CONFESSIONS OF A NATALIE WOOD FANGIRL

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When mulling over what featured woman to celebrate, I knew I’d eventually have to write about Natalie Wood. She was such a part of my pivotal early years of adolescence. I was a super fan. I nerded out on everything Natalie. I read every book she was featured in, saw every film, and scoured old Hollywood back alley tourist shops for vintage magazines and posters. This was all before I could drive (thanks for driving me the 2 hours each way, Dad!) and when the information was limited (we still had dial-up internet).

This wasn’t my first foray into a theatric obsession. It all started with a preschool fixation with the movie adaptation of the musical, Annie. Afterward, I leapt from one metaphoric lily pad of fascination to another throughout childhood until I exhausted myself. In my late teens, I watched Good Will Hunting so many times (in the theater!) that to this day, I cannot bear to watch that exquisite introduction to the Matt/Ben bff synergy again. I will always love that film but like any intense past love, it almost hurts to look back at what once stirred me so much.

I know my fellow ADD-ers feel seen right now. When you venture into an interest so deep—whether that be a celebrity, a movie, a book series, or even tropical fish (I see you, Chris Cooper in Adaptation!) you’ll at some point exhaust your curiosity and move on.

Now, when I look back at my Natalie Wood stage with mature eyes, I see an innocent freshman in high school navigating a new world where sex, drugs, and social blunders were around every corner. So, I played it safe and hid inside the world of my classic movies, and sought out a guide from a distinctly feminine archetype of classy sexuality. Wood was the quintessential good girl who still had big desires. She wasn’t a prude, she was even a little rebellious, as demonstrated in her first mature role, Rebel Without a Cause. She wasn’t afraid of her sexuality or a little controversy if it meant telling the truth through her art.

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Natalie Wood was born Natasha Zacharenko to Russian immigrant parents. She started working as a toddler and landed her first notable role at 8 years old in Miracle on 24^th Street. She later scored the role of Judy in the aforementioned film Rebel without a Cause alongside method actor James Dean. Working with Dean encouraged her to find the emotional truth in performances as later evidenced in her most cherished roles as Deanie in Splendor in the Grass and Maria in West Side Story.

Wood continued to establish her legacy in films like Love with the Proper Stranger, This Property is Condemned, Inside Daisy Clover, and Bob & Ted & Carol & Alice. She devoted her 30s to being an attentive mom to her daughters, Natasha and Courtney and occasionally returned to TV and film roles before her tragic drowning at the age of 43. Her last film was the notable Brainstorm co-starring Christopher Walken.

Admittedly, Hollywood legends are hard to write about since there already exists a plethora of information out there. However, I’ll try to make this fun with a few lesser-known anecdotes about the star:

• Wood was deathly afraid of dark water as a psychic once told her family that she’d die by drowning.

• Her mother was a stereotypical overbearing stage mom who pushed her daughter to act for the betterment of their family.

  

• As a teen, Wood tried to win over director Nicolas Ray for a role in Rebel Without a Cause but he thought she already had an established goodie-two-shoes child star reputation. According to Wood in a ‘74 interview, it wasn’t until she had a wild night involving a car crash with Dennis Hopper that she won the director over. When Ray visited Wood at the hospital after the crash, the doctor called Wood ‘a juvenile delinquent’. She turned to Ray and said: “Did you hear what he called me, Nick? He called me a goddamn juvenile delinquent! Now do I get the part?”

• She was married a total of three times, twice to Hart to Hart star, Robert Wagner. They seemed to be destined for each other. Legend has it that when she was still a young girl, and Wagner was an up-and-coming heartthrob they walked passed each other at a studio meeting. She promptly told her mother, “I’m going to marry him!”

• She had a great sense of humor and accepted the Harvard Lampoon’s Razzie award for worst actress in person.

• Wood was a trailblazer when it came to women advocating for themselves and negotiating their way out of studio contracts.

  

• She was one of many famous women whom notorious Lothario, Warren Beaty dated. “After my divorce, I was looking for the Rock of Gibraltar. Instead, I discovered Mount Vesuvius, a live volcano with eruptions each day,” she said of their romance.

• According to Wood, Motherhood was her most fulfilling role. She semi-retired from acting to be there for her family and to provide her daughters with a childhood very different than her own, one that was stable and loving.

• Wood’s daughter, Natasha, has kept her mother’s legacy alive with a loving documentary, What Remains Behind, and a fragrance line dedicated to her mother’s memory.

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During times of upheaval, we must find our port in the storm. And for a short time, mine was consuming classic movies. I could live vicariously in those glossy daydream dramas before I decided on who I wanted to become.

In retrospect, this fascination led me to where I am today. I got interested in the poetry of William Wordsworth due to his poem, “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood” being featured in Splendor in the Grass, which led me to study the Romantics and the Transcendentalists in undergrad. I also studied method acting at The Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, learning about the technique from Splendor in the Grass director, Elia Kazan and I ultimately met my now husband during grad school for Screenwriting.

Sometimes what seems like a simple admiration sets the trajectory for your life. Each glimmer of captivation is like a little clue or breadcrumb that leads you home to your own bright North Star. So, thank you Natalie for the inspiration.