November 29, 1981: The Death of Natalie Wood

November 29, 1981: Natalie Wood dies of a drowning at age 43, on Santa Catalina Island, California.

She was born on July 20, 1938, in San Francisco, as Natalie Zacharenko. Not yet 8 years old, she starred as Susan Walker in the original 1947 version of Miracle on 34th Street. She played troubled teenagers in Rebel Without a Cause and The Searchers. She moved into musicals, starring in West Side Story in 1961 and Gypsy the next year. Being Russian, she didn't make a convincing Puerto Rican in West Side Story, and Marnie Nixon did her singing for the film. So, for Gypsy, she insisted on doing her own singing, and she was fine.

I'd still like to know how Gypsy, a film about strippers, got past the Hays Code. Not to mention her 1964 film Sex and the Single Girl, based on the memoir of Cosmopolitan magazine editor Helen Gurley Brown. By 1969, the Code was gone, and she was able to star as Carol alongside Robert Culp as Bob, Elliott Gould as Ted, and Dyan Cannon as Alice in Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice.

In 1957, only 19 years old, she married 27-year-old actor Robert Wagner. They divorced 5 years later. In 1969, she married British film producer Richard Gregson. Natalie then went into semi-retirement to raise their daughter, Natasha Gregson. Natalie and Richard split up in 1972, and she then remarried Robert Wagner. They had a daughter, Courtney Wagner, and Natalie's first daughter was renamed Natasha Gregson Wagner.

Natalie returned to acting in 1979, taking the Deborah Kerr role in an NBC remake of From Here to Eternity. Although she had been nominated for an Academy Award 3 times without winning, for this role, she won a Golden Globe Award. She became the first actress to be taken seriously as a child, a teenager, a young adult, and a middle-aged woman (she was 41). That same year, she appeared in the science fiction disaster film Meteor, playing a diplomat -- and, for the 1st time, playing a Russian, and speaking the Russian language, which she did in real life, fluently.

In 1981, she was making the science fiction film Brainstorm, which also starred Christopher Walken. For her next role, she had signed to star in a musical stage version of Anastasia, the story of the woman who claimed to be a princess who survived the massacre of the Russian imperial family in 1918. So she would have played a Russian again, and had the hope of adapting it into a film. (Ingrid Bergman had won an Oscar for the 1956 film Anastasia.)

On November 29, Natalie, Robert and Walken were aboard the yacht Splendour while it was moored near the isthmus of Santa Catalina Island, off the coast of Southern California. Walken's wife Georgianne was not there.

According to Robert, Natalie was not there when he went to bed, and, according to his spokesman, he thought she had taken off on a small inflatable boat by herself, as she had done before. Her body was found about a mile away from the yacht, while the inflatable boat was found beached nearby. The autopsy report revealed that Wood had 39 fresh bruises on her body, including an abrasion on her left cheek.

Later, in his memoir Pieces of My Heart, Robert acknowledged that he had an argument with Natalie before she disappeared, but had calmed down and gone to bed. The autopsy found that her blood alcohol content was 0.14 percent -- .04 above the legal prohibition for operating a motorized vehicle, including a boat -- and there were traces of two types of medication in her bloodstream: A motion-sickness pill and a painkiller, both of which increase the effects of alcohol. Two witnesses, who had been on another boat nearby, stated they had heard a woman scream for help during the night.

Following his investigation, Los Angeles County medical examiner Thomas Noguchi, the famed "coroner to the stars," ruled her death an accident by drowning and hypothermia.

She was 43 years old. She left her husband, 2 children, a sister, actress Lana Wood, and several great films. Lana has claimed that Robert murdered Natalie. Others have made that claim as well. The evidence, as thus far released to the public, is flimsy. Both Natasha and Courtney have publicly defended Robert.

Life works out strangely sometimes: Aside from being Natalie's sister, Lana Wood is best known for appearing in the 1971 James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever, as Plenty O'Toole. Also in that film, as the female lead, Tiffany Case, was Jill St. John. Briefly, before Britain's Eon Productions decided to go ahead with making Bond films, they had considered selling the film rights to the Bond novels to an American company, which was considering Wagner to play Bond. In 1990, Robert Wagner married Jill St. John.

In 2004, Peter Bodganovich directed the feature film The Mystery of Natalie Wood. Natalie was played by Justine Waddell. Robert was played by Michael Weatherly. Shortly thereafter, Robert began playing Anthony DiNozzo Sr., father of Weatherly's character, on NCIS. When my mother began watching NCIS, not yet knowing of Robert's connection, she noticed the resemblance immediately. I didn't.

