November 29, 1981: The Death of Natalie Wood

November 29, 1981: Natalie Wood dies from 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, known to his friends by his initials, "R.J.," 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 R.J., 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, R.J. 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 R.J. 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 R.J.

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. R.J. was played by Michael Weatherly. Shortly thereafter, R.J. began playing Anthony DiNozzo Sr., father of Weatherly's character, on NCIS. When my mother began watching NCIS, not yet knowing of R.J.'s connection, she noticed the resemblance immediately. I didn't.

As of November 29, 2022, R.J., Jill and Lana are still alive, and R.J. 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, R.J.'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, 20th Century Fox made a cartoon musical 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 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.)

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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.

September 26, 1957: "West Side Story" Premieres

September 26, 1957: West Side Story premieres at the Winter Garden Theatre. It is often called the greatest musical in Broadway history. Arthur Laurents wrote the book, Stephen Sondheim the lyrics, Leonard Bernstein the music, and Jerome Robbins directed the show and ran the choreography. The show ran until June 27, 1959, before going on a U.S. tour.

In 1949, Robbins approached Bernstein and Laurents (all of them Jewish) about collaborating on a contemporary musical adaptation of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. He proposed that the plot focus on the conflict between an Irish Catholic family and a Jewish family living on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, during the Easter–Passover season. The conflict was to be centered on the anti-Semitism of the Catholic "Jets" towards the Jewish "Emeralds."

Laurents wrote a first draft he called East Side Story. Only after he completed it did the group realize it was little more than a musicalization of themes that had already been covered in plays like Abie's Irish Rose, and the project was shelved.

In 1955, Laurents and Bernstein met again in Los Angeles, and talked about the recent rise of youth gangs. They decided to revive East Side Story, with the Irish family replaced by a multi-ethnic white gang, and the Jewish family replaced with a Puerto Rican gang. At this point, in the early days of the Civil Rights Movement, making one of the gangs black would have been too incendiary. Sondheim was brought in, and the title was changed to West Side Story.

In this corner, the Jets: Larry Kert as Tony, Michael Callan as Riff, and several other guys and girls. And in the other corner, the Sharks: Carol Lawrence as Maria, Ken LeRoy as Bernardo, Jamie Sanchez (one of the few actual Hispanics in the cast) as Chino, and Chita Rivera (ditto) as Anita. A character named Francisca is played by an actress named Elizabeth Taylor, but it's not that Elizabeth Taylor.

The only thing the Jets and the Sharks seem to agree on, besides all of them being Catholic and that you gotta be tough to survive in Hell's Kitchen on Manhattan's West Side, is hating the police. William Bramley plays Sergeant Krupke, a.k.a. Officer Krupke.

Tony has been out of the Jets for a while, and has a real job, although it doesn't pay much. He meets Maria, sister of Sharks leader Bernardo. They fall in love instantly, one thing leads to another, and, well, Spoiler Alert: Unlike in Romeo and Juliet, "Juliet" lives, but "Romeo" doesn't. Having a tragic ending was unusual for a Broadway musical. Nevertheless, it was nominated for 6 Tony Awards, including Best Musical. It won 2: Robbins for Best Choreography, and Oliver Smith for Best Scenic Design.

A film version premiered on October 18, 1961, directed by Robbins and Robert Wise. Bramley, as Krupke, was the only notable actor from the original show reprising his role. Richard Beymer played Tony (with Jimmy Bryant doing his singing), Natalie Wood played Maria (with Marni Nixon doing her singing), Russ Tamblyn played Riff, George Chakiris as Bernardo (ironically, he'd played Riff in the 1st British stage version in 1958), Jose DeVega as Chino, Rita Moreno in her Oscar-winning performance as Anita, and Elaine Joyce made her film debut, several years before she became a regular on Match Game. The film was nominated for 11 Academy Awards (Oscars), winning 10 of them, including Best Picture. 

The show has been revived on Broadway several times, and a new film version was made in 2021. This one was written by Broadway icon Tony Kushner, and directed by the one and only Steven Spielberg. Tony was played by Ansel Elgort, Maria by Rachel Zegler, Anita by Ariana DeBose, Bernardo by David Alvarez, Riff by Mike Faist, Chino by Josh Andrés Rivera, and Officer Krupke by Brian d'Arcy James. Rita Moreno, age 89, was brought back, in the newly-created role of Valentina, a general store owner.

In 1969, after winning the Super Bowl with a different group of Jets, Joe Namath got his own TV talk show. The moderator was author Dick Schaap. Schaap was an Ivy Leaguer, having gone to Cornell University. Namath barely got through the University of Alabama. At one point during the run of The Joe Namath Show, Schaap mentioned that he was going to see Romeo & Juliet as part of the Shakespeare in the Park series, and invited Namath. Namath said, "What's it about?" Schaap was shocked that Namath had never heard of it. So he said, "Did you ever see West Side Story?"

In 1972, the World Hockey Association was founded. Two of its teams were the Winnipeg Jets and the Los Angeles Sharks. And the "Jets vs. Sharks" jokes were easy. In 1979, with the Sharks long since disbanded, the Jets were among the WHA teams invited to join the NHL. In 1991, the San Jose Sharks were founded, and the jokes resumed. In 1996, the Jets moved to become the team now known as the Arizona Coyotes. In 2011, the Atlanta Thrashers moved, became the new Winnipeg Jets, and the Jets vs. Sharks jokes started all over again.

In 2007, I was babysitting my niece Mackenzie, not yet a full year old. And the 1961 film of 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 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.

In 2019, another version of the story, & Juliet premiered in London. It was a "jukebox musical," produced by Swedish songwriter Max Martin, and featuring hit songs he wrote, worked into a story imagining that Juliet had survived and picked up her life.

Among the songs, which have arguably made Martin the most prolific songwriter of the 21st Century thus far: Backstreet Boys' "I Want It That Way," Britney Spears' "...Baby One More Time" and "Oops!...I Did It Again," Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone," Ellie Goulding's "Love Me Like You Do," Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl," "Teenage Dream" and "Roar," Jessie J's "Domino," and Ariana Grande's "Problem." It is scheduled to open on Broadway on November 17, 2022 -- appropriately enough, at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre.

The Winter Garden Theatre, site of the original Broadway production, still stands at 1634 Broadway, between 50th and 51st Streets. In opened in 1911, and seats 1,600. Among its other original productions: Sky High in 1925, Hellzapoppin in 1938, Wonderful Town in 1953, Peter Pan in 1954, Bus Stop in 1956, Once Upon a Mattress and The Unsinkable Molly Brown in 1960, Funny Girl in 1964, Mame in 1966, Sondheim's musical Follies in 1971, Beatlemania in 1977, and Mamma Mia! in 2001. From 1982 to 2001, it hosted Cats, at the time of its closing the longest-running musical in Broadway history.

In a 2014 episode of the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History, "Nice" Peter Shukoff played Romeo, and comedian Grace Helbig played Juliet, against YouTuber Hannah Hart as Bonnie Parker and "Epic" Lloyd Ahlquist as Clyde Barrow.

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September 26, 1957 was a Thursday. There were only 2 scores on this historic day, both in baseball. The Detroit Tigers beat the Chicago White Sox, 3-2 at Comiskey Park in Chicago, despite Al Kaline going 0-for-4. And the Cleveland Indians beat the Kansas City Athletics, 2-1 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium. For the Indians, rookie Roger Maris went 0-for-1 with 3 walks.