Actress Natalie Wood drowned on the weekend after Thanksgiving in 1981, found dead off the coast of Catalina Island in a small dinghy. She had been drinking with husband Robert Wagner, her Brainstorm co-star Christopher Walken and the yacht’s captain, Dennis Davern.
Officially, it was ruled an accidental drowning. But a lot of questions remained. Keep reading the article below to learn more about Natalie Wood Death.
Natalie Wood was a larger than life movie star that took Hollywood by storm and won three Oscar nominations in her lifetime. She was also a social activist and champion of mental health, decades ahead of her time. She also fought back against the Hollywood patriarchy and demanded equal pay for female actors. Yet for all of her many achievements, she died under mysterious circumstances in 1981.
Wood was a beautiful, talented actress with an even more beautiful offscreen life. She was an it-couple twice over with actor Robert Wagner and had a glamorous lifestyle that included luxurious vacations and high-profile romances. Her film career spanned decades and included a number of big screen classics, though her later years were more difficult.
On the night of her death, Wood was with her husband on their yacht called Splendor moored off Catalina Island. Guests on the boat that night included Wagner and actor Christopher Walken. Speculation has swirled ever since about what really happened to her.
One theory is that she was the victim of a brutal murder-suicide. Another is that she fell off the yacht. But both of those theories have a problem. The Los Angeles coroner changed the cause of death on her official report to accidental drowning. The change was based on new evidence. And that new evidence was some suspicious bruises on her body.
According to investigators, the bruises were consistent with the kind of marks that would be made if someone was knocked down and then dragged underwater. They were on her arms, neck, and chest. There were no defensive wounds on Wagner at all.
The bruises were also in the locations that would be expected if someone was fighting someone off. Several witnesses claim that they heard shouting from the water, but others say they didn’t hear anything. Besides that, no one on board the yacht heard anything either except for a woman from a nearby buy boat who has said over the years she had heard calls for help from 11:05 to 11:25 PM. And that is not a lot of time for someone to fall overboard and drown.
Theories
As one of the most iconic and acclaimed actresses of the 1950’s and 60’s, Natalie Wood starred in such classics as Miracle on 34th Street, West Side Story and Rebel Without a Cause. She was also a successful singer and a well-known model. She appeared in numerous TV shows and made over 30 movies. In addition to acting, she was involved in several political causes. She was a Democrat and was active in the Civil Rights Movement. She was also a feminist and an advocate for women’s issues.
On November 29, 1981, the actress was found dead in the Pacific Ocean off California’s Catalina Island. She was wearing a flannel nightgown, socks and a down jacket. It was initially reported that she had fallen overboard from her husband’s yacht, Splendour. Later it was determined that she had actually drowned.
Over the years, many theories have surfaced regarding Wood’s death. Some have focused on her personal and professional life while others have pointed the finger at her death as a murder mystery. While everyone at the time agreed that her death was tragic, the exact circumstances surrounding her death have always been disputed.
The author examines a number of the most popular theories of Natalie Wood’s death in detail. He consults with a forensic pharmacologist who addresses the possible role drugs might have played in her death. He also discusses the varying accounts of what happened on board the yacht, as reported by various witnesses, including boat captain Davern, and by tabloid reporters.
He reveals new information from the police investigation, which is currently closed, that raises serious questions about the original account of what happened. He also interviews Wood’s daughter, Natasha Gregson Wagner, to get her take on what really happened.
The book also explores the questionable behavior of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department in the wake of Wood’s death. In particular, the author details Peter Pitchess’ cozy relationship with Frank Sinatra and other Hollywood “fixers” that might have impacted his handling of the case.
Reactions
Natalie Wood was an iconic Hollywood star, a doe-eyed well of emotion on screen and a shrewd businesswoman off. She was also an activist for the LGBTQ community and a doting mother to her three children. Her death in 1981 stunned the world, and her murder remains a mystery to this day.
The documentary focuses on the last days of Wood’s life and the effect it had on her loved ones. Co-produced by her daughter Natasha Gregson Wagner, it’s a tender and sensitive film that puts the focus on the actress’s legacy and all the ways she impacted those around her.
It also takes a look at the eerie coincidences that surround her death. It’s not a thriller by any means, but there are some genuinely unsettling details that are hard to ignore. For example, a fortuneteller had told Wood’s mother that her daughter would die in “dark water.” It’s a detail almost too ominous for a Hollywood script. Wood herself was notoriously afraid of the water and once said in an interview that she feared dark seawater more than anything else in the world.
She and her husband Robert Wagner often went on boating trips to Catalina Island, which was close to Los Angeles. The couple invited a number of friends to join them, but most of them declined. The only people who accepted were her Brainstorm costar Christopher Walken and Dennis Davern, the captain of their yacht.
In interviews, Wagner and Walken both retell the night of Wood’s death and give their own theories about what happened. While they don’t explicitly connect their theory to the cause of her death, it’s clear that they believe that something happened to her on deck before she disappeared in the water.
In a later interview, Wood’s sister Lana claims that Wagner was involved in her death and has been lying about it all these years. She’s convinced that he has something to hide and is angry at him for cutting her out of his life after her death. She believes that he is keeping the truth from the public and has been covering up for his murderer friend, the yacht’s skipper.
Conclusions
The death of Natalie Wood, an actress who was one of the most popular stars of Hollywood’s ’50s and ’60s, remains a mystery even to this day. The star, who appeared in such films as West Side Story and Rebel Without a Cause, drowned off the coast of Santa Catalina Island on November 29, 1981, while she and her husband, Robert Wagner, were aboard their yacht while filming a sci-fi movie called Brainstorm.
A new report by the Los Angeles County coroner’s office, however, suggests that Wood may have been assaulted before she died. The report states that bruising on her wrists, knees and ankles was more recent than originally thought, meaning it could have occurred after she went into the water, not while she tried to get back onto the boat as the original autopsy found.
The new bruising, combined with the fact that the original autopsy report stated she probably fell off the boat accidentally, led to the change in her cause of death from accidental drowning to undetermined causes of death. In 2013, she was reclassified as a suspicious death.
In the years since her death, many theories have been proposed about what happened to Natalie Wood. Some have argued that she was murdered, but most believe her death was simply an accident. Despite her beauty and talent, she was often plagued with personal problems, including substance abuse and depression. She also suffered from a number of failed marriages and had children with both her first and second husbands.
While some of the details of Wood’s death remain unclear, it seems clear that she was not happy in her marriage to Wagner and had been seeing other people. In her last interview, she talked about how her marriage had been difficult and said that she was looking forward to being with her children.
In addition, her yacht captain, Dennis Davern, has said in multiple interviews and in a book called Goodbye Natalie, Goodbye Splendour that he heard the couple fighting on the night of her death. He claims that Wagner told him and her co-star Christopher Walken to stick with the original story that she had slipped into the water by accident and didn’t call for help.