Natalie Wood

Natalie Wood
Natalie Wood in 1981
Born	Natalia Nikolaevna Zacharenko July 20, 1938 San Francisco, California, United States
Died	November 29, 1981(1981-11-29) (aged 43) Santa Catalina Island, California, United States
Other names	Natasha Gurdin Natalie Wood Wagner
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1943–1981
Spouse(s)	Robert Wagner ​ (m. 1957⁠–⁠1962)​ Richard Gregson ​ ​ (m. 1969⁠–⁠1972)​ Robert Wagner ​ (m. 1972⁠–⁠1981)​ (her death)
Children	Natasha Gregson (b. 1970) Courtney Wagner (b. 1974)
Relatives	Lana Wood (sister)

Natalie Wood, born Natalia Nikolaevna Zacharenko (Russian: Наталья Николаевна Захаренко; July 20, 1938 – November 29, 1981) was an American film and television actress best known for her screen roles in Miracle on 34th Street, Splendor in the Grass, Rebel Without a Cause, and West Side Story. After first working in films as a child, Wood became a successful Hollywood star as a young adult, receiving three Academy Award nominations before she was 25 years old.

Wood began acting in movies at the age of four and at age eight was given a co-starring role in the classic Christmas film Miracle on 34th Street. As a teenager, her performance in Rebel Without a Cause (1955) earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She starred in the musical films West Side Story (1961) and Gypsy (1962), and received Academy Award for Best Actress nominations for her performances in Splendor in the Grass (1961) and Love with the Proper Stranger (1963).

Her career continued with films such as Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969). After this she took a break from acting and had two children, appearing in only two theatrical films during the 1970s. She was married to actor Robert Wagner twice, and to producer Richard Gregson in between the marriages to Wagner. She had one daughter by each: Natasha Gregson and Courtney Wagner. Her younger sister, Lana Wood, is also an actress.

Wood starred in several television productions, including a remake of the film From Here to Eternity (1979) for which she won a Golden Globe Award. During her career, from child actress to adult star, her films represented a "coming of age" for both her and Hollywood films in general.

At age 43, Wood drowned near Santa Catalina Island, California at the time her last film, Brainstorm (1983), was in production with co-star Christopher Walken. Her death was declared an accident, however, on November 17, 2011, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department reopened the case based on new witness statements.

Early years

Wood was born Natalia Nikolaevna Zacharenko in San Francisco to Russian immigrant parents Maria Stepanovna (née Zudilova; 1912–1998) and Nikolai Stepanovich Zakharenko. As an adult, she stated, "I'm very Russian, you know." She spoke both Russian and English. Her father was born in Vladivostok and he, his mother, and two brothers, immigrated to Montreal, Quebec, and later to San Francisco. There, he worked as a day laborer and carpenter. Her paternal grandfather Stepan worked in a chocolate factory in Russia and was killed in street fighting between Red and White Russian soldiers in 1918. Natalie's mother originally came from Barnaul, southern Siberia, but grew up in the Chinese city of Harbin. She described her family by weaving mysterious tales of being either gypsies or landowning aristocrats. In her youth, her mother dreamed of becoming an actress or ballet dancer. She was raised as a Russian Orthodox Christian and remained in the church.

Biographer Warren Harris writes that under the family's "needy circumstances", her mother may have transferred those ambitions to her middle daughter, Natalie. Her mother would take Natalie to the movies as often as she could: "Natalie's only professional training was watching Hollywood child stars from her mother's lap," notes Harris. Wood would later recall this time period:

My mother used to tell me that the cameraman who pointed his lens out at the audience at the end of the Paramount newsreel was taking my picture. I'd pose and smile like he was going to make me famous or something. I believed everything my mother told me.

Shortly after Wood's birth in San Francisco, her family moved to nearby Sonoma County, and lived in Santa Rosa, California, where Wood was noticed during a film shoot in downtown Santa Rosa. Her mother soon moved the family to Los Angeles and pursued a career for her daughter. Wood's younger sister, Svetlana Zacharenko - now known as Lana Wood - who also became an actress and later a Bond girl. She and Lana have an older half sister, Olga Viriapaeff. Though Natalie had been born "Natalia Zacharenko", her father later changed the family name to "Gurdin" and Natalie was often known as "Natasha", the diminutive of Natalia. The studio executives at RKO Radio Pictures later changed her name to "Natalie Wood", a name she never liked.