As of November 29, 2022, Robert, Jill and Lana are still alive, and Robert and Jill are still married. Natasha Gregson Wagner became an actress, and married 7th Heaven star Barry Watson. They have a daughter, Clover Watson. In 2020, Natasha released a documentary, Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind. It did not shed any new light on her mother's death, focusing instead on her life. Courtney Wagner is a jewelry designer, with no children. Katie Wagner, Robert's daughter with actress Marion Marshall, and therefore Natalie's (and Jill's) stepdaughter, is an entertainment reporter. She has a daughter, Riley John Wagner-Lewis.

In 1997, Disney made a cartoon version of Anastasia. In 2017, a stage version of that film premiered on Broadway. It wasn't quite Natalie Wood's vision for the story, but she might have wanted to see it. She would have been 78 years old. She did not get the chance to be taken seriously as an old actress.

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November 29, 1981 was a Sunday. Baseball was out of season. These games were played in the NFL:

* The New York Giants lost to the San Francisco 49ers, 17-10 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.

* The New York Jets beat the Baltimore Colts, 25-0 at Shea Stadium.

* The football version of the St. Louis Cardinals beat the New England Patriots, 27-20 at Schaefer Stadium (later Sullivan Stadium and Foxboro Stadium) in the Boston suburb of Foxborough, Massachusetts.

* The Buffalo Bills beat the Washington Redskins, 21-14 at Rich Stadium (later Ralph Wilson Stadium) in the Buffalo suburb of Orchard Park, New York.

* The Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Los Angeles Rams, 24-0 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh.

* The Cincinnati Bengals beat their arch-rivals, the Cleveland Browns, 41-21 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

* The Green Bay Packers beat the Minnesota Vikings, 35-23 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

* The Tampa Bay Buccaneers beat the New Orleans Saints, 31-14 at the Superdome in New Orleans.

* The Atlanta Falcons beat the Houston Oilers, 31-27 at the Astrodome in Houston.

* The San Diego Chargers beat the Denver Broncos, 34-17 at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego.

* The Oakland Raiders beat the Seattle Seahawks, 32-31 at the Kingdome in Seattle.

* The next night, on ABC Monday Night Football, the Miami Dolphins beat the Philadelphia Eagles, 13-10 at the Orange Bowl in Miami.

* And 3 days before this day, it was Thanksgiving. The Detroit Lions beat the Kansas City Chiefs, 27-10 at the Silverdome in the Detroit suburb of Pontiac, Michigan.

And the Dallas Cowboys beat the Chicago Bears, 10-3 at Texas Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Irving, Texas.

There were 4 games played in the NBA:

* The Milwaukee Bucks beat the San Antonio Spurs, 105-89 at the Milwaukee Exposition, Convention Center and Arena, or "The MECCA." Since 2014, it has been named the UW-Panther Arena.

* The Kansas City Kings beat the Golden State Warriors, 104-100 at the Kemper Arena (now the Hy-Vee Arena) in Kansas City.

* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Houston Rockets, 122-104 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

* And the Portland Trail Blazers beat the Chicago Bulls, 114-109 at the Portland Memorial Coliseum.

And there were 5 games played in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers and the Quebec Nordiques played to a tie, 4-4 at Madison Square Garden.

* The New York Islanders lost to the Buffalo Sabres, 5-2 at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium.

* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Hartford Whalers, 6-3 at the Montreal Forum.

* In an "Original Six" matchup, the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Detroit Red Wings, 6-3 at the Joe Louis Arena.

* And the Edmonton Oilers beat the Winnipeg Jets, 10-3 at the Winnipeg Arena. Paul Coffey -- a defenseman -- had 2 goals and 3 assists. Wayne Gretzky had a goal and 3 assists.

October 27, 1955: “Rebel Without a Cause” Premieres

October 27, 1955: Rebel Without a Cause premieres. The film made James Dean a legend, although his performance made Australian/British humorist Clive James say, only half-jokingly, "James Dean was so moody, he made Marlon Brando look like Danny Kaye."

The image of Dean on the film poster, with his red jacket, T-shirt, blue jeans with the cuffs rolled up, boots, and cigarette in his curled-up left hand, became iconic as well. Also on the poster was a picture of Dean holding hands with Natalie Wood, with the caption, "And they both come from 'good' families!"

It wasn't the first "troubled teen," "juvenile delinquent" or "J.D." movie: Blackboard Jungle preceded it by 7 months. Both were considerably better than the imitations that inevitably sprang up.

