Their divorce was finalized in 1972. Natalie Wood's love life reads like a who's who of Hollywood in the 1950s and 1960s. The on-screen character for which she is best remembered, the pure and virginal Maria in West Side Story, was far removed from her immensely troubled real life. Her parents separated before Natasha was even a year old and when Natalie remarried Wagner a year later, Natasha was informally adopted by her famous stepdad. By Julie. Wood met her eventual first husband Robert Wagner (who everyone called "RJ") around the movie studio when she was a teenager, but they didn't go out until she was of age the 26-year-old. In The Great Race, her ability to speak Russian was an asset given to her character Maggie DuBois, justifying the character's recording the progress of the race across Siberia and entering the race at the beginning as a contestant. Natalie "hated" her former screen idol afterward, "shuddering" if she heard his name. [57], At the time of her death, Wood was filming the $15 million science fiction film Brainstorm (1983), co-starring Christopher Walken and directed by Douglas Trumbull.[58]. All Rights Reserved. . Getty In her book, she recalls promising her sister not to discuss the assault by Douglas, but rumors were so prevalent that when he died in 2020, at age 103, Natalie Wood's name trended along with . [23] After she started acting as a child, RKO executives David Lewis and William Goetz changed her surname to "Wood" to make it more appealing to English-speaking audiences and as a tribute to filmmaker Sam Wood. [50] She paid Warner Bros. $175,000 to cancel her contract and fired her entire support team: agents, managers, publicist, accountant, and attorneys. This lasted for a year until February 1959. And it wasn't another woman. Natalie Wood, original name Natalia Nikolaevna Zackharenko, Zackharenko also spelled Zakharenko, (born July 20, 1938, San Francisco, California, U.S.died November 29, 1981, off Santa Catalina Island, California), American film actress who transitioned from child stardom to a successful movie career as an adult. Wood filed for divorce from Gregson on August 4, 1971, and it was finalized on April 12, 1972. After her split from Beatty but before her second marriage, Wood was linked to several famous men, including singer Frank Sinatra, actor Henry Jaglom, actor Michael Caine, producer Arthur Loew Jr., Ladislav Blatnik, the shoe king of Venezuela, and actor David Niven Jr. She also had a brief dalliance with singer Elvis Presley in 1956, according to Bobbie Ann Masons book Elvis Presley: A Life, but the two didnt have much of a connection. [68][69] In 2016, Wilson spoke on camera about his alleged affair with Wood in a documentary for the cable network Reelz. (IMDb)Natalie Wood was a child actress, best known for the 1947 film Miracle on 34th Street, who went on to star in some of . Their daughter Courtney was born on March 9, 1974. Advertisement. The events surrounding her death have been the subject of conflicting witness statements,[5] prompting the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, under the instruction of the coroner's office, to list her cause of death as "drowning and other undetermined factors" in 2012. [77], On November 29, 1981, Wood died under mysterious circumstances at age 43 during the making of Brainstorm. Copyright 2023 Distractify. Tweet. At the age of 25, Wood received her third Academy Award nomination for Love with the Proper Stranger (1963), making Wood (along with Teresa Wright) the youngest person to score three Oscar nominations. Terrified since childhood of being alone in the dark, she went to look for him, only to find the heartthrob in flagrante with someone else. I talked to [Wood] and said I was going to Europe and do you want to come there and she said no, I have other plans. Natalie Wood: The Complete Biography, by Suzanne Finstad, is published by Broadway Books, 20. And yet, says Finstad, his decision to have a live-in butler struck observers at the time as odd. [84] Two witnesses who were on a nearby boat stated that they had heard a woman scream for help during the night. It is alleged that Wagner who, like Walken, has said almost nothing about that night didn't call for help for more than two hours. Where in Rebel she falls in love with the character played by James Dean, whose gang-like peers and violent temper alienated him from his family, in West Side Story she enters into a romance with a white former gang member whose threatening world of outcasts also alienated him from lawful behavior."