Natalie Wood

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Natalie Wood

Born:	July 20, 1938 San Francisco, California, USA
Died:	November 29, 1981 Santa Catalina Island, California, USA
Occupation:	Actress
Spouse:	Robert Wagner

Natalie Wood (July 20, 1938 – November 29, 1981) was a three time Academy Award nominated American film actress.

Contents 1 Early life and acting career 2 Relationships 3 Drowning at Catalina Island 4 Trivia 5 Awards and nominations 6 Filmography 7 Television work 8 Bibliography 9 References 10 External links

[edit] Early life and acting career

Wood was born Natalya Nikolaevna Zakharenko in San Francisco, California, to Russian immigrants, Nikolai and Maria Zakharenko. Her parents changed their surname to the less cumbersome "Gurdin", and by the age of 4 she was billed as Natasha Gurdin. Her mother tightly managed and controlled the young girl's career and personal life from her start in films at the age of five. She starred in multiple films as a child including Miracle on 34th Street in 1947. Her father is described by Wood's biographers as a passive alcoholic who went along with his wife's demands. Her sister, Lana Wood, is also an actress, notably a Bond girl, and was featured in a Playboy pictorial (she was not, however, a playmate).

At 16, Natalie was awarded the role of Judy in Nicholas Ray's Rebel Without a Cause, co-starring James Dean, Sal Mineo, and Dennis Hopper, signalling the start of her adult acting career. Most biographers claim that she slept with Ray and Hopper. Wood was one of the relatively few child stars to make a successful transition to adult stardom. By the time she was 28, she was already a three-time Oscar nominee, with nominations for Rebel Without a Cause, Splendor in the Grass and Love With the Proper Stranger.

Another of her widely noted films was the Leonard Bernstein musical West Side Story, in which she played Maria. Wood was initially signed to do her own singing but in the end she was dubbed by professional singer Marni Nixon, which is said to have caused her disappointment. Nonetheless, she enjoyed worldwide celebrity, comparable to that of Elizabeth Taylor. As a restless on-screen companion of James Dean and an off-screen date of Elvis Presley, she was much admired and envied by the young girls of the day. One of her judgments of Elvis was, "He can sing but he can’t do much else."

[edit] Relationships

Among the men Wood frequently dated were singer Elvis Presley and actors Raymond Burr, Dennis Hopper, Warren Beatty, Nick Adams, Tab Hunter, Michael Caine and Scott Marlowe.

According to Mary F. Pols, the teenaged Wood went on studio-arranged dates with actors. In 1956, one of these was Tab Hunter, seven years her senior, with whom she developed a genuine friendship. They would attend parties to promote the two films they costarred in that year, The Burning Hills and The Girl He Left Behind. Wood biographer and Hollywood screenwriter Gavin Lambert also confirms that Wood had studio-arranged dates with homo- or bisexual actors, the first of which was with Nick Adams. Hunter in his autobiography elaborates on how a Hollywood studio's publicization of a sham romance between two actors each under contract to it was a strategy to stimulate public desire for seeing that studio's forthcoming films. The demographic segment he in particular appealed to was the newly influential teenage girl market segment, since he had swiftly established himself as a leading "heartthrob" for that demographic.

According to Lambert and his reviewer David Ehrenstein, Wood supported homosexual playwright Mart Crowley in a manner that made it possible for him to write his play, The Boys in the Band.

Concerning a possible relationship between Wood and homosexual actor Raymond Burr, 21 years her senior, Wood biographer Suzanne Finstad cites Dennis Hopper as saying, "I just can't wrap my mind around that one. But you know, I saw them together. They were definitely a couple. Who knows what was going on there." However, no romantic relationship has ever been proven between Burr and Wood.

Contrary to popular notions, Gavin Lambert wrote that Wood's casting in Rebel Without a Cause did not lead to a romance with co-star James Dean: "Like many people, she was fascinated by his charm. He had this magnetic quality on the screen and in life... They got on very well, they liked each other a lot." He added that both Dean and Rebel director Nicholas Ray (with whom Wood reportedly had an affair) helped renew her passion for acting after a diet of lackluster movies like Chicken Every Sunday, Dear Brat and Father Was a Fullback.

Wood's two marriages to actor Robert Wagner were publicized and stormy, but they were reconciled at the time of her death.

[edit] Drowning at Catalina Island

In 1981, at the age of forty-three, Wood drowned while their yacht The Splendor was anchored at Catalina Island. An investigation by Los Angeles coroner Thomas Noguchi resulted in an official verdict of accidental drowning, although speculation about the circumstances continued.