The film is said to be cursed: Dean died less than a month before the premiere, co-star Sal Mineo would be murdered in 1976, co-star Natalie Wood would drown in 1981, and even Ed Platt, the future Get Smart Chief, would die early, in 1974.

*

October 27, 1955 was a Thursday. Baseball season ended 23 days earlier, when the Brooklyn Dodgers beat the New York Yankees in Game 7 to win the World Series. Football was in midweek. The NBA season season started 9 days later. There was 1 game played in the NHL: The Chicago Black Hawks beat the Montreal Canadiens, 4-1 at the Montreal Forum.

October 18, 1961: The Film Version of "West Side Story" Premieres

Left: Jets. Right: Sharks.

October 18, 1961: The film version of the 1957 musical West Side Story premieres. It's a modern retelling of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. In some cases, I'm doing entries for the original stage versions of shows. In some, I'm doing it for the films. West Side Story is the only one truly influential enough to deserve an entry for each version.

In this corner, of various white extractions including Irish, Italian and Polish -- and one kid known by a name that would never fly today, "A-rab" -- is a gang named the Jets: Richard Beymer as Tony (replacing Larry Kert from the original Broadway production, Jimmy Bryant did his singing), Russ Tamblyn as Riff (Michael Callan), and several other guys and girls. Elaine Joyce, already a Broadway performer, made her film debut, as Hotsie, girlfriend of Tiger, one of the Jets, several years before she became a regular panelist on game shows.

And in this corner, the Puerto Ricans, calling their gang the Sharks: Natalie Wood as Maria (with her songs sung by Marni Nixon, replacing Carol Lawrence from Broadway), George Chakiris as Bernardo (replacing Ken LeRoy -- ironically, Chakiris played Riff when the musical first took the British stage in 1958), Jose DeVega as Chino, and Rita Moreno as Anita, Maria's best friend and Bernardo's girlfriend (replacing Chita Rivera). 

The Jets and the Sharks only seem to agree on 3 things: That they're all Catholic, that you gotta be tough to survive in Hell's Kitchen -- Manhattan's West Side, 8th Avenue to the Hudson River, 41st to 59th Streets -- and that they hate the police, who hate them back. William Bramley plays Sergeant Krupke, a.k.a. Officer Krupke. Bramley was the only notable actor from the original show reprising his role.

The film was nominated for 11 Academy Awards (Oscars), winning 10 of them, including Best Picture, Best Director for Wise, Best Supporting Actor for Chakiris, and Best Supporting Actress for Moreno. Oddly, Beymer wasn't nominated for Best Actor. (Maximilian Schell won for Judgment at Nuremberg.) Natalie Wood was nominated for Best Actress, but for Splendor in the Grass rather than for West Side Story. (Sophia Loren won for Two Women, the 1st Oscar for a role in a language other than English.)

In the Spring of 2017, I was babysitting my niece Mackenzie, not yet a full year old. And West Side Story came on TV, with its creditless opening montage showing New York from above, including the pre-renovation original Yankee Stadium in living color. When the camera finally panned down to the finger-snapping Jets, and they started dancing to Jerome Robbins' choreography and Leonard Bernstein's score, Mackenzie was transfixed, going, "Ooh, ooh, ooh." This baby could not take her eyes off a movie that premiered nearly 55 years before she was born.

Steven Spielberg directed a remake in 2021, this time with the characters played by actors of the appropriate ethnicities. Tony was played by Ansel Elgort. Rachel Zegler, Polish on her father's side but Colombian on her mother's, played Maria. David Alvarez, a Montreal-born Cuban, played Bernardo.

It was nominated for 7 Oscars, including Best Picture, making it the 2nd remake of a Best Picture nominee to also be so honored, after the 1935 and 1962 versions of Mutiny on the Bounty. But it only won 1: Ariana DuBose, taking over as Anita from Moreno, who cameoed in the film as the mentor character Valentina. No other actor was nominated, although Spielberg was nominated as Best Director for a record 11th time.

(He's won twice, for Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan. I guess he's better doing movies set in 1944 than he is with 1957. He shouldn't make a movie about Sputnik, the move of the Brooklyn Dodgers, or the assassination of Albert Anastasia. He wouldn't make those, but he might make a movie about the Little Rock Nine.)

*

October 18, 1961 was a Wednesday. It was a big day in music for another reason: Jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis was born.

Baseball season ended 9 days earlier, when the New York Yankees beat the Cincinnati Reds in the World Series. Football was in midweek. The new NBA season started the next day. There was 1 game played in the NHL: The Montreal Canadiens beat the New York Rangers, 5-2 at the old Madison Square Garden.

