Was Natalie’s death AN ACCIDENT?
THE DEATH OF ACTRESS NATALIE WOOD SHOCKED THE WORLD AND REMAINS A SAD MYSTERY
Robert Wagner became a household name in 1968 playing a convict sprung from prison in TV’s It Takes a Thief. Fifty years later, he’s back in the public eye. He’s been named a “person of interest” in the 1981 death of his wife, screen goddess Natalie Wood.
“We want to talk to Robert,” says LA County Sheriff’s Department Lieutenant John Corina. “What he told the original investigators [doesn’t] add up to what we found.” The 88-year-old star has refused to speak to police since the day after Natalie’s funeral, when he dispassionately answered questions about how his two-time wife perished in the freezing waters off Catalina Island.
The couple had argued aboard their yacht, Splendour, before Natalie vanished. The death was ruled an accident two weeks later, and the case was closed. But since the investigation was reopened in 2011, more than 100 new witnesses have come forward and 150 new clues have been uncovered.
“We’re closer to understanding what happened,” says Lt Corina, adding that he believes Robert’s original story makes “absolutely no sense”.
Robert may not be talking to police about Natalie, but he has shared his feelings about his late wife. “I have many, many memories of her,” he said in a
2014 interview. “She was such a special lady to me and everyone in the family. She is Natasha and Courtney’s mother and Katie’s stepmother. Everyone still has a lot of love for her.”
But as investigators piece together the new evidence and come ever closer to solving the case, a very different picture has emerged of Robert and Natalie’s two marriages – and her death.
The LA coroner’s office has changed the manner on her death certificate from accidental drowning to “drowning and other undetermined factors.” Questions remain. “Was she unconscious and then placed in the water?” Lt Corina asks. “Or did she accidentally fall into the water and nobody helped her?” The answers could be coming soon.
“A minute can change anything,” Robert wrote in his 2008 memoir Pieces of My Heart of the first time he saw Natalie. They passed in a 20th Century Fox Studios hallway in 1949, when he was an 18-yearold aspiring actor and she was the 10-year-old star of such hits as Miracle on 34th Street. “We didn’t speak, but I smiled. Later, Natalie told her mum she would marry me. She did – twice.”
The first time was December 28, 1957. “It was all kind of last-minute,” says Natalie’s stunt double and friend Faye Mayo. “When she and RJ [Robert’s nickname] were first married, she was divinely happy.”
The bliss didn’t last long.
One of the new witnesses in the case was a then-12-yearold boy whose family lived next door to Robert and
Natalie during their first marriage. He claims to remember her pounding on their door late one night.
“Natalie was so afraid of Robert,” claims Lt Corina.
“She was yelling, ‘He’s going to kill me!’ and looking for help.” The neighbours allegedly temporarily took her in.
The situation is said to have worsened when Natalie played the love interest of legendary lothario Warren Beatty in Splendor in the Grass, and rumours of an affair began to swirl.
“I wanted to kill that son of a b****,” says Robert, who was also jealous of Warren’s professional success. “I was hanging around outside his house with a gun. I was prepared to kill him.”
Robert didn’t act on it, and Natalie divorced him in April 1962. Each married other people and had children – her daughter Natasha and his Katie – but when their second marriages both ended, fate brought them back
together. “We remarried in 1972 on a boat off Catalina Island,” recalls Robert. “Sinatra’s The Second Time Around was on the stereo. My feeling for the next nine years was of gratitude. I spent every waking hour somewhere between contentment and jubilation.”
Not everyone was overjoyed. At a family dinner party when Natalie announced she’d remarry Robert, her younger sister Lana (who played Bond girl Plenty O’Toole in 1971’s Diamonds Are Forever), asked her why. Lana claims, “She looked down and said, ‘Sometimes it’s better to be with the devil you know.’”
Robert and Natalie had a daughter, Courtney, together in 1974, but after putting her career on the back burner for a few years to focus on her family, Natalie started booking major studio movies, such as Brainstorm, a sci-fi thriller she shot in North Carolina in 1981.
Meanwhile, Robert – who was back in LA filming TV’s Hart to Hart – grew jealous of Natalie’s bond with her leading man, Christopher Walken, a recent Oscar winner for The Deer Hunter. Says Robert, “Natalie was being emotionally unfaithful.”
Still, the couple invited Christopher to spend Thanksgiving weekend with them aboard the Splendour, docked near Catalina. The weather was stormy, and the mood grew even darker on Black Friday.
“Robert had been drinking all day and night, and then suddenly wanted to move the boat to a more desolate part of the island,” says Marti Rulli, who co-wrote GoodbyeNatalie, Goodbye Splendour with the yacht’s captain, Dennis Davern.