Child actress

File:Wood-Pichel.jpg

With Irving Pichel

Wood made her film début a few weeks before turning five during a fifteen-second scene in the 1943 film Happy Land. Despite the brief part, she attracted the notice of the director, Irving Pichel, who remained in contact with Wood's family for two years when another role came up. The director telephoned Wood's mother and asked her to bring her daughter to Los Angeles for a screen test. Wood's mother became so excited at the possibilities, she overreacted and "packed the whole family off to Los Angeles to live," writes Harris. Wood's father opposed the idea, but his wife's "overpowering ambition to make Natalie a star" took priority. According to Wood's sister, Lana Wood, Pichel "discovered her and wanted to adopt her."

Wood, then seven years old, got the part and played a German orphan opposite Orson Welles and Claudette Colbert in Tomorrow Is Forever. Welles later said that Wood was a born professional, "so good, she was terrifying." After Wood acted in another film directed by Pichel, her mother signed her up with 20th Century Fox studio for her first major role, the 1947 Christmas classic Miracle on 34th Street; the film made her one of the top child stars in Hollywood. Within a few months after the film's release, Wood was so popular that Macy's invited her to appear in the store's annual Thanksgiving Day parade.

File:Natalie Wood Miracle.jpg

Wood as Susan Walker in Miracle on 34th Street (1947).

Film historian John C. Tibbetts writes that for the next few years following her success in Miracle, Wood played roles as a daughter in a series of family films: Fred MacMurray's daughter in Father Was a Fullback and Dear Brat, Margaret Sullavan's daughter in No Sad Songs for Me; James Stewart's daughter in The Jackpot; Joan Blondell's neglected daughter in The Blue Veil; and daughter of Bette Davis' character in The Star. In all, Wood appeared in over 20 films as a child.

Because she was a minor, Wood's formal education took place on the studio lots wherever she was contracted. California law required that until age 18, actors had to spend at least three hours per day in the classroom, notes Harris. "She was a straight A student," and one of the few child actors to excel at arithmetic. Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who directed her in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), said that "In all my years in the business, I never met a smarter moppet." Wood remembered that period in her life:

I always felt guilty when I knew the crew was sitting around waiting for me to finish my three hours. As soon as the teacher let us go, I ran to the set as fast as I could.

As a child actress, Wood received media attention. By age nine, she had been named the "most exciting juvenile motion picture star of the year" by Parents. At age twelve, Wood was judged Child Star of the Year by the Children's Day National Council of New York.

Teen stardom

File:James Dean-Natalie Wood (Rebel Without a Cause) still.jpg

With James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause (1955)

In the 1953-1954 television season, Wood played Ann Morrison, the teenage daughter in the ABC situation comedy, The Pride of the Family, with Paul Hartman cast as her father, Albie Morrison; Fay Wray, as her mother, Catherine; and Robert Hyatt, as her brother, Junior Morrison.

Wood successfully made the transition from child star to ingenue at age 16 when she co-starred with James Dean and Sal Mineo in Rebel Without a Cause, Nicholas Ray's film about teenage rebellion. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She followed this with a small but crucial role in John Ford's western The Searchers which starred John Wayne and also featured Wood's sister, Lana, who played a younger version of her character in the film's earlier scenes.

Wood graduated in 1956 from Van Nuys High School.

Signed to Warner Brothers, Wood was kept busy during the remainder of the decade in many 'girlfriend' roles that she found unsatisfying. The studio cast her in two films opposite Tab Hunter, hoping to turn the duo into a box office draw that never materialized. Among the other films made at this time were 1958's Kings Go Forth and Marjorie Morningstar. As Marjorie Morningstar, Wood played the role of a young Jewish girl in New York City who has to deal with the social and religious expectations of her family, as she tries to forge her own path and separate identity.

However, she had her detractors. The film critic Pauline Kael referred to her as "clever little Natalie Wood" the "most machine-tooled of Hollywood ingenues.