June 11, 1947: "Miracle On 34th Street" Premieres

June 11, 1947: Miracle On 34th Street premieres, released by 20th Century Fox, directed by George Seaton, based on a story by Valentine Davies. Why a Christmas movie was released when Summer was just around the corner, perhaps only that era's Fox executives at the time knew.

A man known only as Kris Kringle (played by Edmund Gwenn) is hired to work as Santa Claus at the main Macy's store in New York's Herald Square, facing Broadway between 34th and 35th Streets. One thing leads to another, and he is committed, and his lawyer, Fred Gailey (John Payne), can find only one way to get this harmless, if apparently delusional, old man out of the psych ward: By proving to a court that, just as Kris claims, he really is Santa Claus.

It works, and Fred wins the heart of Doris Walker (Maureen O'Hara), who had hired Kris, and her daughter Susan (Natalie Wood, 8 years old at the time of filming, but playing 6).

Miracle On 34th Street was remade in 1973 and 1994. In those versions, Santa was played by Sebastian Cabot and Richard Attenborough, respectively; the lawyer by David Hartman and Dylan McDermott (by then starring as a lawyer on the ABC TV drama The Practice); Mrs. Walker by Jane Alexander and Elizabeth Perkins; and Susan by Suzanne Davidson and Mara Wilson.

For the 1973 version, the lawyer's name was changed to Bill Schafner, and Mrs. Walker's name was changed from Doris to Karen -- definitely not to be confused with the Karen Walker played by Megan Mullally on Will & Grace!

For the 1994 version, the lawyer is named Bryan Bedford, Mrs. Walker goes back to being named Doris (or, rather, "Dorey"), and, this time, fictional store names had to be used: Macy's had refused to give permission to use their name, and became "Cole's" (not to be confused with the real-life chain Kohl's); while Gimbel's had gone out of business in 1987, so the scriptwriters used "Shoppers Express."

And the scriptwriters decided to add the wrinkle of the U.S. military "proving" that there is no Santa Claus, citing their vast technological expertise which had proven that there's no Santa's Workshop at or near the North Pole, thus forcing Bedford to figure out a way around that.

The film's title has been adapted for sports purposes. When the New York Mets won the 1969 World Series, Shea Stadium's Queens address was invoked as "Miracle On 126th Street." When the New York Knicks won the 1970 NBA Championship, the address of Madison Square Garden, 1 block west of Macy's Herald Square, was invoked as "Miracle On 33rd Street." Baltimore's Memorial Stadium was also on a 33rd Street, and the title was used when the Baltimore Orioles won the 1966 World Series. And when the New York Yankees came from 14 games back to win the 1978 World Series, Yankee Stadium's Bronx address was invoked as "Miracle On 161st Street."

*

June 11, 1947 was a Wednesday. These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Chicago White Sox, 3-2 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Don Kolloway led off the bottom of the 11th inning with a triple off Frank "Spec" Shea, and George Dickey, no relation to recently-retired Yankee catcher Bill, singled him home with the winning run. Shea and ChiSox pitcher Joe Haynes had both gone the distance. Joe DiMaggio went 1-for-4.

* The New York Giants lost to the Pittsburgh Pirates, 8-7 at the Polo Grounds. Billy Cox, whom the Dodgers would acquire the next season along with pitcher Preacher Roe, hit a home run. Ralph Kiner went 2-for-5 with 2 RBIs, although neither hit was a home run. Hank Greenberg, in his last season, did not get into the game.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers lost to the Cincinnati Reds, 5-4 at Ebbets Field. Jackie Robinson went 4-for-4 with an RBI. Another rookie, Duke Snider, went 2-for-5 with 2 RBIs. And Johnny "Spider" Jorgensen went 3-for-5. But all that wasn't enough.

* The Chicago Cubs swept a doubleheader from the Boston Braves, 4-0 and 5-2 at Braves Field. Doyle Lade pitched a 7-hit shutout to beat Warren Spahn in the 1st game.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 5-4 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. Stan Musial went 1-for-4.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Cleveland Indians, 3-0 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Mickey Harris went 7 innings, and 2 relievers completed the 6-hit shutout. Ted Williams went 1-for-4.

* A doubleheader was split at Briggs Stadium in Detroit. (It was renamed Tiger Stadium in 1961.) The Detroit Tigers won the opener, 7-1. The Philadelphia Athletics won the nightcap, 4-0. Carl Scheibe allowed 7 hits and walked 7 batters, but, somehow, still kept a shutout.

* And the Washington Senators beat the St. Louis Browns, 4-2 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis.