On November 29, 1981, the actress Natalie Wood, who starred in such movies as Rebel Without a Cause and West Side Story, drowns in a boating accident near California’s Catalina Island. She was 43 years old.
Born Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko on July 20, 1938, in San Francisco, California, Wood began her acting career as a child. She gained acclaim for her role as Susan Walker, the little girl who doubts the existence of Santa Claus in Miracle on 34th Street (1947). As a teenager, Wood went on to play James Dean’s girlfriend in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), for which she received a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination. She also earned Best Actress Academy Award nominations for her performances in Splendor in the Grass (1961) with Warren Beatty and Love with the Proper Stranger (1963) with Steve McQueen. Wood’s film credits also include West Side Story (1961), winner of 10 Oscars, in which she played the lead role of Maria; Gypsy (1962), which was based on the hit Broadway musical of the same name and co-starred Rosalind Russell and Karl Malden; The Great Race (1965), with Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis; Inside Daisy Clover (1966), with Christopher Plummer and Robert Redford; and Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969) with Robert Culp, Elliott Gould and Dyan Cannon.
Wood was twice married to the actor Robert Wagner (Hart to Hart, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery), from 1957 to 1962 and from 1974 to the time of her death. On the night of November 29, 1981, the actress was with her husband on their yacht “The Splendor,” which was moored off Santa Catalina, near Los Angeles. Also on the yacht was the actor Christopher Walken, who at the time was making the movie Brainstorm with Wood. Neither Wagner nor Walken saw what happened to Wood that night, but it was believed she somehow slipped overboard while untying a dinghy attached to the boat. Her body was found in the early hours of the following morning. Brainstorm, Wood’s final film, was released in theaters in 1983.
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I think Wagner did her in.
Because she was banging Christoper Walken at the time while filming Brainstorm.
No.
I heard she was singing “You got a friend in me” to Robert Wagner, and that’s what sent her over the edge of the boat.
The only good thing to come out of that tragedy was the “Natalie Wood inflatable nightgown”. Too bad it didn’t catch on because it could have saved the lives of maybe one or two others. Oh, well….
Dunno why, but I like dark humor…
“Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of humor itself is not joy, but sorrow. There is no humor in Heaven.” ― Mark Twain
There is no sorrow in heaven
There is no sorrow in heaven
This is true.
Q: What kind of wood doesn’t float?
A: Natalie Wood
Q: Why didn’t Natalie Wood take a shower that night?
A: Because she was planning on washing up on the shore in the morning.
Oof.
OMG, the second had me rolling!
A multiple use joke…
Q: Why didn’t Christa Mcauliffe take a shower that night?
A: Because she was planning on washing up on the shore in the morning.
Christa Mcauliffe had blue eyes, one blew left and one blew right.
The Natalie Wood LifeSaver-Gown Collection of Sleepwear
Complete with adjustable Floaties.
Natalie was becoming uncontrollable. She was beginning to talk about that which anybody in Hollywood that sold their soul to “make it” must not talk about. Her handler killed her so that she wouldn’t talk about the satanic ritual killing of young people and ingesting of andrenechrome.
Or maybe she was hoeing around on someone . . .
Hey Bill? Are we still looking for fiction authors?
Does anyone remember that her sis Lana said she was raped by Kirk ((Douglas)) when she went alone to his hotel room for an “audition”? Lana and Mom waited a long time in the car and Natalie returned disheveled and distressed. Later, Lana asked about it,
and her mother snapped, “Suck it up.”
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2021/11/natalie-wood-was-raped-by-kirk-douglas-her-sister-alleges-in-a-new-book
Or that Kirk Douglas is credibly suspected in movie extra Jean Spangler’s disappearance
in 1949?
Pepperidge Farms remembers.
A lie just like JFK, 9/11, Jan. 6th, Building 7, Brandon’s 80 million votes…if I have to swallow one more lie I think I’ll puke…justice for Natalie.
“History is bunk.” ~ Henry Ford
Justice for Natalie
Has a nice ring to it…
She had the most beautiful eyes.
It’s a hard world to be a gentle, trusting soul in, innit?
But, ya gotta try . . . don’t let ’em harden your heart:
I did not know she was of Russian descent.