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Top 10 Facts about Natalie Wood

Natalie Wood was an acclaimed actress who died tragically, drowning during a boating trip in 1981. By age twenty-three, Natalie Wood was one of the biggest movie stars in the world and was one of Hollywood’s golden stars and a legend both on and off the silver screen. With her iconic performances in Splendor in the Grass and West Side Story in 1961, Natalie become an acclaimed actress, a breathtaking beauty and a sophisticated sex symbol all in one.  The daughter of Russian immigrants, Natalie Wood was born Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko in 1938, in San Francisco, California.

Her mother enrolled her ballet classes as a small child. Wood landed her first film role, a bit part in Happy Land (1943), which happened to be filming in Santa Rosa, California, where she was living at the time. She was 4 years old and won over director Irving Pichel after her mother orchestrated their introduction.

Her personal life rivals the story of many a Hollywood movie; she was is like a Russian matryoshka doll, a set of wooden dolls nesting in one another. When you pick up one doll, you find another inside, over and over. Wood was one of the most beloved actresses of her time, even long after her mystical drowning death in 1981. Investigations into Wood鈥檚 mysterious death seemed to be re-opened every few years, with her ex-husband Wagner being named a 鈥減erson of interest鈥�, it remains officially unsolved. Here are the top 10 facts about Natalie Wood.

 

1. Natalie Wood鈥檚 Controversial Death

One day 39 years ago, four adults went for a cruise off the southwest coast of Los Angeles aboard Splendour, a 55-foot yacht. Three of those adults would come safely back to shore. The fourth would never see home again. She鈥檇 never work again or see her children reach adulthood. She was discovered floating in the water in a flannel nightgown, socks, and a down jacket the next morning.

in November 1981, Natalie Wood took a trip with her husband Wagner and Brainstorm co-star Walken to California’s Catalina Island on their boat Splendour. On the night of November 29, the three actors had been drinking. Wagner reportedly broke a bottle during a fit of anger over Wood’s relationship with Walken. After that incident, Wood and Wagner allegedly argued.

Later that evening, Wagner claimed he was unable to find Wood but her body was discovered the following morning, floating in the water off Catalina Island near a dinghy from the Splendour. Her death was ruled an accidental drowning. It was theorized that Wood fell in the water after attempting to secure the dinghy to prevent it from banging into the boat. Some family and friends objected to this explanation, as Wood had hydrophobia.

When Natalie Wood died she had yet to complete work on her film Brainstorm, though all her main scenes were done. MGM tried to shut down the production and claim insurance however the film鈥檚 director suspected they just got cold feet, using her death as an excuse to try to shelve the troubled film.

Celebrities who died tragically.

2.  Natalie Wood鈥檚 Mother, Maria was Manipulative

Maria鈥檚 family fled to China after the Russian Revolution, and when she was a child, she said she had her fortune read by a gypsy in Harbin. The fortune teller told her that her second child 鈥渨ould be a great beauty, known throughout the world.鈥� But she also said that Maria must 鈥渂eware of dark water.鈥� Maria passed on that fear to her second daughter, while pushing her to fulfill that first prophecy.

With her talent for manipulation, her mother Maria may have been worse than her father鈥檚 alcoholic rage. With a skewed moral compass, Maria would purposefully spark her husband鈥檚 temper. Lana (Natalie鈥檚 sister) later called her a pathological liar. Leading the family with her flair for melodrama and bizarre superstitions, Maria did not provide her children with a stable upbringing.

When Natalie Wood was 7 years old, her mother would tear up butterflies in front of her to get her to cry for a scene in a World War 2 movie where she played an orphan. Her mother also moved the entire family to LA when Natalie鈥檚 child acting career gained traction.

3. Her Movie Debut was at 5 years old

The Russian-American actress made her silver-screen debut in the 1943 film Happy Lands before turning five years old an early start Natalie鈥檚 sister Lana credits to their ‘Hollywood-obsessed’ mother.

While working on the set of Happy Lands, Natalie caught the eye of director Irving Pichel, who would be influential in shaping the young girl’s future.  Even though she was in the film for only 15 seconds, the director saw something special in her.