[2]. Natalie Woods net worth is $850,000 Natalie Woods Wiki: Salary, Married, Wedding, Spouse, Family Natalie Woods is an actress, known for Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making the Team (2006) and The Fanglys (2004). [2] Her former "childlike sweetness" was now being combined with a noticeable "restlessness that was characteristic of the youth of the 1950s. My career was not igniting like hers was, but that wasnt really a very big factor in the fact that we separated and eventually divorced, says Wagner. Despite these connections, no coherent theory seems to explain their relation to Spangler's disappearance. Just a year later, they ended up divorced. Although Wood's singing in the film was voiced by Marni Nixon,[46] West Side Story is still regarded as one of Wood's best films. [59] Wood had also purchased film rights to the Barbara Wersba book, Country of the Heart, and was planning to star with Timothy Hutton in the drama about the professional-romantic relationship between a tough-minded poet and her much younger student. Kazan wrote in his 1997 memoir that the "sages" of the film community declared her "washed up" as an actress, but he still wanted to interview her for his next film: When I saw her, I detected behind the well-mannered 'young wife' front a desperate twinkle in her eyes I talked with her more quietly then and more personally. Other than the fact that she drowned, many of the circumstances are unknown; for example, it has never been determined how she entered the water. DeVincentis became an item, and the couple married in 2003. "[44] Actor Gary Lockwood, who also performed in the film, felt that "Kazan and Natalie were a terrific marriage, because you had this beautiful girl, and you had somebody that could get things out of her." Wood started acting at age four and was given a co-starring role at age 8 in Miracle on 34th Street (1947). A friend of Wood would homophobically complain, even in her presence, about the 'f*****' keeping house for them. [42], Kazan cast Wood as the female lead in Splendor, and her career rebounded. Natalie Wood's 1981 drowning death has remained one of Hollywood's great mysteries for four decades. Wood heard the rumours that Wagner was bisexual but told a friend: 'All these people are just jealous of us.'. Accessed November 17, 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Natalie_Wood&oldid=1139854755, This page was last edited on 17 February 2023, at 06:30. The studio cast her in two films opposite Tab Hunter, hoping to turn the duo into a box-office draw that never materialized: The Burning Hills (1956), a Western, and The Girl He Left Behind (1956). -24 "It's terribly touching to me. But the 'secret that was buried deepest in Natalie's closet of skeletons', says Finstad, was the 'shocking end' of her 'fairy-tale' first marriage to Wagner, on whom she'd had a crush since childhood. "[27], Wood's mother continued to play a significant role in her daughter's early career, coaching her and micromanaging aspects of her career even after Wood acquired agents. [70], Celebrity bodyguard Kris Herzog has stated that Wood told his grandmother, an Avalon socialite, that she was going to divorce Wagner and that he himself saw Wood the morning before she disappeared.[71][72]. He claimed that he made those observations to Noguchi. "She was a straight A student", and one of the few child actors to excel at arithmetic. When Wood was unable to cry on cue, her mother tore a butterfly to pieces in front of her to ensure she would sob for a scene. 14K followers. Guest Natalie Woods-Stanyer discusses life as a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, her close encounter with a murderer and how it is to work with Chad Prather!Conne. "[27] Wood remembered that period in her life, saying, "I always felt guilty when I knew the crew was sitting around waiting for me to finish my three hours. Given such an ugly history, perhaps it's not surprising that, even as a star, Wood had a bedroom filled with 47 dolls that she believed were alive and spoke to her. [39] She returned to be leading lady to James Garner in Cash McCall (1960). Her Husband Betrayed Her. [2] Critics have suggested that her cinematic career represents a portrait of modern American womanhood in transition, as she was one of the few to take both child roles and those of middle-aged characters. This record was later broken by Jennifer Lawrence in 2013 and Saoirse Ronan in 2017, both of whom scored their third nominations at the age of 23. Kazan writes that he cast her in the role partly because he saw in Wood's personality a "true-blue quality with a wanton side that is held down by social pressure," adding that "she clings to things with her eyes," a quality he found especially "appealing. That opened the door for a second marriage, when Natalie married British producer Richard Gregson in 1969. Graveside Service: March 18th at 9 A.M. Must be at the cemetery at 9 A.M. for the funeral procession to begin. She had roles in the feature films The Silver Chalice and One Desire (1955). On Nov. 29, 1981, the body of Natalie Wood, 43, was found floating in the ocean off Santa Catalina, where she had gone for a holiday weekend on a yacht with her husband, Robert ["R.J."] Wagner . Both Wood's sister Lana, a former Bond Girl (in Diamonds Are Forever), and the yacht's skipper Dennis Davern the only other person on board during the trip now claim Wagner murdered Wood. She was just 11 years old at the time of her mother's death. In fact, we were both so confused that we thought fighting and hostility meant real emotional honesty.. So its no surprise that her dating and marriage history boasts some of the brightest stars of the 1950s and 1960s. Harris. Her studio arranged a date with Robert when she was 18 and him 