Natalie Wood was no ordinary jobbing actress. She rose from the child star of Miracle on 34th Street to an Oscar-nominee for Rebel Without a Cause and West Side Story, with roles in other classics as well.
Old clips show a woman who inhabited glamour easily. But behind the scenes she was a fierce advocate for higher film pay and stipulations in contracts that allowed time for psychoanalysis.
The Impact of Her Death on Hollywood
In an industry that commodifies women and uses them like prize trophies for men to admire, Wood was one of the rare exceptions. She had talent, beauty and a commanding presence onscreen. She was also a devoted mother and wife. She remarried Wagner shortly after her divorce from British producer Richard Gregson and had a daughter with him before her death.
While her life was filled with drama, she also had a number of major successes. Her roles in Splendor in the Grass, Love with a Proper Stranger and The Green Promise all earned her Oscar nominations. But after years of stardom, she needed a break. She wanted to step back and focus on her family.
But the break from Hollywood was short-lived. She soon returned to the screen with her first big hit of the ’60s, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, a box office smash starring opposite John Wayne and Warren Beatty.
That film marked the beginning of a period of stability for Wood. She remarried Wagner in 1972, had another child with him and made a series of TV movies before her death.
The mystery surrounding her death remains to this day. Her husband claims she fell overboard during a boating accident, while others suspect she was murdered. In this documentary, director Natasha Gregson Wagner and her sister, Lana, reveal new information that casts doubt on the official account of the incident.
Throughout the film, they show that although Natalie Wood inhabited glamour on camera, she was no airhead. Behind the scenes, she was a fiercely independent woman who fought for higher pay on her films and even put provisions in her contracts that allowed her to take time out for psychoanalysis.
But while the film doesn’t solve the question of how Wood died, it is a touching tribute to a larger-than-life star who was taken from us too soon. The documentary is especially important in this era when celebrity scandals dominate the headlines and many people feel a need to believe that Hollywood stars are capable of anything, even murder.
The Impact of Her Death on Her Family
Natalie Wood was one of Hollywood’s biggest stars and seemed destined for a long career with more hits than misses. She kicked off the screen career of Robert Redford, starred in classics such as Inside Daisy Clover and This Property is Condemned, and was forward-thinking when it came to family life, marrying twice and having a daughter with each. She was also a philanthropist and activist.
But in the days before her death on Thanksgiving weekend of 1981, she was embroiled in a battle that would end in tragedy. The LA County Chief Medical Examiner-Coroner Thomas Noguchi drew attention to himself with sensational news conferences after declaring a number of celebrity deaths, but his conclusions about Wood were based on circumstantial evidence, he later admitted.
Finstad investigates this case with a reporter’s tenacity, using a mix of interviews and documentary footage to show how Noguchi used circumstantial evidence to reach his conclusion that the actress accidentally drowned. He did not follow proper forensic autopsy procedures and, as he did with Marilyn Monroe, Janis Joplin, SLA leader Donald DeFreeze and others, used his public pronouncements to draw conclusions that were not supported by the facts.
Noguchi’s final conclusion was based on superficial bruises found on Wood’s body and the scratch marks on her yacht’s dinghy, Prince Valiant, which he interpreted as proof she slipped and fell into the water. His theory was that a dinghy would arouse a woman’s sexual instincts and that the banging noise of it being pushed against the boat by the water caused her to wake up and fall into the water.
This book will not only change the way you think about Wood, but it will make you question what really happened that night on Catalina Island. It will also give you a new appreciation for her acting talent, as you see how she held her own against directors who exploited her, studio executives who looked the other way and husbands who tried to control her. Her fans wanted more than sensational sound bites and vague accusations of murder, they wanted the truth, which this book delivers.
The Impact of Her Death on Her Friends
Natalie Wood was a complex woman, torn between family and career and prone to tantrums that could turn into fainting fits. Her mother, Maria, was a stereotypical mom-ager before the term existed, pushing her daughter to success. She was a doe-eyed well of emotion on screen and a seasoned professional off, but she also struggled with mental illness and a deep-seated fear of being alone at night.
At the time of her death, Wood had just finished filming the last chapter of “Bob & Carol Go to Prison,” which would mark the end of a successful run that included such leading roles as “Rebel Without a Cause” and “West Side Story.” The actress was 40 and, with Wagner’s encouragement, had decided to focus on her marriage and raising their daughter, Courtney. Her acting career was on a steady decline, but she still managed to find enough work to make ends meet.
It was a tempestuous night on the yacht that Wood, her husband, Robert Wagner, and friend Christopher Walken were sharing. There were arguments, drinking and bottles thrown. But in the end, it was Wood who went into the water and drowned, fulfilling a lifetime of nightmares about being sucked to her death by dark water.
In 2011, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department reopened the investigation of Wood’s death, which had been declared an accident in 1981. In a new book, the boat captain who was on board, Davern, contradicted his original statements to police and said that Wagner had argued with Wood shortly before she died and then pushed her into the water. Davern says he has heard from witnesses who have claimed to have seen this, but didn’t offer up their information in 1981 because they feared Wagner would intimidate them into silence.
Whether she was murdered or accidentally drowned, Wood’s friends are torn. But Gregson Wagner’s documentary shows a woman who, while flawed, was also a devoted mother and wife to Wagner and a midcentury star who learned that having it all meant sacrificing everything when she was torn between her family and her career. It’s a compelling case, made with never-before-shared home and professional footage as well as a who’s who of bygone Hollywood interviewed by Wagner.
The Impact of Her Death on Her Husband
In a time when Hollywood is still shook by her death, this tender documentary is a love letter from her children. It isn’t designed to solve the mystery of how Wood died or quash rumors of foul play, but to remind her family and fans of the bigger-than-life star that was.
The documentary primarily features Wood’s siblings speaking of her with compassion and trust. They recount her tumultuous life in Hollywood as well as her struggles with depression and suicidal urges. It also looks at the lingering impact of her rape as a teenager and her battles with drug addiction. It is a portrait of a troubled soul that had never been given the tools to deal with her troubles.
Natalie Wood’s parents were Russian immigrants, and her maternal grandfather was killed in street fighting between pro-Bolshevik civilian soldiers and anti-Bolshevik police in Ussuriysk. As a result, Wood was raised in a world where she was taught to remain silent for fear of being punished. This became her way of living until she got her first acting role at the age of four in 1943’s The Moon Is Down. She went on to appear in such iconic films as West Side Story, Splendor in the Grass, and Miracle on 34th Street, but in her later years she wanted to step back from the spotlight. She made a series of attempts at suicide and underwent daily psychoanalysis for eight years, stipulating that her film contracts allow her time off to attend sessions.
Wagner and Davern, who was on the yacht with Wood on the night of her death, both tell their versions of what happened. While they agree that there was a heated argument, they differ on what ultimately led to Wood’s death. Davern says that he heard Wagner argue with her before pushing her in the water, while Wagner claims that she simply slipped overboard.
The medical examiner ruled her death accidental, and investigators say that superficial bruises on her body were likely from falling against the side of the boat. However, the reopening of the case in 2013 led to conflicting accounts from the men on the yacht, and it remains unclear what actually happened to Wood.