At the time of her death, Wood was an Oscar-nominated movie star with a long list of hits. She was also a devoted mother to daughters Courtney and Natasha Gregson Wagner and a powerful actress who made a comeback in the 1969 sex comedy Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice.
For decades, Natalie Wood was hailed as one of Hollywood’s most alluring actresses. Although her career was rocky and she had a few personal issues, Wood’s fans were generally loyal. However, like most people who live in the spotlight, the life of a celebrity is full of highs and lows. In the end, it was her own mental health that finally took her away. Learn more about Who Killed Natalie Wood as you continue reading.
On the night of July 25, 1981, Wood was with her husband Robert Wagner and her Brainstorm co-star Christopher Walken on their yacht, Splendour. The three men were accompanied by the boat’s captain, Dennis Davern. At the time of her death, investigators believed she went off in a dinghy and drowned after becoming afraid to be in the water in the dark. But in a 2013 report, coroner’s investigators cited scratch marks found on the side of the dinghy and fresh bruises on Wood’s arms and knee as evidence that she was not simply an accident victim.
The investigation reopened in 2011, when Davern publicly admitted that he had lied to investigators. A few days after Wood’s body was discovered, a stockbroker who owned a boat anchored near the Splendour received a letter from someone threatening to kill her if she did not remain quiet. The stockbroker, Marilyn Wayne, reported that the letter contained a drawing of a girl with her head cut off.
Wagner was a notoriously controlling man and in the weeks leading up to her death, he was involved in a dispute with Walken over his wife’s career. Despite his insistence that he had nothing to do with her death, it has long been suspected that Wagner was behind her demise.
The tumult in her marriage and her erratic behavior were well-documented at the time of her death. Those who knew her close up say that it was clear she struggled to maintain her dignity as a working woman in an industry that commoditized women and reduced them to prize trophies for men to gawk at and paw over. In her most famous films, she often played high-strung and neurotic characters that echoed some of her own personal problems.
Theories of Foul Play
When a beloved actress dies, it’s hard to shake off the nagging suspicions that something fishy went down. This is especially true when that actress was as well-liked and respected in real life as she was on screen. For decades, Natalie Wood’s death remained a Hollywood mystery. But now a new documentary, co-produced by Wood’s daughter Natasha Gregson Wagner and directed by Erin Moriarty, may be able to shed some light on what really happened to the Oscar-nominated star.
It focuses on the night of Wood’s drowning, which occurred Nov. 29, 1981. The documentarians cite multiple red flags, including the bruises on Wood’s body and her lack of a dinghy on board the yacht Splendour that she was supposedly partying on with actor Christopher Walken and the boat’s captain, Dennis Davern. They also point to the inconsistencies between what Wood’s husband, Robert Wagner, and Walken have recalled about the evening of her demise.
In a 1986 book, Wagner described how he and Walken had engaged in an impassioned political discussion that eventually prompted Wood to leave for bed, at which point he assumed she would take a small dinghy out on the water. When ten to 15 minutes passed and she hadn’t returned, he called Harbor Patrol. Her body was found a few hours later floating in the water about a mile from the yacht and near a small dinghy that had been beached nearby.
But in a new report, coroner Thomas Noguchi raises serious questions about the evidence presented by investigators in the case. He states that it’s possible Wood slipped off the yacht and onto the dinghy, which bore scratch marks that were consistent with her trying to board it. Noguchi argues that the bruises on her body also aren’t consistent with her slipping on a rock and striking her head. The documentarians also question why no nail clippings were taken from her body to determine whether she made the marks herself, and they argue that a nail on the side of the dinghy is inconsistent with Wood’s fall.
Theories of Accidental Drowning
When Natalie Wood died in 1981, the actress was at the height of her fame and beauty. She had starred in some of the most famous films of all time, and her Academy Award nomination for Miracle on 34th Street marked her successful transition from child star to respected adult onscreen performer. At the time, her death off the coast of California’s Catalina Island was widely ruled an accident.
However, some people have continued to speculate that the actress’s death was not a true accident and may have been murder. One of the more prominent theories revolves around her relationship with her husband, actor Robert Wagner.
While it is unclear whether the actor actually murdered his wife, he has been linked to her untimely demise through various theories. The most popular theory is that the couple was having an argument on the boat that night, and Wagner pushed her into the water. The pair was arguing about their children, according to some accounts.
Other reports say that the two were fighting over a political topic. However, the details surrounding the night of her death have changed over the years. In a 1992 interview on Geraldo Rivera’s Now It Can Be Told special and a 2000 Vanity Fair article, Walken recounted that the two had a heated discussion about their children before heading back to their yacht. He also alleged that Wood was unable to sleep with the dinghy banging against the boat, which caused her to fall into the water.
The bruises found on her body didn’t match those on the dinghy, and a coroner determined that she could not have fallen into the water from the yacht’s deck. Additionally, the scratch marks on the dinghy’s hull indicated that someone had tried to climb onto it.
The incident was a huge shock to Hollywood, and the case was reopened in 2011 after Davern wrote a book alleging that Wagner and Wood fought before the actress’s death. Neither Wagner nor his publicist have commented on the new information.
Theories of Murder
Almost 40 years after Natalie Wood disappeared from the yacht she shared with her husband and fellow actor Robert Wagner, she’s still one of Hollywood’s most enduring mysteries. The Oscar-nominated actress’ nighttime demise off the coast of Catalina Island in 1981 remains a subject of intense speculation and, for many, is a reminder that Hollywood’s silver screen idols can die just like anyone else.
The circumstances surrounding the accident remain murky, even for experts who worked on the case at the time. For many, the mystery centered around a fight between the couple, with some suggesting that Wagner may have been involved. But Wagner has always denied any wrongdoing, and over the decades, his versions of events have shifted, raising suspicions that something was off.
When she died, Natalie Wood was 43 and at the height of her movie star career. She was best known for her roles in classic movies like “Rebel Without a Cause” and “West Side Story,” but she had also started to show signs of psychological damage. She suffered from bulimia, alcoholism and a primal fear of water fueled by a Gypsy’s prophecy that she would drown in the sea.
According to her sister, Lana, this trauma was deep and profound, causing her to revert to her childhood self, complete with a belief that she would be taken by the sea and never return. She was also a self-described dutiful child who kept her silence to protect others, whether it be the directors who exploited her or the studio executives who looked the other way at her abuse.
In 2011, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department reopened the investigation after Davern’s 2009 book, “Goodbye Natalie, Goodbye Splendour,” revealed that he had heard the married pair arguing before they disappeared. He also noted that the dinghy she was found in had fresh, unattractive bruises, and police reclassified the death as suspicious.
In a new memoir, Lana writes that she did not write her book to bring down her brother-in-law, but rather to dispel the myths that have grown around Natalie’s death. She says that while she doesn’t believe her sister slipped off the boat on purpose, she isn’t sure how she ended up in the water.