A couple of years later Pichel called the family with an opportunity for Natalie to play a lead role in the post-World-War-II film Tomorrow Is Forever.

Lana said the girls’ father was hesitant about uprooting the family to Los Angeles, but that Maria’s will to make Natalie famous won out and they moved. By the time she was 14, she had appeared in over 20 films and was the breadwinner for her family.

4. Rebel Without a Cause was her most Famous Film

 

At the age of 16, Wood began filming one of her most famous films in which she co-starred with Dean and Sal Mineo in the 1955 groundbreaking depiction of teenage rebellion and angst, Rebel Without a Cause. In the film, Wood played the girlfriend of a troubled outsider, played by Dean. She earned an Academy Award nomination for her work.

Rebel Without a Cause, a classic film about family and love (and the lack of it), was groundbreaking in many ways. It was one of the first films to highlight conflicts between parents and teenagers coming from non-impoverished homes. The film expressed the anger and frustration of teenage rebellion. It touched on a current trend of crimes by juvenile delinquents, and was banned upon its first release in some cities and towns for fear it would incite violence.

As an actress under contract, Wood sometimes had to make movies that she didn’t want to. Her mother also pressured her at times. One of her least favorite projects was The Searchers, a 1956 western starring John Wayne. Wood felt she had been miscast as a white girl who was abducted and then raised by Native Americans.

She was one of the few Hollywood studio-system stars to make the successful transition from child star to adult actress.

5. Name Change for Marquee Value

Natalie was born Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko in San Francisco on July 29, 1938 to Russian immigrant parents. Her father changed their surname to Gurdin after becoming US citizens when she was about three or four.

While she was filming Tomorrow Is Forever as a six-year-old, producer Bill Goetz appeared on the set and told her that  her name was being changed to Natalie Wood for American audiences. The stage name Natalie Wood was thought to be more marketable.

She never legally changed her name from Natasha (the Russian pet name for Natalia) Gurdin. In fact, as an adult she would often sign letters to Russian family and old friends as either Natasha or “Natalie” with Natasha in parenthesis.

Overall, she wasn鈥檛 a fan of her well-known stage name and her family and friends called her by her birth name, Natasha.

6. Natalie Wood Kept a Dark Secret

Reportedly, a very renowned and married star sexually assaulted her when she was just 16 years old. Wood left the encounter petrified, injured and too terrified to even ask for help. She never went to the authorities, but instead, confided in some of her closest friends. Later, even Wood鈥檚 sister, Lana, confirmed these rumors and revealed that it had happened at the Chateau Marmont Hotel.

Natalie Wood’s sister, Lana claims the late starlet was 鈥榬aped for hours during an interview with a top Hollywood figure. As a whole, the podcast paints the alleged rape at the famed California hotel as just one in a string of grim events that paved the way to the starlet’s haunting 1981 disappearance.

Many, many years later and there again Natalie only alluded to the fact that something bad had happened and in a way blamed my mom for being too eager for Natalie to get roles. Although Wood never outrightly named her rapist she absolutely hated him to the day she died. Moreover, the rumors about his true identity still run rampant to this day and the number one suspect seems to be Kirk Douglas*. In fact, when he passed in 2020, it was Natalie Wood鈥檚 name started trending on social media. Beyond that, however, the story seems to end there.

There鈥檚 a likely chance that we鈥檒l never learn the truth behind one of her hardest moments. Unfortunately for Natalie, however fate had a lot more curveballs in store for the luckless actress. While the alleged rape stands out prominently in Lana’s memory of her sister, she said that ‘Maria’s willingness to trade Natalie’s well-being in favor of stardom’ began much earlier.

7. Natalie Wood High Profile Realtionships and Marriage to Robert Wagner

Wood earned a lot of publicity not just for her acting roles, but for her personal life. She was a hit with movie star fan magazines. Wood had numerous relationships both public and secret with her co-stars, colleagues and other celebrities. She dated actor Dennis Hopper, hotel dynasty heir Nicky Hilton, and even singer Elvis Presley.