Adult career

Wood's characters in Rebel Without a Cause, The Searchers (a classic western directed by John Ford) and Marjorie Morningstar began to show her range of acting style widening considerably, observes Tibbetts. Her former "childlike sweetness" was now being combined with a noticeable "restlessness that was characteristic of the youth of the 1950s." After Wood appeared in the box office flop All the Fine Young Cannibals, her career was salvaged by her casting in director Elia Kazan's Splendor in the Grass (1961) opposite Warren Beatty, which earned Wood Best Actress Nominations at the Academy Awards, Golden Globes and BAFTA Awards.

Splendor in the Grass (1961)

Wood's career was in a transition period, having until then been cast primarily in roles as a child or teenager. She was now hoping to be cast in adult roles. Biographer Suzanne Finstad notes that a "turning point" in her life as an actress took place upon seeing the film A Streetcar Named Desire: "She was transformed, in awe of director Elia Kazan and of Vivien Leigh's performance... [who] became a role model for Natalie." "Her roles raised the possibility that one's sensitivity could mark a person as a kind of victim," noted Tibbetts.

In 1961, after a "series of bad films, her career was already in decline," notes Rathgeb. Kazan himself writes that the "sages" of the film community declared her as "washed up" as an actress, although he still wanted to interview her for his next film:

File:Kazan-Natalie-Splendor.jpg

Wood, Beatty and director Elia Kazan on the set of Splendor in the Grass

When I saw her, I detected behind the well-mannered 'young wife' front a desperate twinkle in her eyes... I talked with her more quietly then and more personally. I wanted to find out what human material was there, what her inner life was... Then she told me she was being psychoanalyzed. That did it. Poor R.J., I said to myself. I liked Bob Wagner, I still do.

Kazan cast Wood as the female lead in Splendor in the Grass, and her career rebounded. He felt that despite her earlier, innocent roles, she had the talent and maturity to go beyond. In the film, Warren Beatty's character was deprived of sexual love with Natalie, and as a result turns to a prostitute; Natalie likewise couldn't handle the issue, but ended up in a mental institution. Kazan writes that he cast her in the role partly because he saw in Wood's personality a "true-blue quality with a wanton side that is held down by social pressure," adding that "she clings to things with her eyes," a quality he found especially "appealing."

Finstad feels that despite Wood never receiving training in Method acting techniques, "working with Kazan brought her to the greatest emotional heights of her career. The experience was exhilarating but wrenching for Natalie, who faced her demons on Splendor." She adds that a scene in the film, as a result of "Kazan's wizardry ... produced a hysteria in Natalie that may be her most powerful moment as an actress." Actor Gary Lockwood, who also acted in the film, felt that "Kazan and Natalie were a terrific marriage, because you had this beautiful girl, and you had somebody that could get things out of her." Kazan's favorite scene in the movie was the last one, when Wood goes back to see her lost first love, Bud (Beatty). "It's terribly touching to me. I still like it when I see it," writes Kazan.

West Side Story (1961)

File:Wood - West Side Story still.jpg

In West Side Story

In 1961 Wood played Maria in the Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise musical West Side Story which was a major box office and critical success.

Tibbetts notes similarities in her role in this film and the earlier Rebel Without a Cause. Here, she also plays the role of a restless adolescent which reflected the "restlessness of American youth in the 1950s," expressed by youth gangs and juvenile delinquency, along with early Rock and Roll. Both films, he observes, were "modern allegories based on the 'Romeo and Juliet' theme, including private restlessness and public alienation. Where in Rebel she falls in love with the character played by James Dean, whose gang-like friends and violent temper alienated him from his family, in West Side Story she also enters into a romance with a gang member and his threatening world of outcasts, also alienated from their families and the law.

Although the singing parts were sung by Marni Nixon, West Side Story is still regarded as one of Wood's best films. Wood did sing when she starred in the 1962 film, Gypsy. She co-starred in the slapstick comedy The Great Race (1965), with Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, and Peter Falk. Her ability to speak Russian was an asset given to her character "Maggie DuBois", justifying the character to record the progress of the race across Siberia, and entering the race at the beginning as a contestant. Wood then received her third Academy Award nomination and another Golden Globe award in 1964 for Love with the Proper Stranger, opposite Steve McQueen.

