What Really Happened to Natalie Wood?

Natalie Wood Photo: Getty Images

Information technology'due south been nearly 40 years since film icon Natalie Wood drowned off the coast of California'south Catalina Island at the age of 43. Her death was ruled an accident at the time, but in the decades since, questions have persisted almost what really happened that night. Was her death a terrible blow, or was there foul play involved? In the new HBO documentary Natalie Woods: What Remains Behind, out May v, Woods's daughter Natasha Gregson Wagner looks at her mother's life and confronts the mysteries surrounding her death, including her stepfather Robert Wagner's rumored office in the incident.

Below, what we know nigh the death of Natalie Forest.

On November 28, 1981, Natalie Wood was on a weekend trip to Catalina with her married man, Robert Wagner, aboard his 55-foot yacht, Splendour. Also with them: the ship's helm, Dennis Davern, and the thespian Christopher Walken, who was filming the sci-fi pic Brainstorm with Wood at the time.

Wood was a former kid star who began her career in film when she was merely iv and had managed to brand the transition into a respected actress, earning three Academy Award nominations earlier she was 25. She and Wagner were on their second matrimony to each other. They had been married for five years, from 1957 to 1962, and so divorced. And so, later Wood had a brief marriage to British producer Richard Gregson, she and Wagner reconciled and remarried in 1972.

On the night of her death, Wood had been partying with Wagner and Walken. The two men got into an argument and Wood left. Wagner said that when he went to bed that night, she wasn't there. According to the L.A. Times, Wagner'due south spokesperson said he had assumed his wife had taken a pocket-sized dinghy out on the water, as she had done earlier, but when 10 to 15 minutes passed and she didn't come up back, he called Harbor Patrol. Authorities institute her body the next forenoon at eight a.grand. floating in the water a mile from the Splendour, with a small dinghy beached nearby.

A postmortem report said that Wood had bruises on her body and arms and an abrasion on her left cheek. Later a ii-week investigation, a coroner ruled the extra's death an blow, final that she had been drinking, and may have slipped and drowned while trying to board the yacht's dinghy.

Many of Forest's friends and fans were unsatisfied with this conclusion at the time, and rumors started to swirl. On Dec iii, 1981, the L.A. Times reported that a woman who had been on a nearby boat at the time told police she had heard a woman screaming on the nighttime of Wood'due south death.

In November 2011, 30 years later on Wood'due south death, the Los Angeles County Sheriff'southward Department appear that it was reopening her case. "Recently, sheriff's homicide investigators were contacted by persons who stated they had boosted data most the Natalie Woods Wagner drowning. Due to the additional data, Sheriff's homicide bureau has decided to take another look at the case," the department said in a statement.

In an interview with the Today show around the same fourth dimension, Davern said he believes that Wagner was responsible for Woods's death, though he didn't specify how.

Wagner and Walken had gotten into a terrible argument that nighttime, Davern said, and when Wood left the room in embarrassment after Wagner smashed a wine canteen, Wagner followed her and started arguing with her. Soon after, he says, Wood went missing.

"Nosotros didn't take any steps to see if we could locate her," Davern added. "I call back information technology was a affair of 'We're not going to await too hard. We're non going to turn on the searchlight. We're non going to notify everyone correct now.'"

In a statement, Wagner's publicist said the actor supported the L.A. Canton Sheriff'due south Department and hoped it would be careful in evaluating data from someone "trying to profit from the 30-year anniversary of her tragic expiry."

(Walken has denied having any knowledge almost what happened to Wood that night. When asked virtually the incident in an interview with People in 1986, he replied, "I don't know what happened. She slipped and fell in the water. I was in bed then. Information technology was a terrible affair. Look, we're in a conversation I won't take. Information technology's a fucking bore.")

In August 2012, Wood'due south death certificate was amended to say that she had died of "drowning and other undetermined factors." A copy of the document obtained past the Associated Printing at the time said "the circumstances of how she ended up in the water are 'not clearly established.'"

In February 2018, 37 years subsequently Forest died, 50.A. County Sheriff's Section investigators named Wagner, so 88, a person of interest in her expiry. In a press conference that month, Lieutenant John Corina told reporters: "I call up, before, we were all believing this story that she must have gotten in a dinghy and tried to go into town in her nightgown, in her socks, by herself when it is raining out and the seas are really rough — you tin't even see at midnight — which made admittedly no sense if you really think well-nigh it."

In an interview with CBS News'48 Hours around that same time, Detective Ralph Hernandez also said the autopsy results showed what looked like fresh bruises on Wood. "She looked like the victim of an assault."

Hernandez went on: "We take non been able to prove this was a homicide. And we haven't been able to prove that this was an accident either. The ultimate problem is we don't know how she ended upwards in the water."

Wagner has denied having any interest in Wood's decease. Natasha Gregson Wagner, for her part, believes her stepfather, writing in her new volume, More than Than Love: An Intimate Portrait of My Mother, Natalie Wood: "My female parent no longer has a vocalism of her own but I do and this is what I know — RJ [Wagner] loved Natalie 'more than love.' No one in my earth questioned my dad's beloved for my mom or his utter despair at her loss."

What Really Happened to Natalie Wood?