Her first marriage in the 1950s also attracted much media coverage as the 18-year-old star wed actor Wagner, eight years her senior. The union, unfortunately, did not last, with the pair splitting up in 1962. When she was only 10 years old, the actress saw 18-year-old Wagner swaggering down the hall at the 20th Century Fox studios. In a 1976 interview, she recalled the fateful moment she laid eyes on him: 鈥淚 turned to my mother and said, 鈥業鈥檓 going to marry him.’鈥� With a life practically embued with odd coincidences and prophecies, it鈥檚 no wonder that this prediction actually came true.

In 1969, she married Richard Gregson, a writer and producer. The couple had a daughter, Natasha, the following year. However, in 1972, Wood’s volatile personal life took another turn. She divorced Gregson and decided to remarry Wagner and they bore one child, a daughter named Courtney, born in 1974. This time around, Wood seemed to devote more time to her family rather than her career. The pair stayed together until Wood’s death in 1981.

8. Natalie Wood鈥檚 Death is still under Investigation

Her death is still under investigation after all these years, but no foul play has been suspected. Wood’s turbulent life and its unexpected end have been the subject of numerous books and television programs. Wood’s younger sister, Lana Wood, and Dennis Davern, the captain of the Splendour, have been especially outspoken about Wood’s death. Davern even co-authored a book about that fateful night, claiming that he had not told the authorities the truth. He later indicated he thought that Wagner was responsible for Wood’s death.

In November 2011, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department announced that it would be reopening the investigation into Wood’s death after receiving new information. While no specific details were released, authorities indicated that Wagner was not an official suspect. In June 2012, the mystery was further prolonged, when the official cause of Wood’s death was changed from an “accident as originally noted by L.A. County coroner Thomas Noguchi 鈥� to “undetermined” on her death certificate.

In early 2018, it was revealed that L.A. County investigators were seeking to talk with Wagner as a “person of interest,” returning the nearly 40-year-old case to the headlines.

9. Natalie Wood had a Fear of Water

Perhaps one of the most unsettling truths from Natalie Wood鈥檚 childhood was her fear of water. The source of Wood鈥檚 phobia came back to her mother. Wood鈥檚 older sister, Olga, later said, 鈥淢y mother was afraid of swimming as she was told that she鈥檇 drown. So this communicated itself to Natalie.鈥� This fear was bound to follow her for the rest of her life after one traumatizing filming experience.

Natalie Wood鈥檚 phobia of water was extreme that it prevented her from learning how to swim and even when she took baths, she couldn鈥檛 put her head under the water. On the set of The Green Promise, nine-year-old Natalie almost drowned when a scene went horribly awry. She was told to run across a bridge that was only set to collapse after she made it to safety.

Unfortunately, the bridge gave way while she was still on it, sending Wood into the watery depths and causing her to break her wrist. Poor Natalie Wood had no idea that this early trauma weirdly foreshadowed her disastrous future.

10.  Natalie Wood had a Crush on Elvis Presley

When she was 18, Natalie Wood had a celebrity crush the hip-swinging star Elvis Presley. Dazzled by his music and good looks, she desperately wanted to meet him and on her request, Wood鈥檚 old co-star and friend, Dennis Hopper introduced the two stars. When these two set eyes on one another, sparks began to fly. On one of their first dates, he flexed his star power by renting out an entire theater. Magnanimous gestures such as these certainly charmed Wood and soon the couple were ready to take their relationship to the next level.

Wood eagerly followed her famous boyfriend back to Memphis to meet his mother, Gladys but Elvis was a mama鈥檚 boy through and through. Wood cringed in the face of Elvis鈥� gooey affection for his mother. She didn鈥檛 care for Gladys at all, and unsurprisingly, the resentment went both ways.

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Natalie Wood reached peak stardom in the mid-60s. In fact, she was one of the most sought-after leading ladies, sharing the room with other greats like Elizabeth Taylor and Audrey Hepburn. However, beneath the mask of fame, her emotions were out of control.