It happened after dinner with a lot of alcohol and a violent argument between Robert Wagner, her husband, and Christopher Walken, her partner in the last film.
"The Love Cruise" (The Love Boat) was a Made in USA television series broadcast on ABC between 1977 and 1986. Set on a ship that traveled the world, it was a comedy with romantic touches, with a friendly tone, and designed for a family audience.
And it was no less than the love cruise, that splendid yacht anchored on Catalina Island, a corner of millionaires, California, and baptized Splendor by its owner, Natalie Wood (43 years old), -the most beautiful black eyes in Hollywood in her days of star–, as a tribute and cabal for the hyper-grossing film Splendor in the Grass, 1961, directed by Elia Kazan, with Warren Beatty as a co-star.
The others on board: her husband, actor Robert Wagner; the fashionable actor at the time, the fictional antihero Christopher Walken –an Oscar for Best Supporting Role for The Sniper–, and the captain of the yacht, Dennis Davern. In addition, Walker and Natalie were a couple in the film Brainstorming, which was shooting.
The cruise of love, but also of dollars
She had accumulated a fortune for two other of the thirty films in which she acted: West Side Story (Love without Barriers), 1961, directed by Robert Wise, a version of Romeo and Juliet in a poor neighborhood of Manhattan in the 50s, where was the star: the role of Maria; and Rebel Without a Cause, 1955, directed by Nicholas Ray, and James Dean as a partner.
The trio left Los Angeles on Friday, November 27, 1981. They disembarked on Catalina Island, toured it, and at nightfall dined at Doug's Harbor Reef top restaurant. They drank more than they ate: two bottles of wine and two of champagne. A liter and a half of alcohol between three. One and a half liters per capita...
At ten o'clock at night, they returned to the ship. At half past one in the morning, Robert Wagner told Captain Davern:
"Natalie's not on board!"
The three men checked the boat inch by inch: no sign of her... And the Prince Valiant, an inflatable boat used on short journeys, was not moored either:
"It's possible that Natalie got away in the boat," said the captain.
They searched for her with the searchlights on board her, and two hours later they found her,... without Natalie.
Only at a quarter to eight in the morning the next day did she appear, but dead. She floated among some rocks a thousand six hundred meters from the yacht.
Her body had minor injuries to her arms and legs, perhaps caused by hitting the stones—some sharp—and a scratch on her left cheek.
The autopsy found a high level of alcohol in the blood.
Two weeks of investigation did not arrive at another result that "accidental death". Police guess: She tried to get away from the boat in the inflatable boat, but she slipped and fell into the water. She couldn't get back to the boat – she had on a heavy red coat and a flannel nightgown – she didn't know how to swim, and the cold and exhaustion finished her work…
But the true story, the enigma, the dark zone, had just emerged on the scene.
First question. How was it possible that on a yacht occupied by four people, the captain, Christopher Walken, and Robert Wagner, Natalie's husband, had not discovered the woman's absence before her, and did not search for her more intensely?
Second question. Why did it take so long to call the coast guard to report her missing?
Third question. Why did Robert Wagner, noticing that Natalie was not in sight on the yacht, go to her bedroom at half past one in the morning and notice her absence?
Time to look for witnesses
Marilyn Wayne, who was on her yacht that night, anchored very close to the Splendour, said that she had heard a woman's voice call for help, and another voice that immediately responded "We're going to help you." But she didn't confirm that those words were spoken by Robert and Natalie. "There are other ships, and if their crews heard something, they ignored it. This is a private world: no one gets into other people's stories," she closed...
Don Whiting, the manager of Doug's... restaurant, told the police that Robert Wagner was irritated with his wife. "A little earlier, someone from that table smashed a glass on the floor. The atmosphere between them seemed very tense. They argued loudly."
Questioned by the police, Wagner denied having relationship problems in recent days, but after a few hours, he admitted that "Christopher and I had a very strong fight. About what? The professional career against family life."
Suspicious confession: it does not seem like an issue worthy of reaching such decibels...
However, he slipped that Natalie "was very depressed because of her lack of work. She was never hired for big roles again."
TRUE. And it is also true that, after Splendor in the Grass, he acted in fourteen films, but none reached the size of the trio that he made of that little woman –barely 1.52– an idol for young people. Perhaps she showed off more raising her two children: Natasha Gregson, from her first marriage, and Courtney Wagner, son of Robert, from her second marriage.
But understanding that depression forces us to trace her difficult past...
She was born Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko in San Francisco on July 20, 1938. Her parents fled Russia shortly before the birth and changed the original surname to "Gurdin" so that at the age of four the girl was renamed Natasha Gurdin.
Her mother, María, a frustrated, ambitious dancer, in love with the lights of Hollywood, decided that her daughter would be a star, dragged her to as many casting as she could, and finally managed to make her become a successful child actress: five films since her seven at twelve years old...
But she, superstitious, lived under an ominous shadow. When she was pregnant, an old woman read her hands:
Her daughter of hers will be a winner, but she must be very careful with the dark waters
Perhaps the fatal result: she never let her go near the water, let alone learn to swim. If she had learned…, would she have saved herself that night?
Of course, her mysterious death unleashed the tongues of gossip journalists at full speed, although her two empresses of hers, Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons, had already died...
The least she told herself: Robert pushed her, enraged at suspecting that she had an affair with Christoper Walken, born during the filming of Brainstorming; Natalie discovered a relationship between the two men, and the fight landed her in the water; she ruled out her suicide attempt: in that case, she would not have gotten away from her with the inflatable boat…, and she was also terrified of the sea. Lana Wood, although without evidence, always accused Wagner: "He pushed her, he killed her."
The police closed the case with two words: "Accidental death."
Presumption: the three were drunk – it is unknown if they were drugged: Natalie's autopsy did not reveal drugs –, they continued on board the fight started in the restaurant, perhaps they exchanged blows and shoves, and fatality did the rest.
Captain Dennis Davern, an unavoidable witness, was equivocal. At first, he took refuge in silence: "I didn't see anything."
Later, in 2009, he published his book Goodbye Natalie, Goodbye Splendor, writing there: "I regret keeping quiet. Natalie's death was the result of a fight with Wagner. That's why it took so long to report that she was not on board".
