Natalie Wood was 43 when she drowned off the coast of Catalina Island in 1981. Natasha Gregson Wagner’s documentary resists turning into fan service, focusing instead on her mother’s forward-thinking views about parenting, getting equal pay for her male co-stars and maintaining her sexual screen presence even as she aged.
Wood continued to act in small parts until she got her big break with a supporting role in the Christmas classic Miracle on 34th Street (1947). Macy’s paraded her down Fifth Avenue, and from there, Hollywood offered her film roles in quantity. She signed with 20th Century Fox and began appearing in family films, usually cast as the daughter of stars like Fred MacMurray or James Stewart. She also made some darker movies, such as the melodrama A Cry in the Night. Her determination to find challenging work led her to push away from the frothy teen films and into more serious projects.
She portrayed a restless teenager in Splendor in the Grass (1961), and then she was called on to portray Maria, the lead character in West Side Story (1961). The film is regarded by many as Wood’s finest achievement, showcasing her emotional range and complex characterization. She proved to be a natural singer and dancer in the film, which was her first onscreen singing.
Her next big film was The Searchers (1962), in which she co-starred with John Ford and was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar. In the movie, she plays a girl from a small town who falls in love with an Indian boy, and her performance is considered by some to be one of the greatest in history.
She took a long hiatus from acting after The Searchers and resumed her career with the social comedy Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969). She had two children by her first husband, screenwriter Richard Gregson, before marrying actor Robert Wagner; they divorced in 1970 and later married again. They had a daughter, actress Natasha Gregson Wagner.
Her First Film
Wood tugged heartstrings in her first film appearance as a small orphan in 1946’s Tomorrow Is Forever, with Claudette Colbert and Orson Welles. After graduating from Van Nuys High School she signed with Warner Brothers and was kept busy with “girlfriend” roles until 1956, when she starred in John Ford’s The Searchers, a western that would cement her reputation.
It was a breakthrough performance that brought her critical and commercial success. However, it was Rebel Without a Cause that marked a turning point in her career. Her character, Judy, a troubled teenager, echoed her own teenage angst and proved she could handle adult drama. Nicholas Ray’s intense drama about emotionally confused middle-class teenagers also starred James Dean, and it earned her an Academy Award nomination.
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Wood received more Oscar nominations for Splendor in the Grass and Love with a Proper Stranger. She starred as a woman torn apart by her illegitimate child in All the Fine Young Cannibals, a melodrama that became a major hit, and she also starred with Robert Wagner in the romantic dramas of West Side Story and Inside Daisy Clover.
While the documentary makes no mention of it, in 1957, just before shooting began on Rebel Without a Cause, Wood was raped by a famous director who threatened her and her mother if she told. While the crime was hushed up, it likely affected her performance. The doc’s director Laurent Bouzereau notes that it may have fueled her later conviction that the press was out to get her. Toward the end of her life she focused more on television, receiving acclaim for the miniseries remake of From Here to Eternity and the 1979 drama The Cracker Factory.
Her First Marriage
Aside from being a natural beauty and a gifted actress, Wood was a strong-willed woman who didn’t suffer fools gladly. She was known to stand up for her rights as a female in the male-dominated film industry, going so far as to demand equal pay with her male co-stars and refusing to appear with any director who didn’t treat her well. She even reportedly had a brief affair with rock star Elvis Presley in 1956.
Wood’s mother, Mary Tatuloff, had never fulfilled her own ambitions of becoming a ballet dancer, and instead transferred her dreams onto her daughter. Her paternal grandfather had joined the anti-Bolshevik civilian forces during the Russian Civil War, but was killed in a street fight between Red Army and White Russian soldiers, forcing his family to relocate to Shanghai before migrating to Vancouver. Her mother married Nicholas Zacharenko in 1938, five months before Natalie was born, changing her own last name to Wood in honor of her new husband.
After her success in Miracle on 34th Street, Wood was quickly cast as the daughters of a variety of famous actors. She appeared as Fred MacMurray’s and Margaret Sullavan’s daughters in Father Was a Fullback and Dear Brat, Joan Blondell’s neglected daughter in The Blue Veil, and James Stewart’s daughter in The Jackpot.
Wood starred in a handful of movies in 1955, but it wasn’t until she landed the role as Judy Dean in Rebel Without a Cause that she truly hit it big. Her performance as the on-the-cusp teen who wears makeup and dresses provocatively to attract the attention of a troubled father was an enormous success, catapulting her into the top ranks of Hollywood child stars.
Her Second Marriage
After landing a starring role at age eight in Miracle on 34th Street, Natalie Wood exploded into Hollywood stardom. The sultry beauty would earn multiple Oscar nominations by her early twenties, including for 1955’s Rebel Without a Cause and 1961’s Splendor in the Grass, both costarring her off-screen love interest Warren Beatty. Her career was seemingly on an upward trajectory, and a fairy-tale romance with fellow actor Robert Wagner seemed destined to be the next step for the budding actress.
As Finstad puts it, “The teen ingenue’s 20th Century Fox studio obligingly arranged her first date with Wagner, on whom she had harbored a crush since childhood.” The pair married a year later, despite her mother’s reservations. The fabled couple spent their honeymoon cruising up and down the California coast, visiting Catalina Island and even driving around in matching Jaguars.
Within three years of her second divorce, Wood was remarrying Wagner. The sexy stars seemed happy to settle down, establishing a home in Beverly Hills and welcoming daughter Courtney into their lives in 1974.
By this point, Wood had begun to take a more measured approach to her work. She began to appear in less prestigious films, such as 1978’s sci-fi movie Meteor and 1980’s The Last Married Couple in America with Sean Connery and George Segal.
By the time she took part in her final film, Brainstorm, in 1981, Wood had made it clear that she planned to spend her remaining years with Wagner and their daughter. She was also a regular on television, with appearances on shows like Switch and Hart to Hart.
Her Final Film
Natalie Wood’s last film was the 1971 drama Brainstorm. Her character, Dr. Reynolds, a scientist obsessed with his work and convinced that the end of the world is imminent, is driven mad by his recording device, which constantly monitors the deterioration of the atmosphere. Eventually, he suffers an overdose of drugs and dies in his laboratory. His death is then broadcast to the world, and the resulting chaos unleashes a harrowing series of improbable events.
The eldest of six children, Wood had been a child star since 1946, appearing in a small role in the drama Tomorrow Is Forever with Claudette Colbert and a supporting part in Orson Welles’ 1948 classic Touch of Class. But it was her starring turn in 1947’s Miracle on 34th Street that cemented her status as a movie star.
Although a contract actress, she still had to make movies that were not exactly her cup of tea. She felt miscast in the 1956 western The Searchers and was unhappy with her performance as a Native American maiden. But she was a revelation in Rebel Without a Cause, a landmark portrayal of teenage angst and rebellion that earned her an Oscar nomination.
In 1961, she starred alongside Warren Beatty in Splendor in the Grass and appeared in the popular musical West Side Story, an urban retelling of Romeo and Juliet that was to prove an important part of her career. Director Elia Kazan, a champion of the Method approach to acting, was impressed with her ability to rise to the demands of his script and challenged her in ways he knew she could not be challenged by any other actress.
Despite having two children with actor Robert Wagner and a son with producer Richard Gregson, Wood remained active on television, where she starred in the 1970s detective series Switch and Hart to Hart before taking another lengthy hiatus from film. She made only four more theatrical films before retiring in the mid-Seventies, but she remained a beloved figure for generations of moviegoers and left behind an illustrious career.