Although many of Wood's films were commercially profitable, her acting was criticized at times. In 1966 she won the Harvard Lampoon Worst Actress of the Year Award. She was the first performer in the award's history to accept it in person and the Harvard Crimson wrote she was "quite a good sport." Director Sydney Pollack was quoted as saying about Wood, "When she was right for the part, there was no one better. She was a damn good actress." Other notable films starring Wood were Inside Daisy Clover (1965) and This Property Is Condemned (1966), both of which co-starred Robert Redford and brought subsequent Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress. In both films, which were set during the Great Depression, Wood played small-town teens with big dreams. After the release of the films, Wood suffered emotionally and sought professional therapy. During this time, she turned down the Faye Dunaway role in Bonnie and Clyde because she did not want to be separated from her analyst.

Natalie Wood's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame located on the south side of the 7000 block of Hollywood Boulevard

After three years away from acting, Wood played a swinger in Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969), a comedy about sexual liberation. The film was one of the top ten box-office hits of the year, and Wood received ten percent of the film's profits. According to Tibbets, this was the first film in which "the saving leavening of humor was brought to bear upon the many painful dilemmas portrayed in her adult films."

After becoming pregnant with her first child, Natasha Gregson, in 1970, Wood went into semi-retirement and acted in only four more theatrical films during the remainder of her life. She made a very brief cameo appearance as herself in The Candidate (1972), reuniting her for a third time with Robert Redford. She also reunited on the screen with Robert Wagner in the television movie of the week The Affair (1973) and with Sir Laurence Olivier and husband Wagner in an adaptation of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1976) broadcast as a special by NBC. She made cameo appearances on Wagner's prime-time detective series Switch in 1978 as "Bubble Bath Girl" and Hart to Hart in 1979 as "Movie Star." During the last two years of her life, Wood began to work more frequently as her daughters reached school age.

File:Wood-Brainstorm.jpg

Wood in her last film, Brainstorm

Film roles Wood turned down during her career hiatus went to Ali MacGraw in Goodbye, Columbus; Mia Farrow in The Great Gatsby; and Faye Dunaway in The Towering Inferno. Later, Wood chose to star in misfires like the disaster film Meteor (1979) with Sean Connery and the sex comedy The Last Married Couple in America (1980). She found more success in television, receiving high ratings and critical acclaim in 1979 for The Cracker Factory and especially the miniseries film From Here to Eternity with Kim Basinger and William Devane. Wood's performance in the latter won her a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in 1980. Later that year, she starred in The Memory of Eva Ryker which proved to be her last completed production.

At the time of her death, Wood was filming the science fiction film Brainstorm (1983), co-starring Christopher Walken and directed by Douglas Trumbull. She was also scheduled to star in a theatrical production of Anastasia with Wendy Hiller and in a film called Country of the Heart, playing a terminally ill writer who has an affair with a teenager, to be played by Timothy Hutton. Due to her untimely death, both of the latter projects were canceled and the ending of Brainstorm had to be re-written. A stand-in and sound-alikes were used to replace Wood for some of her critical scenes. The film was released posthumously on September 30, 1983, and was dedicated to her in the closing credits.

Wood appeared in 56 films for cinema and television. Following her death, Time magazine noted that although critical praise for Wood had been sparse throughout her career, "she always had work."

Personal life

Marriages

With husband Robert Wagner in 1975

Natalie Wood's two marriages to actor Robert Wagner were highly publicized. Wood said she had had a crush on Wagner since she was a child, and on her 18th birthday she went on a studio-arranged date with the 26-year-old actor. They married a year later on December 28, 1957, a marriage which met with great protest from Wood's mother. In an article in February 2009, Wagner recalled their early romance:

I saw Natalie around town but she never seemed interested. She was making Rebel Without a Cause and hanging out with James Dean; I was with an older crowd. The first time I remember really talking to her was at a fashion show in 1956. She was beautiful, but still gave no hint about the mad crush she had on me. I later found out she had signed with my agent simply because he was my agent. A month later, I invited Natalie to a premiere on what turned out to be her 18th birthday. At dinner, we both sensed things were different. I sent her flowers and the dates continued. I remember the instant I fell in love with her. One night on board a small boat I owned, she looked at me with love, her dark brown eyes lit by a table lantern. That moment changed my life.

A year after their wedding, Wood expressed her feelings in a letter to her new husband:

"You are my husband, my child, my strength, my weakness, my lover, my life."

Wood and Wagner separated in June 1961 and divorced in April 1962.

