What a Beauty and Talent Natalie Wood Was

One of our American icons of grace, beauty, and acting talent is the five-foot-tall Natalie Wood. I personally think she is a stunner — just my type. So, I thought I would share her with you since there are loads of you who are too young to have ever heard of her.

Trivia from IMDB

• Sister of Lana Wood. Half-sister of Olga Viriapaeff.
• Mother of Natasha Gregson Wagner and Courtney Wagner.
• Named after director Sam Wood.
• Favorite actress was Vivien Leigh.
• She suffered from a deep fear of drowning after having barely survived an accident when she was a little girl, during the filming of The Green Promise (1949). Her fear was so great that Elia Kazan had to lie – promising a double – and trick her into doing the scenes at the water reservoir in Splendor in the Grass (1961). She also had to do her own swimming scenes in “From Here to Eternity” (1979) despite her protests.
• Interred at Westwood Memorial Park, Los Angeles, California, USA, Section D, #60. On her grave, marked Natalie Wood Wagner: Beloved daughter, sister, wife, mother & friend “more than love”.
• Was commonly listed as 5′ 3″ wearing heels in movie magazines, though her actual height was 5′ 0″.
• On April 23, 1966, she made Harvard history when she became the first performer voted the year’s worst by the Harvard Lampoon to show up and accept her citation.
• Reportedly turned down Warren Beatty’s offer to play opposite him in Bonnie and Clyde (1967) because she didn’t want to be separated from her analyst while the film was on location in the Midwest.
• Splendour, the name of the yacht Wood was on the night she died, was named after her movie Splendor in the Grass (1961). She co-starred in the film with former love Warren Beatty.
• An accident on a movie set (she fell into a river and almost drowned) when she was 9 years old left her with a permanently weakened left wrist and a slight bone protrusion, which, for the rest of her life, she hid with large bracelets. Regardless of the movie role, or anytime that she was out in public, she always wore a large bracelet on the left wrist.
• The rubber dinghy “Prince Valiant” she’d been trying to board after falling from husband Robert Wagner’s yacht that fateful Thanksgiving weekend in 1981, was named after Wagner’s 1954 movie Prince Valiant (1954), a film the actor considered among his worst.
• Had planned to produce as well as star in I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (1977), but the leading role of Deborah went to Kathleen Quinlan by the time the film was made.
• Attended ballet classes with two time husband Robert Wagner’s third wife Jill St. John and Wagner’s “Hart to Hart” (1979) co-star Stefanie Powers.
• Pallbearers at her funeral were Rock Hudson, Frank Sinatra, Laurence Olivier, Elia Kazan, Gregory Peck, David Niven, and Fred Astaire.
• Daughter with Robert Wagner: Courtney Wagner (b. 9 March 1974).
• Daughter with Richard Gregson: Natasha Gregson Wagner (b. 29 September 1970).
• Her death was kismet, as she always cited a fear of water.
• Had a relationship with Elvis Presley when she was 17; Elvis wanted to marry her, but his mother did not like Natalie.
• Her and co-star Richard Beymer’s singing voices were both dubbed in West Side Story (1961). The woman who dubbed Natalie, Marni Nixon, also dubbed Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady (1964) and Deborah Kerr in The King and I (1956).
• The daughter of a Russian architect and a French ballerina could do a proper plié before she could barely walk.
• Her mother, Maria, claimed that the family was closely related to the Romanov dynasty.
• Spoke Russian and English.
• Though some people cite her mother as being French, her mother was Russian. The source of this misconception comes from the studio that Natalie worked at when she was young — people noticed her mother’s accent and when asked if she was French, Maria replied: “Oh yes”, a white lie that would contribute to this confusion.
• Younger sister Lana Wood made a ABC TV special on Natalie’s life, The Mystery of Natalie Wood (2004) (TV).
• Wore dress size 5.
• Measurements: 32-20 1/2-32 (at age 18), 32B-22-33 (“Parade” magazine December 1962), (Source: Celebrity Sleuth magazine).
• Portrayed by Rebecca Budig in James Dean: Race with Destiny (1997) (TV), by Justine Waddell in The Mystery of Natalie Wood (2004) (TV) and by Abi Young in Elvis (1979/I) (TV).
• Turned down the role of Judith Anderson in The Devil’s Disciple (1959) because she didn’t want to work with older actor Kirk Douglas for “personal” reasons.
• Turned down roles in the films Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Barefoot in the Park (1967), Goodbye, Columbus (1969), Love Story (1970), The Great Gatsby (1974) and The Mirror Crack’d (1980).
• She was cast as Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1976) (TV) quite unexpectedly, without campaigning for the role. Wood explained that when Laurence Olivier would come to Hollywood, she would often be seated with him at the table at formal sit-down dinners. When Olivier decided to make a version of the Tennessee Williams play, he thought of casting Wood, his dinner companion, and her husband, Robert Wagner, in the husband-wife roles of Brick and Maggie. Naturally, they accepted.