Natalie – who couldn’t swim and had a lifelong fear of water – was afraid to move the boat in such bad weather, and she flew into a rage. A new witness, who was on a nearby boat, described the incident to police: “Natalie appeared to be the aggressor [and] intoxicated,” claims Detective Ralph Hernandez, a colleague of Lt Corina’s.
“At one point, Robert walked away, and she fell down on one knee,” perhaps causing some of the bruises later found on her body. “Natalie was so mad, she packed her bag and asked Dennis to take her to shore,” says Rulli. They rented two rooms at a hotel, but Natalie spent the night crying on Dennis’ shoulder and pouring out her heart. “She said, ‘If this continues, I will divorce him,’” reports Rulli. “‘I cannot live like this.’”
In the morning, more sober heads prevailed, and Natalie and Dennis returned to the boat, where she cooked breakfast for Robert. “She decided, ‘Let’s see if we can smooth over everything,’” says Dennis.
Natalie agreed to move the boat, but after another day of drinking, Robert awoke from a nap to discover she and Christopher had ditched him and gone ashore to a bar. When Robert arrived, Natalie and Christopher laughingly ignored him, and “Chris began talking about his ‘total pursuit of a career,’ which he admitted was more important than his personal life,” Robert says. “He clearly thought Natalie should live like that, too.”
Robert did not agree, and after the trio drunkenly made their way back to the Splendour, “I got angry. ‘Why don’t you stay out of her career?’ I said,” Robert recalls. “I picked up a wine bottle, slammed it on the table and broke it to pieces.”
According to Lt Corina,
Robert yelled, “What are you trying to do, f*** my wife?” At this point, Dennis says, “Natalie said, ‘I cannot take this any more,’ and went to her room.” Christopher also retreated to his quarters, and Dennis went to the bridge. Soon he claims he heard a violent argument from Natalie and Robert’s room and knocked on the door.
“Robert had this crazed look on his face and I said, ‘Is everything okay, boss?’ And he said, ‘Go away,’” says Dennis. “He looked so angry, I was worried about my own safety.”
While Robert claims, “The last time I saw my wife, she was fixing her hair at a little vanity in the bathroom,” Dennis alleges the couple took their fight to the deck, and two new witnesses back him up, saying they saw and heard the squabble.
“They’re very credible,” claims Lt Corina. “They have no reason to lie. There was arguing… and then silence. Nobody heard a splash. Nobody heard anything.” But, Lt Corina says, “I don’t think she got into the water by herself.”
The argument ended at midnight. Ten minutes later, Dennis went to the couple’s cabin. “Robert was crying and saying, ‘Natalie’s gone, she’s missing,’” reports Lt Corina. Strangely, Robert didn’t report her missing until 1.30am, after downing scotch with Dennis.
Robert didn’t want to alert authorities, fearing the bad publicity. Finally, he called the Coast Guard but asked Dennis not to use a spotlight to search for her.
Natalie’s body was found around 8am about a 1.5km from the boat, and the boat’s dinghy was recovered in a nearby cave. She was wearing a parka, a nightgown and socks. Robert has a theory about what happened. “She heard the dinghy banging against the side and got up to retie it,” he says, noting she had drunk seven or eight glasses of wine and taken the opioid Darvon.
“She slipped on the swim step on the stern, hit the step
‘Almost every girl falls in love with the wrong man. I suppose its part of growing up’
on the way down, and was either stunned or knocked unconscious and rolled into the water. The loose dinghy floated away.”
Lt Corina claims the story “doesn’t make sense. It’s not that big a boat. Nobody heard the dinghy start up [or] take off.”
The initial ruling of accidental drowning belies the fact that bruises were found on Natalie’s body consistent with an assault. “I can’t say who caused the injuries,” says Lt Corina.
The case went cold for two decades until it was reopened, prompting the new witnesses to come forward. Christopher (who is not a person of interest) has been reinterviewed by police, but “what he told us was in confidence, at least for now,” says Lt Corina.
Time may be running out. The statute of limitations has expired on any possible charge except murder, and Robert is under no legal obligation to speak. “We’re doing our last shot here, seeing if anybody else comes forward,” says Lt Corina.
Whether the mystery of her death is ever solved, Natalie’s memory lives on. “Not a single day passes when I don’t wish Natalie was here,” says Lana. As for Robert, he’s sticking to his story: “I blame myself,” he confesses. “Why wasn’t I there? I would have done anything to protect her. I would have given my life for hers, because that’s the way we were.”