On May 30, 1969, Wood married British producer Richard Gregson. The couple dated for two and a half years prior to their marriage, while Gregson waited for his divorce to be finalized. They had a daughter, Natasha Gregson (born September 29, 1970). They separated in August 1971 after Wood overheard an inappropriate telephone conversation between her secretary and Gregson. The split also marked a brief estrangement between Wood and her family, when mother Maria and sister Lana told her to reconcile with Gregson for the sake of her newborn child. She filed for divorce, and it was finalized in April 1972.

In early 1972, Wood resumed her relationship with Wagner. The couple remarried on July 16, 1972, just five months after reconciling and only three months after she divorced Gregson. Their daughter, Courtney Wagner, was born on March 9, 1974. They remained married until Wood's death seven years later on November 29, 1981.

Other relationships

Biographer Suzanne Finstad writes that Wood had a relationship with director Nicholas Ray, director of Rebel Without a Cause, when she was 16 and he was 43. During her teens, Wood went on studio-arranged dates with older men, including actors Tab Hunter and Nick Adams, and dated actor Raymond Burr, when she was 17 and he was 38. Wood also dated actors Michael Caine, Steve McQueen, Warren Beatty and Dennis Hopper, singer Elvis Presley, director Henry Jaglom, and politician Jerry Brown.

Among her celebrity friends were fellow child performers Margaret O'Brien, Carol Lynley and Stefanie Powers.

Death

On Saturday, November 28, 1981, the Wagners' yacht, Splendour, was anchored in Isthmus Cove off Catalina Island with Wagner, Wood, and Walken, on board. Also on board was the boat's captain, Dennis Davern, who had worked a number of years for the Wagners before Wood's death.

Wood, Wagner and Walken spent much of the time drinking alcohol, notes Finstad.. Walken began the trip with two Bloody Marys and spent most of the trip to Catalina lying down seasick. Wagner and Walken, in statements to investigators, noted they and Wood spent the day and evening drinking beer and margaritas, and "barhopping" on the island, which Finstad estimates at five hours of on-shore drinking. When they returned to the boat that first evening, Walken recalled "more drinking" took place..

According to Wagner in his 2008 book, Pieces of My Heart, he had been jealous of Wood's friendship with Walken and there had been a fight between him, Walken, and Wood, during which Wagner smashed a wine bottle on a table. Davern, the captain, later stated that "as soon as Christopher and Natalie and R.J. entered the boat is when there was a feeling jealousy going on between R.J. and Christopher." To help calm the stressful atmosphere, Davern said he gave them Quaaludes, a "powerful sedative," which a friend of his had given him. Neither Wagner nor Wood had ever tried the drug, but Davern tried to reassure them: "All they do, R.J., is relax you. they calm your nerves. You start feeling good about things, and everything seems to go in slow motion," he explained.

According to Wagner, it was at this time that Wood left for her stateroom and Walken retired to his. According to Davern, it was at this time that he heard the couple fighting; he reports that he turned up his stereo to drown out the argument. Looking out the pilot house window, he saw both Wood and Wagner arguing at the aft deck of the yacht. Shortly after this, Davern claims, Wagner sought him out, saying he couldn't find Wood. Davern unsuccessfully searched the boat for her, also noticing that the yacht's dinghy was missing. According to Davern, Wagner seemed unconcerned about Wood's disappearance and poured drinks for both himself and Davern.

At this point, Wagner's story as told in his book differs from Davern's: he claims when he went to their stateroom to talk to Wood, she wasn't there. Wagner further states that while he and Davern searched the boat for his wife he also noticed the dinghy to be missing. Wagner further wrote that he had assumed Wood had used the dinghy to go to shore as a result of the argument. Davern claims that Wagner not only seemed unconcerned, but that he told Davern not to alert anyone about Wood's absence. According to Davern, Wagner said, "We're not going to look too hard, we’re not going to turn on the search light, we’re not going to notify anybody right at the moment."

Wagner's theory is that Wood tried either to leave the yacht or to secure a dinghy from banging against the hull when she accidentally slipped and fell overboard. A woman on a nearby yacht reported she had heard a woman calling for help at around midnight. She further reported that the cries lasted for about 15 minutes and were answered by someone else who said, "Take it easy. We'll be over to get you." According to the witness, "It was laid back, there was no urgency or immediacy in their shouts."

Wood's body was found off Catalina Island approximately a mile away from where the Splendour was anchored. Police reports stated she was wearing a long nightgown, socks, and a down jacket. Doug Bombard, a former harbor director who took part in the search for Wood, stated that he spotted her because of the red jacket she had been wearing.

Los Angeles County coroner Thomas Noguchi ruled her death an accident by drowning and hypothermia following his investigation. According to the autopsy report, Wood had dozens of bruises on her body, including injuries to her face and arms. The autopsy found that her blood alcohol level was .14, and an examining doctor stated that it was higher when she went overboard. They also found two drugs in her bloodstream: Cyclivine, a sea-sickness pill, and Darvon, a painkiller, which they believed caused a "much more drunken state" when combined with alcohol.

Natalie Wood was buried in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery. Scores of international media and photographers as well as the public tried to attend Wood's funeral at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery; however, all were required to remain outside the cemetery walls. Among the celebrity attendees were Frank Sinatra, Elizabeth Taylor, Fred Astaire, Rock Hudson, David Niven, Gregory Peck, Gene Kelly, Elia Kazan and Sir Laurence Olivier. Olivier, who had worked with Wood and Wagner in their 1976 television production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, flew from London to Los Angeles to attend the service.

On November 17, 2011, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department office reopened the case based on new information they had received.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1943	Happy Land	Little girl who drops ice cream cone	uncredited; film debut
1946	The Bride Wore Boots	Carol Warren
1946	Tomorrow Is Forever	Margaret Ludwig	First credited role
1947	Driftwood	Jenny Hollingsworth
1947	The Ghost and Mrs. Muir	Anna Muir as a child
1947	Miracle on 34th Street	Susan Walker	First starring role
1948	Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay!	Bean McGill
1949	Father Was a Fullback	Ellen Cooper
1949	The Green Promise	Susan Anastasia Matthews
1949	Chicken Every Sunday	Ruth Hefferan
1950	Never a Dull Moment	Nancy 'Nan' Howard
1950	The Jackpot	Phyllis Lawrence
1950	Our Very Own	Penny Macaulay
1950	No Sad Songs for Me	Polly Scott
1951	The Blue Veil	Stephanie Rawlins
1951	Dear Brat	Pauline Jones
1952	The Star	Gretchen Drew
1952	Just for You'	Barbara Blake
1952	The Rose Bowl Story	Sally Burke
1954	The Silver Chalice	Helena as a child
1955	Rebel Without a Cause	Judy	Nominated—Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
1955	One Desire	Seely Dowder
1956	The Girl He Left Behind	Susan Daniels
1956	The Burning Hills	Maria Christina Colton
1956	A Cry in the Night	Liz Taggert
1956	The Searchers	Debbie Edwards (older)
1957	Bombers B-52	Lois Brennan
1958	Kings Go Forth	Monique Blair
1958	Marjorie Morningstar	Marjorie Morgenstern
1960	All the Fine Young Cannibals	Sarah 'Salome' Davis
1960	Cash McCall	Lory Austen
1961	West Side Story	Maria
1961	Splendor in the Grass	Wilma Dean Loomis	Nominated—Academy Award for Best Actress Nominated—BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actress Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
1962	Gypsy	Louise	Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1963	Love with the Proper Stranger	Angie Rossini	1st Runner Up — New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress Nominated—Academy Award for Best Actress Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
1964	Sex and the Single Girl	Helen Gurley Brown
1965	Inside Daisy Clover	Daisy Clover	Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy Won—World Film Favorite – Female
1965	The Great Race	Maggie DuBois
1966	Penelope	Penelope Elcott
1966	This Property Is Condemned	Alva Starr	Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
1969	Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice	Carol Sanders
1972	The Candidate	Herself	cameo
1973	The Affair	Courtney Patterson	TV movie
1975	Peeper	Ellen Prendergast
1976	Cat on a Hot Tin Roof	Maggie	TV movie
1979	From Here to Eternity	Karen Holmes	Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama
1979	The Cracker Factory	Cassie Barrett	TV movie
1979	Meteor	Tatiana Nikolaevna Donskaya
1980	The Last Married Couple in America	Mari Thompson
1980	The Memory of Eva Ryker	Eva/Claire Ryker	TV movie
1980	Willie & Phil	Herself	(cameo)
1983	Brainstorm	Karen Brace	Nominated—Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1953	Jukebox Jury	as Herself	Guest appearance
1953	Pride of the Family	Ann Morrison	One season
1954	The Public Defender	Rene Marchand	One episode, "Return of the Dead"
1969	Bracken's World	Cameo	Guest appearance
1978	Switch	Girl in the Bubble Bath	Guest Appearance
1979	Hart to Hart	Movie Star	Pilot episode, as Natasha Gurdin

