached school age, Natalie returned to making movies. In 1979 she had three projects awaiting release. The most significant was "From Here to Eternity" (1979), a mini-series film that co-starred Kim Basinger and William Devane. Natalie gave a subtle yet very sexy and powerful performance, and it won her a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in 1980. She also starred in the science-fiction disaster, Meteor(1979) with Sean Connery, but it was severely bashed by critics and performed very poorly at the box office. Her next film, the sex comedy, The Last Married Couple in America (1980), with George Segal was also poorly received, despite the praise of her spunky performance. Natalie was unhappy that her film career was ailing because she had been an actress nearly all her life and loved the craft. Determined to re-ignite her film career, Natalie made an unusual choice by moving to North Carolina (something her husband hated her for doing) in late 1981 to make Brainstorm (1983), a compelling science fiction drama in which she and Christopher Walken played a husband-and-wife team of scientists who create a device that can record human thoughts.
Natalie returned to L.A. for an open house Thanksgiving and brought Walken with her. She invited him to join her, Wagner, and boat captain Dennis Davern on a boat trip to Catalina Island. On Saturday, November 28th, 1981, they dined at a restaurant on Catalina where Natalie became very intoxicated. That night, the four of them returned to their yacht, the "Splendor." The rest is a mystery, and the stories about how she ended up in the water have been conflicting. On the morning of Sunday, November 29th, 1981, her body was found floating in a cove. Rumors of foul play immediately surfaced, but Dr. Thomas Noguchi concluded that Natalie attempted to get out of the water into a rubber dingy, but was unable to due to her drunkenness. Ironically, according to her mother, a gypsy once told her that Natalie would die of drowning, which caused Natalie to have nightmares as a child. She was 43 years old. Natalie was scheduled to make her stage debut in "Anastasia" in February 1982 and star opposite Timothy Hutton in a film called "Country of the Heart." She had not completed all of her scenes in "Brainstorm," and a stand-in and sound-a-likes were used to replace her. Since then her death has continued to cause controversy.
Wagner gained custody Natalie's daughter Natasha and raised her. He also cut off all contact with the rest of Natalie's family. In 1984, her sister, Lana wrote the best-selling tell-all "Natalie: a Memoir by Her Sister," in which she expressed her disappointment concerning Wagner's behavior. This only worsened the rift between the family. Natalie had only outlived her father, Nick, for a year after he died of a heart attack. Her mother, Maria, never stopped grieving for Natalie and developed Alzheimer's disease. She died of pneumonia in Lana's home in 1998 at age 85.
Natalie does not have any grandchildren, but her legacy lives on in her sisters, nieces, nephews, and daughters. She inspired everyone who knew her and everyone who watched her. She made a great impact in modern film, and her memory will live on for generations to come through her friends, family and fans.
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