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 Natalie Wood was an American actress of Russian and Ukrainian descent. She started her career as a child actress and eventually transitioned into teenage roles, young adult roles, and middle-aged roles. She drowned off Catalina Island on November 29, 1981 at age 43.Wood was born July 20, 1938 in San Francisco to Russian immigrant parents: housewife Maria Gurdin (n��e Zudilova), known by multiple aliases including Mary, Marie and Musia, and second husband Nick Gurdin (n��e Zacharenko), a janitor and prop builder. Nicholas was born in Primorsky Krai, son of a chocolate-factory worker. Maria was born in Barnaul, southern Siberia to a wealthy industrialist. Natalie's maternal grandfather owned soap and candle factories.Wood's parents had to migrate due to the Russian Civil War. Her paternal grandfather joined the anti-Bolshevik civilian forces early in the war and was killed in a street fight between Red and White Russian soldiers. This convinced the Zacharenkos to migrate to Shanghai, China, where they had relatives. Wood's paternal grandmother remarried in 1927 and moved the family to Vancouver, British Columbia. In 1933 they resettled along the U.S. West Coast. Nicholas met Wood's mother, four years his senior, while she was still married to Alexander Tatuloff, an Armenian mechanic she divorced in 1936.Mary Tatuloff, Wood's mother, had unfulfilled ambitions of becoming a ballet dancer. She grew up in the Chinese city of Harbin and married Alexander there in 1925. The Tatuloffs had one daughter, Ovsanna, before coming to America in 1930. After marrying Nicholas Zacharenko in 1938, five months before Wood's birth, Mary (now calling herself Marie) transferred her dream of stardom onto her second child. Marie frequently took a young Wood with her to the cinema, where she could study the films of Hollywood child stars.Wood's parents changed the family name to Gurdin upon obtaining U.S. citizenship, and her pseudonymous mother finally settled on a permanent first name: Maria. In 1942 they bought a house in Santa Rosa, where young Natalie was noticed by members of a crew during a film shoot. She got to audition for roles as an actress, and the family moved to Los Angeles to help seek out roles for her. RKO Radio Pictures' executives William Goetz and David Lewis chose the stage name Wood for her, in reference to director Sam Wood. Natalie's younger sister Svetlana Gurdin would eventually follow an acting career as well, under the stage name Lana Wood.Wood made her film debut in Happy Land (1943). She was only five years old, and her scene as the "Little Girl Who Drops Ice Cream Cone" lasted 15 seconds. Wood somehow attracted the interest of film director Irving Pichel who remained in contact with her family. She had few job offers over the following two years, but Pichel helped her get a screen test for a more substantial role in the romance film Tomorrow Is Forever (1946). Wood passed through an audition and won the role of Margaret Ludwig, a post-World War II German orphan. At the time, Wood was unable to "cry on cue" for a key scene, so her mother tore a butterfly to pieces in front of her, giving her a reason to cry for the scene.Wood started appearing regularly in films following this role and soon received a contract with 20th Century Fox. Her first major role was that of Susan Walker in the Christmas film Miracle on 34th Street (1947), which was a commercial and critical hit. Wood got her first taste of fame, and afterwards Macy's invited her to appear in the store's annual Thanksgiving Day parade. Following her early success, Wood receive many more film offers. She typically appeared in family films, cast as the daughter of such stars as Fred MacMurray, Margaret Sullivan, James Stewart, Joan Blondell, and Bette Davis. Wood found herself in high demand and appeared in over twenty films as a child actress.The California laws of the era required that until reaching adulthood, child actors had to spend at least three hours per day in the classroom. Wood received her primary education on the studio lots, receiving three hours of school lessons whenever she was working on a film. She was reportedly a "straight A student." Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz was quite impressed by Wood's intellect. After school hours ended, Wood would hurry to the set to film her scenes.While Wood acquired the services of agents, her early career was micromanaged by her mother. An older Wood gained her first major television role in the short-lived sitcom The Pride of the Family (1953). At the age of 16, she found more success with the role of Judy in Rebel Without a Cause (1955). She played the role of a teenage girl who wears makeup and dresses up in racy clothes to attract the attention of a father who typically ignores her. The film's success helped Wood make the transition from child actress to an ingenue. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.Her next significant film was The Searchers (1956), a western in which she played the role of abduction victim Debbie Edwards, niece of John Wayne's character. The film was a commercial and critical hit, and has since become regarded as a masterpiece. Also in 1956, Wood graduated from Van Nuys High School. She signed a contract with Warner Brothers, where she was kept busy with several new films. To her disappointment, she was typically cast as the girlfriend of the protagonist and received roles of little depth. For a while, WB had her paired with teen heartthrob Tab Hunter. The studio was hoping that the pairing would serve as a box-office draw, but this did not work out. One of Wood's only serious roles from this period was the title character in Marjorie Morningstar (1958), as a young Jewish girl whose efforts to create her own identity and career path clash with the expectations of her family. The film was a critical success, and fit well with other films exploring the restlessness of youth in the '50s.Wood's first major box office flop was the biographical film All the Fine Young Cannibals (1960), examining the rags to riches story of jazz musician Chet Baker without actually using his name. The film's box office earnings barely covered the production costs, and MGM recorded a loss of $1,108,000. For the first time. Wood's appeal to the audience was in doubt. With her career in decline following this failure, Wood was seen as "washed up" by many in the film community. But director Elia Kazan gave her the chance to audition for the role of the sexually-repressed Wilma Dean Loomis in his upcoming film Splendor in the Grass (1961). Kazan cast Wood as the female lead, because he found in her (in his words): a "true-blue quality with a wanton side that is held down by social pressure." Kazan is credited for producing Wood's most powerful moment as an actress. The film was a critical success, with Wood nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress.Wood's next important film was West Side Story (1961), where she played Maria, a restless Puerto Rican girl. Wood was once again called to represent the restlessness of youth, this time in a story involving youth gangs and juvenile delinquents. The film was a great commercial success with about $44 million gross, the highest-grossing film of 1961. It was also critically acclaimed, and is still regarded as one of the best films of Wood's career. Her next film was Gypsy (1962), playing the role of burlesque entertainer and stripper Gypsy Rose Lee. Film historians credit the film as an even better role for Wood than that of Maria, with witty dialogue, a greater emotional range, and complex characterization. The film was the eighth highest-grossing release of 1962, and was well-received critically.Wood's next significant role was that of Macy's salesclerk Angie Rossini in Love with the Proper Stranger (1963). In the film, Angie has a one-night-stand with musician Rocky Papasano, played by Steve McQueen, finds herself pregnant and desperately seeks an abortion. The film under-performed at the box office but was critically well-received. Wood received her third (and last) nomination for an Academy Award. At age 25, Wood was tied with Teresa Wright as the youngest person to score three Oscar nominations. Wood held that designation until 2013, when Jennifer Lawrence achieved her third nomination at age 23.Wood continued her successful film career until 1966, but her health status was not as successful. She was suffering emotionally and had sought professional therapy. She paid Warner Bros. $175,000 to cancel her contract and was able to retire for a while. She also fired her entire support team: agents, managers, publicist, accountant, and attorneys. She took a three-year hiatus from acting.Wood made her comeback in the comedy Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969) with the themes of sexual liberation and wife swapping. It was a box office hit. Wood decided to gamble her $750,000 fee on a percentage of the gross, earning a million dollars in profits. She chose not to capitalize on the film's success, however, and did not take another acting job for five years.In 1970, Wood was married to the screenwriter Richard Gregson and was expecting her first child, Natasha Gregson Wagner. She went into semi-retirement to be a stay-at-home mom, appearing in only four more theatrical films before her death. These films were the mystery comedy Peeper (1975), the science fiction film Meteor (1979), the comedy The Last Married Couple in America (1980), and the posthumously-released science fiction film Brainstorm (1983).In the late '70s, Wood found success in television roles, appearing in several made-for-TV movies and the mini-series From Here to Eternity (1979). Her project received high ratings, and she had plans to make her theatrical debut in a 1982 production of Anastasia.On November 28, 1981, Wood joined her last husband Robert Wagner, their married friend Christopher Walken, and captain Dennis Davern on a weekend boat trip to Catalina Island. Conspicuously absent from the group was Christopher's wife, casting director Georgianne Walken. The four of them were on board the Wagners' yacht "Splendour." On the morning of November 29, Wood's corpse was recovered 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) away from the boat, near small Valiant-brand inflatable dinghy beached nearby. The toxicology report revealed her blood alcohol level was at .14, over the legal limit of .10. Wood was buried on December 2 at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. Nine days later, the LACSD officially closed the case.
Bio:
Natalie Wood was an American actress of Russian and Ukrainian descent. She started her career as a child actress and eventually transitioned into teenage roles, young adult roles, and middle-aged roles. She drowned off Catalina Island on November 29, 1981 at age 43.Wood was born July 20, 1938 in San Francisco to Russian immigrant parents: housewife Maria Gurdin (n��e Zudilova), known by multiple aliases including Mary, Marie and Musia, and second husband Nick Gurdin (n��e Zacharenko), a janitor and prop builder. Nicholas was born in Primorsky Krai, son of a chocolate-factory worker. Maria was born in Barnaul, southern Siberia to a wealthy industrialist. Natalie's maternal grandfather owned soap and candle factories.Wood's parents had to migrate due to the Russian Civil War. Her paternal grandfather joined the anti-Bolshevik civilian forces early in the war and was killed in a street fight between Red and White Russian soldiers. This convinced the Zacharenkos to migrate to Shanghai, China, where they had relatives. Wood's paternal grandmother remarried in 1927 and moved the family to Vancouver, British Columbia. In 1933 they resettled along the U.S. West Coast. Nicholas met Wood's mother, four years his senior, while she was still married to Alexander Tatuloff, an Armenian mechanic she divorced in 1936.Mary Tatuloff, Wood's mother, had unfulfilled ambitions of becoming a ballet dancer. She grew up in the Chinese city of Harbin and married Alexander there in 1925. The Tatuloffs had one daughter, Ovsanna, before coming to America in 1930. After marrying Nicholas Zacharenko in 1938, five months before Wood's birth, Mary (now calling herself Marie) transferred her dream of stardom onto her second child. Marie frequently took a young Wood with her to the cinema, where she could study the films of Hollywood child stars.Wood's parents changed the family name to Gurdin upon obtaining U.S. citizenship, and her pseudonymous mother finally settled on a permanent first name: Maria. In 1942 they bought a house in Santa Rosa, where young Natalie was noticed by members of a crew during a film shoot. She got to audition for roles as an actress, and the family moved to Los Angeles to help seek out roles for her. RKO Radio Pictures' executives William Goetz and David Lewis chose the stage name Wood for her, in reference to director Sam Wood. Natalie's younger sister Svetlana Gurdin would eventually follow an acting career as well, under the stage name Lana Wood.Wood made her film debut in Happy Land (1943). She was only five years old, and her scene as the "Little Girl Who Drops Ice Cream Cone" lasted 15 seconds. Wood somehow attracted the interest of film director Irving Pichel who remained in contact with her family. She had few job offers over the following two years, but Pichel helped her get a screen test for a more substantial role in the romance film Tomorrow Is Forever (1946). Wood passed through an audition and won the role of Margaret Ludwig, a post-World War II German orphan. At the time, Wood was unable to "cry on cue" for a key scene, so her mother tore a butterfly to pieces in front of her, giving her a reason to cry for the scene.Wood started appearing regularly in films following this role and soon received a contract with 20th Century Fox. Her first major role was that of Susan Walker in the Christmas film Miracle on 34th Street (1947), which was a commercial and critical hit. Wood got her first taste of fame, and afterwards Macy's invited her to appear in the store's annual Thanksgiving Day parade. Following her early success, Wood receive many more film offers. She typically appeared in family films, cast as the daughter of such stars as Fred MacMurray, Margaret Sullivan, James Stewart, Joan Blondell, and Bette Davis. Wood found herself in high demand and appeared in over twenty films as a child actress.The California laws of the era required that until reaching adulthood, child actors had to spend at least three hours per day in the classroom. Wood received her primary education on the studio lots, receiving three hours of school lessons whenever she was working on a film. She was reportedly a "straight A student." Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz was quite impressed by Wood's intellect. After school hours ended, Wood would hurry to the set to film her scenes.While Wood acquired the services of agents, her early career was micromanaged by her mother. An older Wood gained her first major television role in the short-lived sitcom The Pride of the Family (1953). At the age of 16, she found more success with the role of Judy in Rebel Without a Cause (1955). She played the role of a teenage girl who wears makeup and dresses up in racy clothes to attract the attention of a father who typically ignores her. The film's success helped Wood make the transition from child actress to an ingenue. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.Her next significant film was The Searchers (1956), a western in which she played the role of abduction victim Debbie Edwards, niece of John Wayne's character. The film was a commercial and critical hit, and has since become regarded as a masterpiece. Also in 1956, Wood graduated from Van Nuys High School. She signed a contract with Warner Brothers, where she was kept busy with several new films. To her disappointment, she was typically cast as the girlfriend of the protagonist and received roles of little depth. For a while, WB had her paired with teen heartthrob Tab Hunter. The studio was hoping that the pairing would serve as a box-office draw, but this did not work out. One of Wood's only serious roles from this period was the title character in Marjorie Morningstar (1958), as a young Jewish girl whose efforts to create her own identity and career path clash with the expectations of her family. The film was a critical success, and fit well with other films exploring the restlessness of youth in the '50s.Wood's first major box office flop was the biographical film All the Fine Young Cannibals (1960), examining the rags to riches story of jazz musician Chet Baker without actually using his name. The film's box office earnings barely covered the production costs, and MGM recorded a loss of $1,108,000. For the first time. Wood's appeal to the audience was in doubt. With her career in decline following this failure, Wood was seen as "washed up" by many in the film community. But director Elia Kazan gave her the chance to audition for the role of the sexually-repressed Wilma Dean Loomis in his upcoming film Splendor in the Grass (1961). Kazan cast Wood as the female lead, because he found in her (in his words): a "true-blue quality with a wanton side that is held down by social pressure." Kazan is credited for producing Wood's most powerful moment as an actress. The film was a critical success, with Wood nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress.Wood's next important film was West Side Story (1961), where she played Maria, a restless Puerto Rican girl. Wood was once again called to represent the restlessness of youth, this time in a story involving youth gangs and juvenile delinquents. The film was a great commercial success with about $44 million gross, the highest-grossing film of 1961. It was also critically acclaimed, and is still regarded as one of the best films of Wood's career. Her next film was Gypsy (1962), playing the role of burlesque entertainer and stripper Gypsy Rose Lee. Film historians credit the film as an even better role for Wood than that of Maria, with witty dialogue, a greater emotional range, and complex characterization. The film was the eighth highest-grossing release of 1962, and was well-received critically.Wood's next significant role was that of Macy's salesclerk Angie Rossini in Love with the Proper Stranger (1963). In the film, Angie has a one-night-stand with musician Rocky Papasano, played by Steve McQueen, finds herself pregnant and desperately seeks an abortion. The film under-performed at the box office but was critically well-received. Wood received her third (and last) nomination for an Academy Award. At age 25, Wood was tied with Teresa Wright as the youngest person to score three Oscar nominations. Wood held that designation until 2013, when Jennifer Lawrence achieved her third nomination at age 23.Wood continued her successful film career until 1966, but her health status was not as successful. She was suffering emotionally and had sought professional therapy. She paid Warner Bros. $175,000 to cancel her contract and was able to retire for a while. She also fired her entire support team: agents, managers, publicist, accountant, and attorneys. She took a three-year hiatus from acting.Wood made her comeback in the comedy Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969) with the themes of sexual liberation and wife swapping. It was a box office hit. Wood decided to gamble her $750,000 fee on a percentage of the gross, earning a million dollars in profits. She chose not to capitalize on the film's success, however, and did not take another acting job for five years.In 1970, Wood was married to the screenwriter Richard Gregson and was expecting her first child, Natasha Gregson Wagner. She went into semi-retirement to be a stay-at-home mom, appearing in only four more theatrical films before her death. These films were the mystery comedy Peeper (1975), the science fiction film Meteor (1979), the comedy The Last Married Couple in America (1980), and the posthumously-released science fiction film Brainstorm (1983).In the late '70s, Wood found success in television roles, appearing in several made-for-TV movies and the mini-series From Here to Eternity (1979). Her project received high ratings, and she had plans to make her theatrical debut in a 1982 production of Anastasia.On November 28, 1981, Wood joined her last husband Robert Wagner, their married friend Christopher Walken, and captain Dennis Davern on a weekend boat trip to Catalina Island. Conspicuously absent from the group was Christopher's wife, casting director Georgianne Walken. The four of them were on board the Wagners' yacht "Splendour." On the morning of November 29, Wood's corpse was recovered 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) away from the boat, near small Valiant-brand inflatable dinghy beached nearby. The toxicology report revealed her blood alcohol level was at .14, over the legal limit of .10. Wood was buried on December 2 at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. Nine days later, the LACSD officially closed the case.
Tivia:
Pallbearers at her funeral were Rock Hudson, Frank Sinatra, Laurence Olivier, Elia Kazan, Gregory Peck, David Niven and Fred Astaire.She was cast as Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1976) quite unexpectedly, without campaigning for the role. Wood explained that when Laurence Olivier would come to Hollywood, she would often be seated with him at the table at formal sit-down dinners. When Olivier decided to make a version of the Tennessee Williams play, he thought of casting Wood, his dinner companion, and her husband, Robert Wagner, in the husband-wife roles of Brick and Maggie. Naturally, they accepted.Don Henley wrote the song "Dirty Laundry" to express his outrage at the tabloid press for their treatment of her after her death.Spoke Russian and English.She suffered from a deep fear of drowning after having barely survived an accident when she was a little girl, during the filming of The Green Promise (1949). Her fear was so great that Elia Kazan had to lie - promising a double - and trick her into doing the scenes at the water reservoir in Splendor in the Grass (1961).An accident on a movie set (she fell into a river and almost drowned) when she was 9 years old left her with a permanently weakened left wrist and a slight bone protrusion, which, for the rest of her life, she hid with large bracelets. Regardless of the movie role, or anytime that she was out in public, she always wore a large bracelet on the left wrist.Was Maureen O'Hara's daughter in two movies, one being the classic Miracle on 34th Street (1947). Natalie referred to Maureen as Mama Maureen until her death on November 29, 1981.The coroner who examined Natalie Wood's corpse was Thomas Noguchi. In 2020, a former volunteer intern at the L.A. Coroner's Office, Michael Franco, accused Noguchi of a cover-up. According Dr. Franco, the substantial bruising on Wood's body was consistent with "someone who gets thrown out of a boat". Yet, Noguchi had refused to include this conclusion in his report.Daughter with Robert Wagner: Courtney Wagner (born March 9, 1974).She has appeared in four films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Miracle on 34th Street (1947), Rebel Without a Cause (1955), The Searchers (1956) and West Side Story (1961).Had to get her stomach pumped at the hospital following sleeping pill overdoses in June 1961, November 1964 and January 1966. After the third suicide attempt, Wood abandoned her promising career to focus on her mental health and emotional well-being. She was 28 and would appear in just four more films before her death at 43.Attended ballet classes as a child with Jill St. John and Stefanie Powers. All three women would go on to have long-term relationships with Robert Wagner.Her favorite actress was Vivien Leigh and her favorite singer was Bob Dylan.Wood's death certificate was modified to show some of the uncertainties surrounding the actress' death. The document was amended in August 2012 and changed from accidental drowning to "drowning and other undetermined factors", according to a copy of the certificate obtained August 21, 2012 by The Associated Press.When Natalie died in 1981, there was almost no explanation given to the public and alarmingly subdued media coverage. It's the tabloids that have kept the case in the news all these years.Splendour, the name of the yacht Wood was on the night she died, was named after her movie Splendor in the Grass (1961).Started smoking at age 16. Gypsy (1962) co-star Morgan Brittany said of Wood: "I never saw her without a cigarette, ever." She quit smoking when she turned 40.Admired and wanted to emulate Bette Davis, Vivien Leigh and Elizabeth Taylor. Leigh was her favorite actress.Her and co-star Richard Beymer's singing voices were both dubbed in West Side Story (1961). The woman who dubbed Natalie, Marni Nixon, also dubbed Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady (1964) and Deborah Kerr in The King and I (1956). It was later reported that Wood was disappointed that her singing voice was not used in the movie.The Harvard Lampoon often singled her out for derision. On Saturday, April 23, 1966, she surprised the Lampoon's staff when she became the first performer they voted the year's worst to show up and accept her citation.Following her untimely death, she was interred at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, California. On her grave, marked Natalie Wood Wagner: Beloved daughter, sister, wife, mother & friend "more than love".Her paternal grandparents were Stephan Zacharenko and Eudoxie Sauchenko (AKA Joyce Zavarin), and her maternal grandparents were Stepan Ilich Zudilov and Maria Andreevna Kuleva. She was of Russian and Ukrainian ancestry. Her father was a janitor and prop builder, though he retired while still in his thirties, and her mother claimed to have been a ballerina.Once interviewed Arnold Schwarzenegger, before his career took off, for the magazine "Hollywood Reporter" in 1979. The article was entitled "The Body Meets the Face". Coincidentally and ironically, the final on-camera interview Natalie gave, on the set of Brainstorm (1983) on October 14, 1981, was conducted by Arnold's future wife Maria Shriver.Younger sister Lana Wood made a ABC-TV special on Natalie's life, The Mystery of Natalie Wood (2004).She was posthumously awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7000 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on February 1, 1986.Was given a chance to play Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby (1974), but only under the condition that she screen test for the role since she hadn't made a movie in five years (and before that, nothing for three years). She refused to do the screen test and did not get the role.Columbia Pictures secured the film rights for the Henry De Vere Stacpoole novel "The Blue Lagoon" in the mid-1950s, with Natalie in the role of Emmeline Lestrange. However, the project was shelved for many years and was not filmed until the late 1970s and the film The Blue Lagoon (1980) ultimately starred Brooke Shields. Columbia bought this for the American remake of The Blue Lagoon (1949) starring Jean Simmons. The first edition of the movie was made by an English company in 1923, just after the book was written.Reportedly turned down the role of Bonnie Parker in Bonnie and Clyde (1967) because she didn't want to be separated from her psychoanalyst while the film was on location in the Midwest.One of the major reasons that Wood's death was considered suspicious by the police, were the recent bruises found on her corpse. Forensic pathologist Michael Hunter speculated that Wood was particularly susceptible to bruising, because she had taken the drug Synthroid (levothyroxine)."Natalie's Song" by David Pack, was written about Natalie Wood.Met Robert Redford while attending Van Nuys High School. Redford was later her co-star in Inside Daisy Clover (1965) and This Property Is Condemned (1966) and served as best man at her 1969 wedding to Richard Gregson. They eventually lost touch and Redford was a no show at Natalie's funeral.Bowed out of The Mirror Crack'd (1980) due to creative differences. (At 41, she wasn't ready to be seen as "aging" when other actresses her age were still getting sexy parts, though she looked much older than she was at the time.) Elizabeth Taylor took over the role.Told a reporter from Ladies Home Journal in 1978 that she regularly took the barbiturate Seconal to go to sleep at night. According to biographer Suzanne Finstad, sleeping pills had been part of Wood's bedtime routine since she was 15. Wood was taking at least eight prescription drugs, including the painkiller Darvon, at the time of her death.Burned all of Warren Beatty's clothes when she found out he'd been sleeping around.By the early 1960s, Natalie Wood was considered one of Hollywood's most valuable and wanted actresses. Her career started to lose steam after a row of box office failures in the mid-1960s, but she was still getting big movie offers. Rather than accepting roles that could kick her career back into high gear (Barefoot in the Park (1967), Goodbye, Columbus (1969), Diary of a Mad Housewife (1970)), she stopped working, and by the mid-1970s was no longer a hot property. She appeared in just 4 feature films during the last 15 years of her life, not counting her would-be comeback picture Brainstorm (1983), which was incomplete at the time of her death. It was ultimately finished and released, but Wood's character had to be written out of three scenes while a stand-in and changing camera angles were used for crucial shots.Wood knew screenwriter Gavin Lambert as both were intimates of director Randy Suhr. In the early 1960s, he wrote a novel about an adolescent Hollywood starlet in the 1930s titled Inside Daisy Clover (1965). After reading the book, Wood telephoned Lambert and said, "I'd kill for that part". He assured her she was his first choice for the movie, for which he was writing the screenplay. She got the role and Ruth Gordon got her first Oscar nomination as an actress for portraying Daisy's mother.Daughter with Richard Gregson: Natasha Gregson Wagner (born September 29, 1970).Godmother of her daughter Natasha Gregson Wagner was Ruth Gordon, who played Natalie's mother in the film Inside Daisy Clover (1965).Houston lawyer Suzanne Finstad conducted more than 400 interviews for the myth-shattering book "Natasha: The Biography of Natalie Wood" (2001) and had the cooperation of her sister Lana Wood, who narrates the audio version. It's controversial and makes explosive claims regarding Natalie's early sex life, complex relationship with Robert Wagner, level of substance abuse and the circumstances surrounding her mysterious death.Turned down the role of Judith Anderson in The Devil's Disciple (1959) because she didn't want to work with Kirk Douglas for "personal" reasons.She was cast as the Russian astrophysicist Dr. Tatiana Donskaya in Meteor (1979) because she spoke fluent Russian.People magazine (USA) named her one of "The 25 Most Intriguing People of 1976" for the January 3, 1977 issue.In 1982, Wood was supposed to make a comeback following a decade and a half of semiretirement. On February 12, she was scheduled to make her stage debut playing the title role in "Anastasia" at the Ahmanson Theatre in L.A. Brainstorm (1983) was slated for release in July, and Timothy Hutton reported that he and Wood had purchased film rights to the Barbara Wersba book "Country of the Heart" and were planning to team in the drama about the professional/romantic relationship of a young writer and a successful novelist who's dying of cancer.Was commonly listed as 5' 3" wearing heels in movie magazines, though her actual height was 5' 2".Called "The Most Beautiful Teenager in the World" by Life magazine in 1955.Her death was listed at number 24 on E! Television's 101 Most Shocking Moments in Entertainment.She and Lana had a maternal half-sister, Olga Viripaeff (1928-2015), who was born in Harbin, China as Ovsanna Tatuloff, the sole offspring from their mother's 11-year marriage to Alexander Tatuloff, an auto mechanic of Armenian descent. Olga lived her entire adulthood in northern California and was completely removed from the Hollywood scene.Her mother, Maria, claimed that the family was closely related to the Romanov dynasty.Though some people cite her mother as being French, her mother is Russian. The source of this misconception comes from the studio that Natalie worked at when she was a child -- people noticed her mother's accent and when asked if she was French, Maria replied: "Oh yes", a white lie that would contribute to this confusion.She was known for getting all her lines right on the first take and she was nicknamed 'One Take Natalie' as a result. |
| Name: |
Natalie Wood |
Type: |
Actress,Music Department,Additional Crew (IMDB) |
| Area: |
All World |
Platform: |
IMDB |
| Category: |
|
Business scope: |
Actress,Music Department,Additional Crew |
| Products for sale: |
Actress,Music Department,Additional Crew |
| Model rank: |
292 |
| Last update: |
2024-07-01 03:30:22 |
| Height: |
5' 2' (1.57 m) |
| Biography: |
Natalie Wood was an American actress of Russian and Ukrainian descent. She started her career as a child actress and eventually transitioned into teenage roles, young adult roles, and middle-aged roles. She drowned off Catalina Island on November 29, |
| Trivia: |
Pallbearers at her funeral were Rock Hudson, Frank Sinatra, Laurence Olivier, Elia Kazan, Gregory Peck, David Niven and Fred Astaire.She was cast as Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1976) quite unexpectedly, without campaigning for the role. Wood explained that when Laurence Olivier would come to Hollywood, she would often be seated with him at the table at formal sit-down dinners. When Olivier decided to make a version of the Tennessee Williams play, he thought of casting Wood, his dinner companion, and her husband, Robert Wagner, in the husband-wife roles of Brick and Maggie. Naturally, they accepted.Don Henley wrote the song "Dirty Laundry" to express his outrage at the tabloid press for their treatment of her after her death.Spoke Russian and English.She suffered from a deep fear of drowning after having barely survived an accident when she was a little girl, during the filming of The Green Promise (1949). Her fear was so great that Elia Kazan had to lie - promising a double - and trick her into doing the scenes at the water reservoir in Splendor in the Grass (1961).An accident on a movie set (she fell into a river and almost drowned) when she was 9 years old left her with a permanently weakened left wrist and a slight bone protrusion, which, for the rest of her life, she hid with large bracelets. Regardless of the movie role, or anytime that she was out in public, she always wore a large bracelet on the left wrist.Was Maureen O'Hara's daughter in two movies, one being the classic Miracle on 34th Street (1947). Natalie referred to Maureen as Mama Maureen until her death on November 29, 1981.The coroner who examined Natalie Wood's corpse was Thomas Noguchi. In 2020, a former volunteer intern at the L.A. Coroner's Office, Michael Franco, accused Noguchi of a cover-up. According Dr. Franco, the substantial bruising on