Other awards

Year	Organization	Award	Film	Result
1946	Box Office Magazine	Most Talented Young Actress of 1946	Tomorrow Is Forever	Won
1956	National Association of Theatre Owners	Star of Tomorrow Award		Won
1957	Golden Globe Award	New Star Of The Year – Actress	Rebel Without a Cause	Won
1958	Golden Laurel Awards	Top Female Dramatic Performance	Marjorie Morningstar	Nominated
1958	Golden Laurel Awards	Top Female Star		Nominated (13th place)
1959	Golden Laurel Awards	Top Female Star		Nominated (7th place)
1960	Golden Laurel Awards	Top Female Star		Nominated (9th place)
1961	Grauman's Chinese Theatre	Handprint Ceremony		Inducted
1961	Golden Laurel Awards	Top Female Star		Nominated (14th place)
1962	Golden Laurel Awards	Top Female Dramatic Performance	Splendor in the Grass	Nominated
1962	Golden Laurel Awards	Top Female Star		Nominated (5th place)
1963	Golden Laurel Awards	Top Female Musical Performance	Gypsy	Nominated
1963	Golden Laurel Awards	Top Female Star		Nominated (2nd place)
1964	Mar del Plata Film Festival	Best Actress	Love with the Proper Stranger	Won
1964	New York Film Critics Circle Awards	Best Actress	Love with the Proper Stranger	Nominated
1964	Golden Laurel Awards	Top Female Dramatic Performance	Love with the Proper Stranger	Nominated
1964	Golden Laurel Awards	Top Female Star		Nominated (3rd place)
1965	Golden Laurel Awards	Top Female Star		Nominated (6th place)
1966	Golden Globe Award	World Film Favorite		Won
1966	Golden Laurel Awards	Top Female Star		Nominated (8th place)
1967	Golden Laurel Awards	Top Female Star		Nominated (3rd place)
1968	Golden Laurel Awards	Top Female Star		Nominated (12th place)
1970	Golden Laurel Awards	Top Female Star		Nominated (9th place)
1971	Golden Laurel Awards	Top Female Star		Nominated (9th place)
1987	Hollywood Chamber of Commerce	Hollywood Walk of Fame		Inducted

Bibliography

• Finstad, Suzanne (2001). Natasha: The Biography of Natalie Wood (Biography). Three Rivers Press. ISBN 978-0-60-980957-0. Retrieved July 24, 2010. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Frascella, Lawrence and Al Weisel. Live Fast, Die Young: The Wild Ride of Making Rebel Without a Cause. Touchstone, 2005. ISBN 0-7432-6082-1.
• Lambert, Gavin (2004). Natalie Wood: A Life (Biography). London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 978-0-57-122197-4. Retrieved July 24, 2010. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Harris, Warren G. (1988). Hollywood's Star-Crossed Lovers "Natalie and R.J." (Biography) (First ed.). Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-38-523691-1. Retrieved July 24, 2010. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Nickens, Christopher. Natalie Wood: A Biography in Photographs. Doubleday, 1986. ISBN 0-385-23307-8.
• Noguchi, Thomas T. Coroner. Simon & Schuster (October 1983). ISBN 0671467727.
• Rulli, Marti and Dennis Davern. Goodbye Natalie Goodbye Splendour. Medallion, 2009. ISBN 1597776394.
• Tibetts, John C. and James M. Welsh (eds.). American Classic Screen Profiles, Scarecrow Press, 2010. ISBN 0810876760.
• Wood, Lana. Natalie: A Memoir by Her Sister. Putnam Pub Group, 1984. ISBN 0-399-12903-0.

External links

• Natalie Wood at IMDb
• Natalie Wood at Find a Grave
• Natalie Wood Style and Beauty
• Natalie Wood at Who2