• Wood knew screenwriter Gavin Lambert as both were intimates of director Randy Suhr. In the early 1960s, he wrote a novel about a Hollywood child star in the 1930s, Inside Daisy Clover (1965). After reading the book, Wood telephoned Lambert and said, “I’d kill for that part.” He assured her she was his first choice for the movie, for which he was writing the screenplay. She got the part and Ruth Gordon got her first Oscar nomination as an actress for portraying Daisy’s mother.
• Both she and her sister Lana Wood have played the love interest of Richard Beymer in 2 separate films: she as Maria opposite Richard’s Tony in West Side Story (1961), and Lana as Karen opposite Richard’s Dean in Scream Free! (1969) (aka Free Grass).
• She is the inspiration of High School Musical (2006) (TV) star, Vanessa Hudgens.
• Biography in: “The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives.” Volume One, 1981-1985, pages 889-890. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1998.
• People Magazine (USA) named her one of “The 25 most intriguing People of 1976″ for the January 3 1977 issue.
• Entertainment Weekly placed her on the “100 greatest stars of all time” list, at #70.
• Voted one of the top sex stars of the 1970s in Playboy magazine.
• Called “The Most Beautiful Teenager in the World” by Life magazine in 1956.
• Once interviewed Arnold Schwarzenegger, before his career took off, for the magazine “Hollywood Reporter” in 1979 two years before her her death. The article was entitled “The Body meets the Face”.
• Her death was listed at number 24 on E! Televisions 101 Most Shocking Moments in Entertainment.
• Don Henley wrote the song “Dirty Laundry” to express his outrage at the tabloid press for their treatment of her after her death.
• Met Robert Redford at Van Nuys High School when she was a sophomore and he was a senior. Natalie was Redford’s leading lady in his first starring role, in This Property Is Condemned (1966).
• “Natalie’s Song” by David Pack, was written about Natalie Wood.
• “Eyes Like Natalie Wood” by Kathy Fleischmann, was written about her.
• Former stepmother of Katie Wagner.
• Started smoking at age 16.
• Godmother of her daughter Natasha Gregson Wagner was Ruth Gordon, who played Natalie’s mother in the film Inside Daisy Clover (1965).
• During the late 1960s, Natalie was one of the biggest box-office draws in the movie industry. However, after she married Robert Wagner in 1972, her career never fully recovered because he wanted her to stay home with their daughter and not work.
• Was scheduled to make her stage debut in “Anastasia” in February 1982 and play the love interest of Timothy Hutton in a film called “Country of the Heart.” Unfortunately, both projects were canceled due to her death.
• Niece, Evan Taylor Maldanado, born on August 11, 1974.
• Mother Maria Gurdin died of pneumonia on January 6, 1998 at age 85.
• Sister Lana Wood wrote the best-selling book about her titled “Natalie: a Memoir by Her Sister”.
• Father Nick Gurdin died of a heart attack at age 66 on November 18, 1980.
• Her best friends included actresses Stefanie Powers, Dyan Cannon and Carol Lynley. She was a childhood friend of her widower’s current wife Jill St. John but they were not close as adults.
• Campaigned for the roles that went to Mary Tyler Moore in Ordinary People (1980) and Meryl Streep in Sophie’s Choice (1982).
• Turned down the role that went to Faye Dunaway in The Towering Inferno (1974) because she thought the script was “mediocre.”.
• Was considered for the role of Elaine in The Graduate (1967) that went to Katharine Ross.
• Jane Fonda and Faye Dunaway turned down the role of Carol in Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969) before Natalie got the part. Natalie turned down Katharine Ross’s role in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) so she could star in the film.
• Has she lived, she would have had two great-nephews, Nicholas (born 1996) and Max (born 2002), and a great-niece, Daphne (born 2000). Their mother is Evan Maldanado, who is the daughter of Natalie’s sister Lana Wood.
• On October 15, 2009, sister Lana Wood announced that she is supporting the book “Goodbye Natalie, Goodbye Splendour” and joining authors in demanding that Natalie’s death case be reopened.
• According to a biographer, Nicholas Ray wooed her by adorning a table with pink tablecloth and champagne, her preferred color and drink of choice.
• Was the youngest nominee in her category each of the three times she was nominated for an Oscar, the first being when she was 17 and the last when she was 25.
• Was one of the many actresses considered for the title role in Norma Rae (1979) which went to Sally Field.

Tagged as: Arts, Los Angeles, Movies, My Fair Lady, Natalie Wood, Splendor in the Grass, Warren Beatty, West Side Story