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Natalie Wood Biography |
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TRANSCRIBED FROM:
BIOGRAPHY MAGAZINE - AUGUST 2002 "Dark Glamour" The Turbulent Life and Mysterious Death of Natalie Wood By Michael Sauter Actor Roddy McDowall called her "the prettiest girl I ever knew." A lot of people felt that way about Natalie Wood. A petite brunette with great, dark, flashing eyes, she brought a luminous presence to a variety of famous roles: as James Dean`s teenage soulmate in Rebel Without a Cause (1955); as Warren Beatty`s small-town sweetheart in Splendor in the Grass (1961); as the tragic young lover Maria in West Side Story (1961). She had a face the movie camera adored, and she was every inch the glamour girl offscreen as well, posing for paparazzi with her foot-long cigarette holders, full-length furs, and five-inch heels. The spotlight just seemed to suit Natalie Wood, Who made her first movie at the age of 4. As her huband Robert Wagner once quipped, it was "as if she had Movie Star stamped on her birth certificate." But she wasn`t just any movie star. At her peak in the early 1960s, only in her mid 20s, Natalie Wood was already a three-time Oscar nominee, and second only to Elizabeth Taylor on Hollywood`s A-list. Yet it was more than beauty and box-office clout that made her a favorite cover girl on gossipy movie magazines. It was also the frequent drama of a private life filled with both heady romance and recurring heartbreak. For all her fame, she seldom found happiness. In a town that has never lacked for tragic endings, hers was one of the very saddest. Born Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko on July 20, 1938 in San Francisco, she was the daughter of Maria and Nikolai, Russian immigrants who changed their surname to the less foreign-sounding Gurdin while she was still a baby. When “Natasha” was 4, the Gurdins moved up the coast to picturesque Santa Rosa, where Nikolai, a manual laborer, struggled to find steady work but managed to afford a small house. There, Natasha enjoyed the only semblance of normal childhood she’s ever know. (The family included her older half sister Olga from Maria’s first marriage; little sister Lana, who would also become an actress, was born in 1946.) But that idyllic home life didn’t last long. Maria had big plans for the already beautiful Natasha, envisioning for her child the stardom she’s always dreamed of for herself. That dream began to come true in 1943 when the movie Happy Land was being filmed in Santa Rosa. Casting for extras, director Irving Pichel found a very determined Maria pushing her dutiful 4-year-old to the front line. But Pichel was charmed by the child, and chose her to play a little girl who drops her ice cream during the opening parade scene. Natasha’s fleeting close-up was all the encouragement Maria needed. Ignoring Pichel’s warning that making movies was no life for a child, the Gurdins soon sold their home and headed for Hollywood, fuled by Maria’s blind faith and obsessive ambission. After many months of shopping Natasha around town, Maria hounded Pichel into letting her daughter audition for a featured role in Tomorrow is Forever (1946), alongside Orson Welles and Claudette Colbert. With Maria coaching her to cry on cue, Natasha got the part. This time, she would have her name in the credits – and in true Hollywood fashion., the studio gave her a new one: Natalie Wood. Natalie was an instant hit. Before the film was e |
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Trivia |
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BiographyMeasurementsBust: 32" B Waist: 22" Hips: 33"Trivia and QuotesQuotes I felt a little funny when we were going to do the bed scene, all four of us, in Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969). I`m open to suggestions, I`m no prude, but four is a crowd in my book. Fortunately, Dyan Cannon was there. The thought of another woman being in there in the bed helped get me through it. It`s not like it sounds. It`s just that I don`t think I could have done it if it had been me and three men. You get tough in this business, until you get big enough to hire people to get tough for you. Then you can sit back and be a lady. [in 1961] In so many ways I think it`s a bore to be sorry you were a child actor - so many people feel sorry for you automatically. At the time I wasn`t aware of the things I missed, so why should I think of them in retrospect? Everybody misses something or other. [on being a child actor] I spent practically all my time in the company of adults. I was very withdrawn, very shy, I did what I was told and I tried not to disappoint anybody. I knew I had a duty to perform, and I was trained to follow orders. [on dating Elvis Presley] Elvis was so square, we`d go . . . for hot fudge sundaes. He didn`t drink, he didn`t swear, he didn`t even smoke. It was like having the date that I never had in high school. [shortly before her death] You know what I want? I want yesterday.Trivia "Natalie`s Song" by David Pack, was written about Natalie Wood. Called "The most Beautiful Teenager in the World" by Life magazine in 1955. Don Henley wrote the song "Dirty Laundry" to express his outrage at the tabloid press for their treatment of her after her death. Entertainment Weekly placed her on the "100 greatest stars of all time" list, at #70. Her death was listed at number 24 on E! Televisions 101 Most Shocking Moments in Entertainment. Once interviewed Arnold Schwarzenegger, before his career took off, for the magazine "Hollywood Reporter" in 1979 two years before her her death. The article was entitled "The Body meets the Face". She is credited for discovering Robert Redford and Sydney Pollack. Stepmother of Katie Wagner. Voted one of the top sex stars of the 1970s in Playboy magazine. was voted in 1970s playboy magazine as one of the top sexy stars Barbara Rush replaced her in The Young Philadelphians (1959) after she had been put on studio suspension for refusing the role. Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives." Volume One, 1981-1985, pages 889-890. New York: Charles Scribner`s Sons, 1998. Both she and her sister Lana Wood have played the love interest of Richard Beymer in 2 separate films: she as Maria opposite Richard`s Tony in West Side Story (1961), and Lana as Karen opposite Richard`s Dean in Scream Free! (1969) (aka Free Grass). People Magazine (USA) named her one of "The 25 most intriguing People of 1976" for the January 3 1977 issue. Portrayed by Rebecca Budig in James Dean: Race with Destiny (1997) (TV), by Justine Waddell in The Mystery of Natalie Wood (2004) (TV) and by Abi Young in Elvis (1979/I) (TV). She is the inspiration of High School Musical (2006) (TV) star, Vanessa Anne Hudgens. She was cast as Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1976) (TV) quite unexpectedly, without campaigning for the role. Wood explained that when Laurence Olivier would come to Hollywood, she would often be seated with him at the table at formal sit-down dinners. When Olivier decided to make a version of the Tennessee Williams play, he thought of casting Wood, his dinner companion, and her husband, Robert Wagner, in the husband-wife roles of Brick and Maggie. Naturally, they accepted. Turned down the films Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Barefoot in the Park (1967), and Goodbye, Columbus (1969). Turned down the role of Judith Anderson in The Devil`s Disciple (1959) because she didn`t want to work with Kirk Douglas for "personal" reasons. Wood knew screenwriter Gavin Lambert as both were intimates of director Randy Suhr. In the early 1960s, he wrote a novel about a Hollywood child star in the 1930s, Inside Daisy Clover (1965). After reading the book, Wood telephoned Lambert and said, "I`d kill for that part." He assured her she was his first choice for the movie, for which he was writing the screenplay. She got the part and Ruth Gordon got her first Oscar nomination as an actress for portraying Daisy`s mother. Measurements: 32-20 1/2-32 (at age 18), 32B-22-33 ("Parade" magazine December 1962), (Source: Celebrity Sleuth magazine). Wore dress size 5. Her and co-star Richard Beymer`s singing voices were both dubbed in West Side Story (1961). The woman who dubbed Natalie, Marni Nixon, also dubbed Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady (1964) and Deborah Kerr in The King and I (1956). Her mother, Maria, claimed that the family was closely related to the Romanov dynasty. Spoke Russian and English. The daughter of a Russian architect and a French ballerina could do a proper plié before she could barely walk. Though some people cite her mother as being French, her mother was Russian. The source of this misconception comes from the studio that Natalie worked at when she was young -- people noticed her mother`s accent and when asked if she was French, Maria replied: "Oh yes", a white lie that would contribute to this confusion. Younger sister Lana Wood made a ABC TV special on Natalie`s life, The Mystery of Natalie Wood (2004) (TV). Dated Elvis Presley in the 1950s; Elvis wanted to marry her, but his mother did not like Natalie. Her death was kismet, as she always cited a fear of water. An accident on a movie set when she was 9 years old left her with a permanently weakened left wrist and a slight bone protrusion, which, for the rest of her life, she hid with large bracelets. Regardless of the movie role, or anytime that she was out in public, she always wore a large bracelet on the left wrist. Attended ballet classes with two time husband Robert Wagner`s third wife Jill St. John and Wagner`s "Hart to Hart" (1979) co-star Stefanie Powers. By the early 1960s, Natalie Wood was considered one of Hollywood`s most valuable and wanted actresses. However, her career lost steam and never recovered from the box office failure of the highly-touted Inside Daisy Clover (1965) despite the fact that film critics had blamed the production`s failure on a poor script that included stilted dialog written for Wood`s character by screenwriter Gavin Lambert. Daughter with Richard Gregson: Natasha Gregson Wagner (b. 29 September 1970). Daughter with Robert Wagner: Courtney Wagner (b. 9 March 1974). Director Sydney Pollack credits her with his big break. Had planned to produce as well as star in I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (1977), but the leading role of Deborah went to Kathleen Quinlan by the time the film was made. Pallbearers at her funeral were Rock Hudson, Frank Sinatra, Laurence Olivier, Elia Kazan, Gregory Peck, David Niven, and Fred Astaire. Splendour, the name of the yacht Wood was on the night she died, was named after her 1961 movie Splendor in the Grass (1961). She co-starred in the film with former love Warren Beatty. The rubber dinghy "Prince Valiant" she`d been trying to board after falling from husband Robert Wagner`s yacht that fateful Thanksgiving weekend in 1981, was named after Wagner`s 1954 movie Prince Valiant (1954), a film the actor considered among his worst. On April 23, 1966, she made Harvard history when she became the first performer voted the year`s worst by the Harvard Lampoon to show up and accept her citation. Reportedly turned down Warren Beatty`s offer to play opposite him in Bonnie and Clyde (1967) because she didn`t want to be separated from her analyst while the film was on location in the Midwest. Favorite actress was Vivien Leigh. In the 1950s she was known as a "Hollywood Badgirl" along with Janet Leigh & Debbie Reynolds. Interred at Westwood Memorial Park, Los Angeles, California, USA, Section D, #60. Suffering from a deep fear of drowning after having barely survived an accident during the filming of The Green Promise (1949), her fear was so great that Elia Kazan had to lie -- promising a double -- and trick her into doing the scenes at the water reservoir in Splendor in the Grass (1961). Was commonly listed as 5` 3" wearing heels in movie magazines, though her actual height was 5` 0". Mother of Natasha Gregson Wagner and Courtney Wagner. Named after director Sam Wood. Sister of Lana Wood and Olga Wood. | ||
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