26. By The Associated Press. However, Wood was undeterred, determined to live the 'fairy-tale' romance she had imagined as a child with the 'handsome prince she'd fantasised about at 11' when she stuck a photograph of Wagner above her bed. Wood had to sign to a long-term contract with Warner Bros. but she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Natalie Woods Stanyer on Instagram: "I love this man! She made a brief cameo appearance as herself in The Candidate (1972), working once more with Robert Redford. He also co-owns a gun range and some other businesses IIRC. [21] Her paternal grandfather, a chocolate factory employee who joined the anti-Bolshevik civilian forces during the war, was killed in a street fight between the Red Army and White Russian soldiers in Vladivostok. In this period, Wood had more success in television, receiving high ratings and critical acclaim in 1979 for The Cracker Factory and especially the miniseries remake of From Here to Eternity (1979), with Kim Basinger and William Devane. Wood's career was in a transition period, having until then consisted of roles as a child or as a teenager. She later said it was the first script she read that she actually wanted to do as opposed to being told to do by her parents; she also said her parents were opposed to her doing it. While the former was clearly a case of on-screen homicide, Natalie's watery demise remains one of Hollywood's enduring mysteries . The One Tribe Foundation launch celebration event was hosted by Natalie Woods Stanyer, TV personality and former Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader. [41] She was then cast in Kazan's Splendor in the Grass (1961) with Warren Beatty. Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind airs Tuesday, May 5 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on HBO and HBO Latino. I can talk about that pretty easily now, but at the time, it was a little bit difficult, says Wagner, adding, I was alone, I didnt have anybody in my life and I just couldnt stay in Los Angeles anymore and be alone, so I made a decision to move to Europe. Distractify is a registered trademark. Stanyer will be recognized by Berri O'Neal, chair of the Panola College Alumni Association, and recipient of the 2016 Alumna of the Year, at the spring commencement ceremony scheduled for Thursday, May 10, at 5 p.m. in the Arthur Johnson Gymnasium. Natasha Gregson Wagner on the forthcoming HBO documentary Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind, in which she sits down with her stepfather to discuss her mother's tragic 1981 death. My stepfather is Robert Wagner, who everyone called RJ, and I call him Daddy Wagner, she explains in the documentary. This seemed right.. [65], On May 30, 1969, Wood married British producer Richard Gregson after dating for nearly three years. Warner Bros. tried teaming her with Efrem Zimbalist Jr. in Bombers B-52 (1957). However, after having a crush on actor Robert Wagner for most of her life ever since she was a child, she ended up pursuing a relationship with him. Natalie Wood (ne Zacharenko; July 20, 1938 November 29, 1981) was an American actress who began her career in film as a child and successfully transitioned to young adult roles. [67] They remarried on July 16 aboard the Ramblin' Rose, anchored off Paradise Cove in Malibu. The Harvard Crimson wrote she was "quite a good sport". Wagner was eight years older than her and single. Born on 20 July 1938, Natalie Wood began acting as a child. A year after tieing the knot, the happy couple welcomed their first child, Natasha. He credits that with saving his life. Natalie Wood's younger sister wrote in her upcoming memoir that Kirk Douglas sexually assaulted the Hollywood actress in 1955 when she was a teen. ET on HBO. [79] The autopsy report revealed that she had bruises on her body and arms, as well as an abrasion on her left cheek, but no indication as to how or when the injuries occurred. "Until then I did what I was told," she said.[35]. It was really a cry for help. What was Natalie Wood's love life like, after all? Some of her most notable TV roles include Two Girls and a Guy . Wood reunited on the screen with Robert Wagner in the television film of the week The Affair (1973), and with Laurence Olivier and Wagner in an adaptation of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1976) for the British series Laurence Olivier Presents broadcast as a special by NBC.[34][56]. [61] Following her death, Time magazine noted that although critical praise for Wood had been sparse throughout her career, "she always had work". Kazan's favorite scene in the film was the last one, when Wood goes back to see her lost first love, Bud (Beatty). Tatuloff, Alexander (September 17, 1934). He then had an affair with Woods secretary. [93] Forensic pathologist Michael Hunter speculated that Wood was particularly susceptible to bruising because she had taken the drug Synthroid. Help during the making of Brainstorm her and single in fact, we were so... The drug Synthroid at arithmetic Girls and a Guy Warner Bros. tried teaming her with Efrem Zimbalist Jr. in B-52. 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