Natalie Wood from 0 to 43 years old

Natalie Wood (July 20, 1938 – November 29, 1981) was an American actress who began her career in film as a child and successfully transitioned to young adult roles. Born Natalie Zacharenko in San Francisco to Maria Zudilova and second husband Nicholas Zacharenko, she moved to Santa Rosa, California in 1942, and started acting when she was only 4 years old, changing her surname to “Wood” to make it more appealing to English-speaking audiences and as a tribute to filmmaker Sam Wood. Her only sibling, sister Svetlana, also became an actress under the name Lana Wood. Natalie was given a co-starring role at age 8 in Miracle on 34th Street. As a teenager, she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), followed by a role in John Ford’s The Searchers (1956). Natalie starred in the musical films West Side Story (1961) and Gypsy (1962) and received nominations for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performances in Splendor in the Grass (1961) and Love with the Proper Stranger (1963). Her career continued with films such as Sex and the Single Girl (1964), The Great Race (1965), Inside Daisy Clover (1965), and Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969). During the 1970s, she began a hiatus from film and had two daughters: one with her second husband Richard Gregson, and one with Robert Wagner, her first husband whom she married again after divorcing Gregson. She acted in only two feature films throughout the decade, but she appeared slightly more often in television productions, including a remake of From Here to Eternity (1979) for which she won a Golden Globe Award. Wood’s films represented a “coming of age” for her and for Hollywood films in general. Critics have suggested that her cinematic career represents a portrait of modern American womanhood in transition, as she was one of the few to take both child roles and those of middle-aged characters. On November 29, 1981, aged 43, she drowned in the Pacific Ocean near Santa Catalina Island during a break from production of her would-be comeback film Brainstorm. She was with her husband Wagner and Brainstorm co-star Christopher Walken. The events surrounding her death have been the subject of conflicting witness statements, prompting the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, under the instruction of the coroner’s office, to list her cause of death as “drowning and other undetermined factors” in 2012. In 2018, Wagner was named as a person of interest in the ongoing investigation into her death. Natalie Wood was one of the few child actors who also achieved success as an adult movie star. Her career was also a bridge between Old Hollywood and New Hollywood. According to her daughter, Natasha Gregson Wagner, the focus and speculation on her death “overshadowed her life’s work and who she was as a person”.

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