STILL A MYSTERY
Natalie Wood doc fails to answer questions surrounding her death
Natalie Wood:
What Reminds Behind Streaming, Crave
Natalie Wood’s tragic death, as HBO’S new documentary notes, is “one of Hollywood’s most enduring mysteries.”
In 1981, the 43-year-old star drowned off the coast of Catalina Island in California while she was on a trip with her husband, actor Robert Wagner, and friend and co-star Christopher Walken. Four decades later, rumours and theories about how she died abound. People want to know the answers.
Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind doesn’t have those answers — nor does it try to offer any (though multiple people interviewed are adamant that there was no foul play and slammed speculation that Wagner was involved).
The 100-minute film features interviews from Wood’s family, as well as friends such as Robert Redford and Mia Farrow. It is mainly a portrait of Wood by her daughter, Natasha Gregson Wagner, who said the intense focus on Wood’s death often overshadows her life’s work and who she was as a person, particularly as a mother.
There are several take-aways from the documentary.
WOOD FELT IMMENSE PRESSURE AS AN ACTRESS
Wood started acting at five years old when a producer cast her in his movie, Happy Land (1943), as a little girl who dropped her ice cream cone. Afterward, the producer stayed in touch with her family, and they moved to Los Angeles so she could audition for more acting roles. Her career skyrocketed, and she felt pressure — particularly from her mother — to be the breadwinner of the family, especially after her father became sick and couldn’t work.
Wood’s success only continued to grow. She earned three Oscar nominations by age 25 for Rebel Without a Cause, Splendor in the Grass and Love with the Proper Stranger. But when she filmed The Great Race in 1965, she was feeling overwhelmed, like she was “owned” by the studio, and became very unhappy in the aftermath of her divorce from Wagner. (They later remarried.)
WOOD DIDN’T MIND TALKING ABOUT HER MULTIPLE MARRIAGES TO WAGNER
The film shows an archived interview clip in which a journalist asked Wood about marrying, divorcing and then remarrying Robert Wagner — but quickly followed up that she didn’t have to answer if she was uncomfortable. But Wood was completely fine with it. She and Wagner married in 1957 but divorced five years later when her career pressures consumed her.
In 1969, she married producer Richard Gregson, and Natasha was born the following year. Three years after that, they split when Gregson had an affair. Wood and Wagner reconnected at a party in 1972 and were married once again. Her youngest daughter, Courtney, was born shortly after.
WOOD FELT CONFLICTED ABOUT WORKING ONCE SHE HAD CHILDREN
The documentary also focuses on how much Wood loved being a mother. The film said this contributed to the dissolution of her marriage to Gregson, as he felt she focused all her attention on the baby.
SOME PEOPLE FEEL GUILTY THAT THEY LET WOOD GO ON THE CATALINA TRIP
Josh Donen, Wagner’s stepson from his second marriage, was also close with Wood. Right before Wood, Wagner and Walken took off to Catalina Island after Thanksgiving in 1981, Wood was anxious about the trip; she was having intense internal debates about the balance between her work and her family life. Donen urged her to go to Catalina and take time off for some introspective thinking. He said he still can’t believe he advised her to go on the boat. “Silly me,” he says in the film, clearly devastated.
WAGNER WAS ‘SHATTERED’ AFTER WOOD’S DEATH
AND WON’T EVEN
DIGNIFY RUMOURS
THAT HE WAS INVOLVED
Toward the end of the documentary, Wagner goes into detail about his recollections of the night of Wood’s death: He, Walken and Wood had dinner on the shore and then went back to the boat. They opened a few bottles of wine, and he and Walken started arguing about Wood’s future in acting. At some point, Wood went downstairs to the stateroom to get ready for bed and Wagner and Walken kept up the heated conversation.
Eventually, Wagner said, they calmed down. When he went to look for Wood, she was gone and the dinghy was missing. When they couldn’t find her or the dinghy on the shore, they called for help. Hours later, the Coast Guard found her body in the water.
The autopsy report showed that Wood had alcohol and a sleeping pill in her system, so they think she probably went to check on the dinghy — the sound of it banging against the boat always drove her crazy, Gregson Wagner said — and slipped and fell into the water.
However, there has been plenty of speculation otherwise. In 2011, their boat deckhand, Dennis Davern, wrote a book that accused Wagner of foul play. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department reopened the case and confirmed in 2018 that Wagner was a “person of interest.” Wood’s sister, Lana, has also said she thinks the investigation was originally “mishandled” and alluded to a conspiracy.
(Wagner’s publicist told news outlets that Davern and Lana Wood should be “ashamed of themselves,” and added, “They are despicable human beings, capitalizing on the accidental death of a beloved member of the Wagner family.”)