Wood's body was consistent with "someone who gets thrown out of a boat". Yet, Noguchi had refused to include this conclusion in his report.Daughter with Robert Wagner: Courtney Wagner (born March 9, 1974).She has appeared in four films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Miracle on 34th Street (1947), Rebel Without a Cause (1955), The Searchers (1956) and West Side Story (1961).Had to get her stomach pumped at the hospital following sleeping pill overdoses in June 1961, November 1964 and January 1966. After the third suicide attempt, Wood abandoned her promising career to focus on her mental health and emotional well-being. She was 28 and would appear in just four more films before her death at 43.Attended ballet classes as a child with Jill St. John and Stefanie Powers. All three women would go on to have long-term relationships with Robert Wagner.Her favorite actress was Vivien Leigh and her favorite singer was Bob Dylan.Wood's death certificate was modified to show some of the uncertainties surrounding the actress' death. The document was amended in August 2012 and changed from accidental drowning to "drowning and other undetermined factors", according to a copy of the certificate obtained August 21, 2012 by The Associated Press.When Natalie died in 1981, there was almost no explanation given to the public and alarmingly subdued media coverage. It's the tabloids that have kept the case in the news all these years.Splendour, the name of the yacht Wood was on the night she died, was named after her movie Splendor in the Grass (1961).Started smoking at age 16. Gypsy (1962) co-star Morgan Brittany said of Wood: "I never saw her without a cigarette, ever." She quit smoking when she turned 40.Admired and wanted to emulate Bette Davis, Vivien Leigh and Elizabeth Taylor. Leigh was her favorite actress.Her and co-star Richard Beymer's singing voices were both dubbed in West Side Story (1961). The woman who dubbed Natalie, Marni Nixon, also dubbed Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady (1964) and Deborah Kerr in The King and I (1956). It was later reported that Wood was disappointed that her singing voice was not used in the movie.The Harvard Lampoon often singled her out for derision. On Saturday, April 23, 1966, she surprised the Lampoon's staff when she became the first performer they voted the year's worst to show up and accept her citation.Following her untimely death, she was interred at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, California. On her grave, marked Natalie Wood Wagner: Beloved daughter, sister, wife, mother & friend "more than love".Her paternal grandparents were Stephan Zacharenko and Eudoxie Sauchenko (AKA Joyce Zavarin), and her maternal grandparents were Stepan Ilich Zudilov and Maria Andreevna Kuleva. She was of Russian and Ukrainian ancestry. Her father was a janitor and prop builder, though he retired while still in his thirties, and her mother claimed to have been a ballerina.Once interviewed Arnold Schwarzenegger, before his career took off, for the magazine "Hollywood Reporter" in 1979. The article was entitled "The Body Meets the Face". Coincidentally and ironically, the final on-camera interview Natalie gave, on the set of Brainstorm (1983) on October 14, 1981, was conducted by Arnold's future wife Maria Shriver.Younger sister Lana Wood made a ABC-TV special on Natalie's life, The Mystery of Natalie Wood (2004).She was posthumously awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7000 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on February 1, 1986.Was given a chance to play Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby (1974), but only under the condition that she screen test for the role since she hadn't made a movie in five years (and before that, nothing for three years). She refused to do the screen test and did not get the role.Columbia Pictures secured the film rights for the Henry De Vere Stacpoole novel "The Blue Lagoon" in the mid-1950s, with Natalie in the role of Emmeline Lestrange. However, the project was shelved for many years and was not filmed until the late 1970s and the film The Blue Lagoon (1980) ultimately starred Brooke Shields. Columbia bought this for the American remake of The Blue Lagoon (1949) starring Jean Simmons. The first edition of the movie was made by an English company in 1923, just after the book was written.Reportedly turned down the role of Bonnie Parker in Bonnie and Clyde (1967) because she didn't want to be separated from her psychoanalyst while the film was on location in the Midwest.One of the major reasons that Wood's death was considered suspicious by the police, were the recent bruises found on her corpse. Forensic pathologist Michael Hunter speculated that Wood was particularly susceptible to bruising, because she had taken the drug Synthroid (levothyroxine)."Natalie's Song" by David Pack, was written about Natalie Wood.Met Robert Redford while attending Van Nuys High School. Redford was later her co-star in Inside Daisy Clover (1965) and This Property Is Condemned (1966) and served as best man at her 1969 wedding to Richard Gregson. They eventually lost touch and Redford was a no show at Natalie's funeral.Bowed out of The Mirror Crack'd (1980) due to creative differences. (At 41, she wasn't ready to be seen as "aging" when other actresses her age were still getting sexy parts, though she looked much older than she was at the time.) Elizabeth Taylor took over the role.Told a reporter from Ladies Home Journal in 1978 that she regularly took the barbiturate Seconal to go to sleep at night. According to biographer Suzanne Finstad, sleeping pills had been part of Wood's bedtime routine since she was 15. Wood was taking at least eight prescription drugs, including the painkiller Darvon, at the time of her death.Burned all of Warren Beatty's clothes when she found out he'd been sleeping around.By the early 1960s, Natalie Wood was considered one of Hollywood's most valuable and wanted actresses. Her career started to lose steam after a row of box office failures in the mid-1960s, but she was still getting big movie offers. Rather than accepting roles that could kick her career back into high gear (Barefoot in the Park (1967), Goodbye, Columbus (1969), Diary of a Mad Housewife (1970)), she stopped working, and by the mid-1970s was no longer a hot property. She appeared in just 4 feature films during the last 15 years of her life, not counting her would-be comeback picture Brainstorm (1983), which was incomplete at the time of her death. It was ultimately finished and released, but Wood's character had to be written out of three scenes while a stand-in and changing camera angles were used for crucial shots.Wood knew screenwriter Gavin Lambert as both were intimates of director Randy Suhr. In the early 1960s, he wrote a novel about an adolescent Hollywood starlet in the 1930s titled Inside Daisy Clover (1965). After reading the book, Wood telephoned Lambert and said, "I'd kill for that part". He assured her she was his first choice for the movie, for which he was writing the screenplay. She got the role and Ruth Gordon got her first Oscar nomination as an actress for portraying Daisy's mother.Daughter with Richard Gregson: Natasha Gregson Wagner (born September 29, 1970).Godmother of her daughter Natasha Gregson Wagner was Ruth Gordon, who played Natalie's mother in the film Inside Daisy Clover (1965).Houston lawyer Suzanne Finstad conducted more than 400 interviews for the myth-shattering book "Natasha: The Biography of Natalie Wood" (2001) and had the cooperation of her sister Lana Wood, who narrates the audio version. It's controversial and makes explosive claims regarding Natalie's early sex life, complex relationship with Robert Wagner, level of substance abuse and the circumstances surrounding her mysterious death.Turned down the role of Judith Anderson in The Devil's Disciple (1959) because she didn't want to work with Kirk Douglas for "personal" reasons.She was cast as the Russian astrophysicist Dr. Tatiana Donskaya in Meteor (1979) because she spoke fluent Russian.People magazine (USA) named her one of "The 25 Most Intriguing People of 1976" for the January 3, 1977 issue.In 1982, Wood was supposed to make a comeback following a decade and a half of semiretirement. On February 12, she was scheduled to make her stage debut playing the title role in "Anastasia" at the Ahmanson Theatre in L.A. Brainstorm (1983) was slated for release in July, and Timothy Hutton reported that he and Wood had purchased film rights to the Barbara Wersba book "Country of the Heart" and were planning to team in the drama about the professional/romantic relationship of a young writer and a successful novelist who's dying of cancer.Was commonly listed as 5' 3" wearing heels in movie magazines, though her actual height was 5' 2".Called "The Most Beautiful Teenager in the World" by Life magazine in 1955.Her death was listed at number 24 on E! Television's 101 Most Shocking Moments in Entertainment.She and Lana had a maternal half-sister, Olga Viripaeff (1928-2015), who was born in Harbin, China as Ovsanna Tatuloff, the sole offspring from their mother's 11-year marriage to Alexander Tatuloff, an auto mechanic of Armenian descent. Olga lived her entire adulthood in northern California and was completely removed from the Hollywood scene.Her mother, Maria, claimed that the family was closely related to the Romanov dynasty.Though some people cite her mother as being French, her mother is Russian. The source of this misconception comes from the studio that Natalie worked at when she was a child -- people noticed her mother's accent and when asked if she was French, Maria replied: "Oh yes", a white lie that would contribute to this confusion.She was known for getting all her lines right on the first take and she was nicknamed 'One Take Natalie' as a result. |
| Trademarks: |
Large brown eyes always covered with heavy makeup
Petite frame
Often played vulnerable characters put through emotional wringers
Relaxed speaking voice |
| Quotes: |
You get tough in this business, until you get big enough to hire people to get tough for you. Then you can sit back and be a lady.
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In so many ways I think it's a bore to be sorry you were a child actor - so many people feel sorry for you automatically. At the time, I wasn't aware of the things I missed, so why should I think of them in retrospect? Everybody misses something or other.
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I felt a little funny when we were going to do the bed scene, all four of us, in Bob u0026amp; Carol u0026amp; Ted u0026amp; Alice (1969). I'm open to suggestions, I'm no prude, but four is a crowd in my book. Fortunately, Dyan Cannon was there. The thought of another woman being in there in the bed helped get me through it. It's not like it sounds. It's just that I don't think I could have done it if it had been me and three men.
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[on being a child actor] I spent practically all my time in the company of adults. I was very withdrawn, very shy, I did what I was told and I tried not to disappoint anybody. I knew I had a duty to perform, and I was trained to follow orders.
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[shortly before her death] You know what I want? I want yesterday. |
| Salaries: |
Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1970) - $250,000 + 10% of the net profits.
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Penelope (1966) - $750,000
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The Great Race (1965) - $7,000 (Director Blake Edwards and co-star Jack Lemmon each gave her half of his respe |
| Job title: |
Actress,Music Department,Additional Crew |
| Others works: |
(12/22/47) Radio: Appeared (as "Susan Walker") in a "Lux Radio Theater" broadcast of "Miracle on 34th Street". |
| Spouse: |
Robert Wagner (July 16, 1972 - November 29, 1981) (her death, 1 child)Richard Gregson (May 30, 1969 - April 12, 1972) (divorced, 1 child)Robert Wagner (December 28, 1957 - April 27, 1962) (divorced) |
| Children: |
Natasha Gregson WagnerCourtney Wagner |
| Parents: |
Maria Gurdin
Nick Gurdin |
| Relatives: |
Olga Tatuloff Viripaeff (Half Sibling)
Lana Wood (Sibling)
Evan Maldonado (Niece or Nephew) |
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