Natalie Wood was a Hollywood actress known for her roles in Miracle on 34th Street and Rebel Without a Cause. She had a tumultuous personal life, including multiple marriages and affairs. She died under mysterious circumstances in 1981, with speculation surrounding the involvement of her husband Robert Wagner and actor Christopher Walken.
Natalie Wood (1938-1981) was a Hollywood actress, best known for her roles in Miracle on 34th Street (1947) and Rebel Without a Cause (1955). Natalie Wood has been described as one of Hollywood’s hottest stars. She was a striking woman, with lush dark hair and glowing eyes, who lived a stormy life full of love affairs, drinking and a hectic production schedule, like many actors and actresses during the Golden Era of the 1940s and ’40s. 1950.
Natalie Wood was born Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko in San Francisco, California to Russian immigrants who spoke minimal English. When she was still a child, the family moved to Santa Rosa, California, where her enterprising mother pitched Natalie for a role in Happy Land (1943), where young Natalie appeared in part as a crying child who loses ice cream cone. Subsequently, the family moved to Hollywood in an effort to advance Natalie’s film career, which she took off in 1947 with Miracle on 34th Street, a film that has since become an American classic.
Natalie Wood has appeared in nearly 20 films since Miracle on 34th Street, earning her a reputation as a stellar child actress. The filming schedule was very difficult for her, as she had few opportunities to interact with other children her age and experienced a severely disrupted education. Natalie Wood matured early, having affairs with much older men from the tender age of 16.
In 1955, Natalie Wood became a Hollywood superstar starring opposite James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause as the rebel Judy. In the years that followed, she played Maria in West Side Story (1961), Angie in Love With the Proper Stranger (1963) and Alva in This Property is Condemned (1966). Her subsequent films did not perform as well at the box office, and Natalie Wood took some time off to develop her own life in 1966, returning in 1969 with Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice. After this period, she hasn’t done so many films. Her last film was Brainstorm, released in 1983, two years after her death.
Natalie Wood was first married in 1957, aged 19. Her husband, Robert Wagner, was in love with her in a date set up as a publicity stunt by her studios. The two remained married until 1962, when Natalie Wood filed for divorce after indiscretions from Wagner. Natalie Wood told the press that “Everyone is looking for happiness. I guess I haven’t found it yet.” Natalie Wood later wrote that she felt haunted by her marriage, which she entered into at too young an age, and that she struggled with the social expectations that were being imposed on her.
She later had a series of affairs, including one with Warren Beatty, and ended up remarrying in 1969 to Richard Gregson, a British film producer. The two had a son, Natasha, in 1970. They divorced less than a year later when Wood discovered Gregson was having an affair with her secretary. Robert Wagner reappeared in her life during this period and the two remarried in 1972 aboard his yacht.
Just nine years later, Natalie Wood died under mysterious circumstances off the coast of California’s Catalina Island. Although the coroner claims she drowned after falling overboard while she was intoxicated, insinuations have been made about Wagner and Christopher Walken, both of whom were aboard at the time. Some have suggested that Wood and Walken may have been having an affair and that a drunken argument may have culminated in her death.
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