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| Birth Name(s) : Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko |
Date of Birth: July 20, 1938 |
| Status:
Married
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Partner:
Robert Wagner |
| Profession:
Actor |
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Full Natalie Wood Biography
Natalie Wood, the daughter of Russian Immigrants, was born Natalia Zakharenko on July 20, 1938. Natalie got her first role at the age of 4 in a movie called Happy Land (1943). She continued playing the roles of young girls until the age of 17, where she landed the role of 'Judy' in the legendary film Rebel Without a Cause (1955). This role showed Hollywood and the world that she had grown up into a beautiful and very talented young woman. For this role she was nominated for her first Academy Award. Natalie dated many big names in the entertainment business: James Dean Elvis, Raymond Burr and Dennis Hopper.
However, on December 28th, 1957 Natalie married the love of her life Robert Wagner (R.J. as Natalie called him). They divorced in 1962, later to remarry. Natalie once commented about their divorce saying they were both scared, insecure and listened to others that their marriage wouldn't work. In the 1960s Natalie's career boomed and she was nominated for two more Academy Awards, (Splendor in the grass (1961) and Love With The Proper Stranger (1963). In 1969 Natalie married producer Richard Gregson (I) and had a daughter Natasha. She divorced Gregson after finding out he was having an affair. R.J. and Natalie married on June 16th, 1972. In 1974 R.J. and Natalie had a daughter Courtney Brooke. They lived happily as husband and wife until tragically, while sailing on their yacht 'Splendour', Natalie had an accident trying to board the dinghy belonging to the boat, fell into the water and, while trying to recover, drowned.Natalie Wood, the daughter of Russian Immigrants, was born Natalia Zakharenko on July 20, 1938. Natalie got her first role at the age of 4 in a movie called Happy Land (1943). She continued playing the roles of young girls until the age of 17, where she landed the role of 'Judy' in the legendary film Rebel Without a Cause (1955). This role showed Hollywood and the world that she had grown up into a beautiful and very talented young woman. For this role she was nominated for her first Academy Award. Natalie dated many big names in the entertainment business: James Dean Elvis, Raymond Burr and Dennis Hopper. |
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Additional Natalie Wood Biography
Natalie Wood (July 20, 1938 – November 29, 1981) was a three time Academy Award nominated American film actress.
Wood was born Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko in San Francisco, California, to Russian immigrants, Nikolai and Maria Zakharenko. Her parents changed their surname to "Gurdin", and by the age of 4 she was billed as Natasha Gurdin. Her mother tightly managed and controlled the young girl's career and personal life from her start in films at the age of five. She starred in multiple films as a child including both Miracle on 34th Street and The Ghost and Mrs Muir in 1947. Her father is described by Wood's biographers as a passive alcoholic who went along with his wife's demands. Her sister, Lana Wood, is also an actress, notably a Bond girl, and was featured in a Playboy pictorial (she was not, however, a Playmate). She had another sister, Olga.Natalie Wood with James Dean in the 1955 film, Rebel Without a Cause
At age sixteen, Natalie won the role of Judy in Nicholas Ray's Rebel Without a Cause, co-starring James Dean, Sal Mineo, and Dennis Hopper. Most biographers say that she slept with Ray and Hopper in order to advance her career. Wood became one of the relatively few child stars to make the transition to adult stardom. By the time she was 25, she was already a three-time Oscar nominee, for Rebel Without a Cause, Splendor in the Grass and Love With the Proper Stranger.
According to Mary F. Pols, the teenaged Wood went on studio-arranged dates, often with closeted gay actors. In 1956, one of these was Tab Hunter, seven years her senior, with whom she developed a genuine friendship. They would attend parties to promote the two films they co-starred in that year, The Burning Hills and The Girl He Left Behind. Wood biographer and Hollywood screenwriter, Gavin Lambert, also confirms that Wood had studio-arranged dates with homosexual or bisexual actors, the first of which was with Nick Adams. Hunter in his autobiography elaborates on how a Hollywood studio's publicization of a sham romance between two actors each under contract to it was a strategy to stimulate public desire for seeing that studio's forthcoming films. The demographic segment he in particular appealed to was the newly influential teenage girl market segment, since he had swiftly established himself as a leading "heartthrob" for that demographic.
According to Lambert and his reviewer David Ehrenstein, Wood financially supported homosexual playwright Mart Crowley in a manner that made it possible for him to write his play, The Boys in the Band.
Concerning a possible relationship between Wood and allegedly homosexual actor Raymond Burr, 21 years her senior, Wood's biographer, Suzanne Finstad, cites Dennis Hopper as saying, "I just can't wrap my mind around that one. But you know, I saw them together. They were definitely a couple. Who knows what was going on there."
On November 29, 1981, at the age of 43, Wood drowned while the yacht she and Wagner owned, The Splendor, was anchored near Catalina Island. An investigation by Los Angeles County coroner Thomas Noguchi resulted in an official verdict of accidental drowning, although speculation about the circumstances continues.
Wood was on board the yacht with Wagner and Christopher Walken. The couple had invited the character actor to join them during the Thanksgiving break from the filming of the science-fiction screenplay Brainstorm. Wood and Walken, who co-starred in the project, had shot love scenes several days earlier on an MGM soundstage. In September and October, they had filmed on location in Raleigh, North Carolina. The Tar Heel State had recently become known to Hollywood executives as an excellent production site. Wood and her husband had stayed together in Raleigh for weeks without causing any trouble or negative rumors in the vicinity of her filming location. (Wagner was on a break from filming his Aaron Spelling — produced hit TV series Hart to Hart.) Mart Crowley, employed as Natalie's personal assistant since 1960, accompanied her to North Carolina. He joined the actress, her mother and sisters and Wagner for Thanksgiving dinner in Los Angeles, but he declined Natalie's invitation to spend the holiday weekend on the yacht.
At the time of her death Wood was filming Brainstorm. Released in theaters two years later without a climactic scene that Wood was scheduled to film the week after Thanksgiving, it turned out to be a box-office disaster. Wood was also scheduled to make her stage debut in an Ahmanson Theatre production of Anastasia, opposite Dame Wendy Hiller. She was scheduled to begin rehearsals shortly after wrapping Brainstorm.
She is buried in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery. She was survived by her husband, Robert Wagner, and two daughters, Natasha Gregson Wagner (from her marriage to Richard Gregson), and Courtney Wagner, her daughter with Robert Wagner. Other survivors included her stepdaughter Katie Wagner (from Robert Wagner's previous marriage to Marion Marshall), her sister, Lana Wood, sister Olga Virapaeff, and her mother. Lana Wood later published a biography about Natalie. |
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Natalie Wood Quote(s)
| 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. |
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