Wood was on board the yacht with Wagner and actor Christopher Walken. There were reports Wagner and Walken had a loud argument about Walken's behavior towards Natalie, and Wood apparently tried to either leave the yacht or to secure a dinghy that was banging against the hull when she accidentally slipped and fell overboard. A woman on shore said she heard cries for help from the water that night, along with voices replying "we're coming." Wagner, Walken, and the pilot of the Splendor said they heard nothing. Noguchi revealed that Wood was legally intoxicated when she died and there were marks and bruises on her body, which could have been received as a result of her fall. In Noguchi's memoir, Coroner, he stated that had Natalie not been intoxicated, she would likely have realized that her heavy down-filled coat and wool sweater was pulling her underwater, and would have removed it. Noguchi said he found Natalie's fingernails still embedded in the rubber boat's side.

At the time of her death Wood was filming Brainstorm and preparing to make her stage debut in a Los Angeles production of Anastasia, opposite Dame Wendy Hiller.

She is buried in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery. She was survived by her husband, Robert Wagner, and two daughters, lookalike Natasha Gregson Wagner (from her marriage to Richard Gregson), and Courtney Wagner, her daughter with Robert Wagner. Other survivors included her stepdaughter Katie Wagner (from Robert Wagner's previous marriage to Marion Marshall), her sister, Lana Wood, and her mother. Lana Wood later published a biography of Natalie.

This death was parodied in an episode of Family Guy where Joe is playing charades onboard a yacht, and falls overboard, causing Peter to guess he is imitating Wood. After being rescued, Joe reveals that Peter's guess was correct.

[edit] Trivia

• Height: 5'1"

• When she was nine she had an accident on a movie set which left a slight but permanent bone protrusion on her left wrist. For the rest of her life, on camera or in public, she wore a bracelet to cover it.

• Wood is reported to have had a lifelong fear of dark water and drowning. During the filming of This Property is Condemned, she was so scared of performing a skinny-dipping scene that co-star Robert Redford held her feet underwater to help steady her while shooting it.

• She is one of a handful of child actors to have been nominated for an acting-related Oscar in adulthood. Other examples are Elizabeth Taylor (who won two Oscars in adulthood), Jodie Foster (also won twice in adulthood), Jennifer Connelly (won once), Judy Garland, Natalie Portman, Dean Stockwell, Mickey Rooney, Joaquin Phoenix, Mary Pickford, Jackie Earl Haley and a few others.

[edit] Awards and nominations

Successful nominations in bold.

1956:

• Academy Award: Rebel Without a Cause (1955) — Best Actress in a Supporting Role

1957:

• Golden Globe Award — Most Promising Newcomer

1958:

• Golden Laurel Awards: Marjorie Morningstar (1958) — Top Female Dramatic Performance
• Golden Laurel Awards — Top Female Star (thirteenth place)

1959:

• Golden Laurel Awards — Top Female Star (seventh place)

1960:

• Golden Laurel Awards — Top Female Star (ninth place)

1961:

• Golden Apple Awards: Sour Apple — Least Cooperative Actress
• Golden Laurel Awards — Top Female Star (fourteenth place)

1962:

• Academy Award: Splendor in the Grass (1961) — Best Actress in a Leading Role
• Golden Laurel Awards — Top Female Star (fifth place)
• Golden Laurel Awards: Splendor in the Grass (1961) — Top Female Dramatic Performance (third place)

1963:

• British Academy of Film and Television Arts: Splendor in the Grass (1961) — Best Foreign Actress
• Golden Globes Awards: Gypsy (1962) — Best Motion Picture Actress: Musical/Comedy
• Golden Laurel Awards: Gypsy (1962) — Top Female Musical Performance (second place)

1964:

• Academy Award: Love with the Proper Stranger (1963) — Best Actress in a Leading Role
• Golden Globe Award: Love with the Proper Stranger (1963) — Best Motion Picture Actress: Drama
• Golden Laurel Awards — Top Female Star (third place)
• Golden Laurel Awards: Love with the Proper Stranger (1963) (second place)
• Mar del Plata Film Festival: Love with the Proper Stranger (1963) — Best Actress

1965:

• Golden Laurel Awards — Female Star (sixth place)
• Golden Laurel Awards: Sex and the Single Girl (1964) — Comedy Performance (fifth place)

1966:

• Golden Apple Awards: Sour Apple — Least Cooperative Actress
• Golden Globe Award: Inside Daisy Clover (1965) — Best Motion Picture Actress: Musical/Comedy
• Golden Globe Award — World Film Favorite: Female
• Golden Laurel Awards — Female Star (eighth place)

1967:

• Golden Globe Award: This Property Is Condemned (1966) — Best Motion Picture Actress: Drama
• Golden Laurel Awards — Female Star (third place)
• Golden Laurel Awards: This Property is Condemned (1966) — Female Dramatic Performance (third place)

1968:

• Golden Laurel Awards — Female Star (twelfth place)

1970:

• Golden Laurel Awards — Female Star (ninth place)

1971:

• Golden Laurel Awards — Female Star (ninth place)

1980:

• Golden Globe Award: From Here to Eternity (1979) (mini) — Best TV Actress: Drama

[edit] Filmography