The MYSTERY of NATALIE WOOD
The intrigue surrounding the Hollywood screen siren’s tragic demise in 1981 has re-emerged thanks to a fresh investigation
The death of film star Natalie Wood is so steeped in mystery and bizarre circumstances it could be the plot of a gripping blockbuster. On a weekend in late November 1981, the glamorous Hollywood legend and husband Robert Wagner boarded their yacht, Splendour, with their friend, actor Christopher Walken. It was Thanksgiving and the trio, along with the ship’s captain, Dennis Davern, set sail for Catalina Island, off the coast of California, for a mini-getaway. Two days later, Wood’s body, still dressed in her evening outfit, was found floating in the ocean a few kilometres away. Police quickly ruled the death a tragic accident. Wagner continued his successful career and Walken went on to become one of the most revered character actors in modern times.
But whispers about something more sinister taking place on board Splendour persisted for decades—talk of a drunken, jealous fight between a troubled couple. In 2011, on the 30th anniversary of Wood’s death, police reopened their investigation. And earlier this year, TV show 48 Hours stated that police had named Wagner a person of interest, although he’s always formally denied any involvement in Wood’s death. So what really happened to the screen star that night?
A STAR COUPLE
Millions watched Wood grow up in a string of classic films—as a child in Miracle on 34th Street through to a teenager in Rebel Without a Cause. She made a rare successful transition to becoming an adult star in a number of hits, including Splendor in the Grass and West Side
Story, which made her a bona fide icon of Tinseltown’s golden era. She met Wagner when she was 18 and he was 26; she’d appeared in some 25 films and he was an aspiring actor signed to Twentieth Century Fox. They were married in 1957, before separating and divorcing in 1962 after prolonged difficulties. Despite going in different directions both personally and professionally, the pair found each other again after five years apart and rekindled their romance. Wood and Wagner chose the 1972 Academy Awards ceremony to re-emerge as a couple. As they stepped onto the red carpet, chaos erupted. Wood’s sister Lana described the moment to Vanity Fair: “It was a reunion the whole world felt sentimental about.”
They remarried later that year on a borrowed yacht off the Californian coast, before spending the night aboard near Catalina Island—where Wood’s life would end less than a decade later.
TROUBLE BREWING
Despite seeming the picture-perfect star couple, there were constant problems in Wood and Wagner’s marriages. Things said by
those close to the couple to contribute to their first union’s demise—her crippling insomnia, his jealousy of her more successful career—seemingly followed them into their second. Lana Wood has also sensationally claimed in new 12-part podcast series Fatal Voyage that the couple divorced after it was discovered Wagner was having an affair— with a man. That claim is unconfirmed, but in an unpublished memoir penned by Wood before she died—revealed in explosive detail in the podcast—the actress tells of a shocking discovery. “My marriage collapsed that weekend. It’s too painful for me to recall in print the incidents that led to the final break-up,” she wrote. “It was more than the final straw. It was reality crushing the fragile web of romantic fantasies with sledgehammer force.”
Then there was the fateful weekend in 1981, which Wood’s sister said was intended to be filled with fun. On Friday, the three actors went to shore for shopping, dinner and drinks. On Saturday night, they returned for supper and plenty of drinks. But the mood, it was said by restaurant staff later, was tense and the party left after Wood smashed a glass on the floor. It was the last time anyone—except those on the Splendour— would see her alive. Around 1 AM on Sunday, it was discovered she was missing from her room on the yacht, and also gone was a dinghy. A distress call was made. “This is the Splendour, we need some help.” Just after sunrise her body was found.
WHAT HAPPENED THAT NIGHT?
Wagner, Walken and Davern told police they knew nothing untoward, and that Wood must’ve slipped into the ocean and drowned. They also theorised she probably left to go ashore in the dinghy, which was found beached nearby with the ignition switched off and its oars in a locked position. But Wood had a notorious phobia of being in the water. The director Elia Kazan recounted in his autobiography, A Life, that the actress hated water, “particularly dark water and being helpless in it.” She struggled to film scenes involving water and it seems unlikely she would have ventured out in it alone— especially in the dead of night.
In the years following, stories from those on board changed on a number of occasions, which sparked suspicion. The skipper’s account was most alarming. In 2011, after the case was reopened, Davern gave an interview to CBS in which he admitted to lying to police. “I made some terrible decisions and mistakes,” he said. “I did lie on a report several years ago. I made mistakes by not telling the honest truth in a police report.” The couple had been fighting on Saturday evening, he claimed, sparked by what Wagner apparently saw as Wood’s flirtatious behaviour towards Walken.
Wagner himself later hinted at tension on the boat. In his 2008 memoir, he wrote: “There are only two possibilities: either she was trying to get away from an argument, or she was trying to tie the dinghy. But the
—Lana Wood
bottom line is that nobody knows exactly what happened.”
Walken has rarely spoken about the incident. In a 1986 interview with WHO’S sister magazine People, he said: “I don’t know what happened ... She slipped and fell in the water. I was in bed then. It was a terrible thing. Look, we’re in a conversation I won’t have. It’s a f--king bore.” But in 1997, in an interview with Playboy, he said he believed the death was an accident. “What happened that night only she knows, because she was alone,” Walken said. “She had gone to bed before us, and her room was at the back. A dinghy was bouncing against the side of the boat, and I think she went out to move it. There was a ski ramp that was partially in the water. It was slippery—i had walked on it myself. She had told me she couldn’t swim; in fact, they had to cut a swimming scene from [the movie Brainstorm]. She was probably half asleep, and she was wearing a coat.”
After the investigation was reopened, it was revealed that an autopsy conducted in 1981 showed massive bruising on Wood’s body. “She looked like a victim of an assault,” Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Detective Ralph Hernandez said to TV show 48 Hours. And according to Vanity Fair, a couple sleeping aboard a nearby boat that night contacted police in the days after Wood’s death. Around midnight, they had heard a woman yelling: “Help me, someone please help me.” They didn’t respond at the time because there was a party raging on a nearby yacht and they assumed it was “someone just playing around.” NEW INTEREST Interest in the Wood case exploded in February this year when 48 Hours claimed Wagner was named a person of interest (although reporter Erin Moriarty clarified that he is not officially a suspect). The new podcast series exploring the case is based on a seven-year investigation, delving into not just the star’s death but her difficult upbringing. With only a handful of episodes released so far, it’s not clear if the mystery will be solved. But to some, what happened that night is not in doubt. “I don’t think there’s a mystery,” Lana Wood told Fox News. “I think it was very sloppy work on the coroner’s part, on the investigation. Things were dismissed too rapidly.” She has her own theory about how her sister died. “I think they had a terrible fight, which was told to me by Dennis ... they became physical,” she told Fox News. “The bruising, the extensive bruising, is not that follows bumping against anything ... The detective said it’s typical abuse. So, there are just things that don’t fit in.”
Wagner has long maintained he had nothing to do with Natalie’s death and dismissed speculation about his role in it as nothing more than rumour. But it’s been revealed that since the case was reopened in 2011, he has refused to speak to investigators. It’s claimed the veteran actor’s memory is unreliable and he has suffered memory loss.
Wood’s sister isn’t convinced. “That’s always troubled me,” she said of Wagner’s unwillingness to be interviewed. “I don’t know why, to do nothing but clear his name if he feels he’s being wrongfully accused ... Why not clear your name by speaking to the police? It just makes sense [to do that].”