From unforgettable fame to who they are today — the full story, with rare photos.
The Face Everyone Knew
Natalie Wood was an American actress. She began acting at age four and co-starred at age eight in Miracle on 34th Street . As a teenager, she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Rebel Without a Cause , followed by a role in John Ford’s The Searchers .
Rise to Stardom
Wood starred in the musical films West Side Story and Gypsy and received nominations for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performances in Splendor in the Grass and Love with the Proper Stranger . Her career continued with films such as Sex and the Single Girl , The Great Race , Inside Daisy Clover , This Property Is Condemned, Penelope , and Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice .
Life at the Top
During the 1970s, Wood began a hiatus from film and had two daughters: one with Robert Wagner, her first husband, and one with her second husband, Richard Gregson. She acted in only two feature films throughout the decade, but she appeared slightly more often in television productions, including a remake of From Here to Eternity for which she won a Golden Globe Award. Wood’s films represented a “coming of age” for her and for Hollywood films in general. Critics have suggested that her cinematic career represents a portrait of modern American womanhood in transition because she was one of the few to take both child roles and those of middle-aged characters.
Behind the Fame
On November 29, 1981, at the age of 43, Wood drowned in the Pacific Ocean at Santa Catalina Island during a break from production of her would-be comeback film Brainstorm . She was with her husband Wagner and Brainstorm co-star Christopher Walken. The events surrounding her death have been the subject of conflicting witness statements, prompting the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, under the instruction of the coroner’s office, to list her cause of death as “drowning and other undetermined factors” in 2012. In 2018, Wagner was named as a person of interest in the ongoing investigation into her death.
Photos via Wikimedia Commons (public domain / Creative Commons).