Natalie Wood, truth drowned

I finally heard a few days ago news that I longed to hear ever since reading about the weird circumstances of Natalie Wood’s death.

The quintessential Natalie Wood movie remains for me Splendor in the Grass. She may have starred in other films but that love story has defined not only that generation, but many that were to come.

I was glad to recently find out that her death investigation is being reopened. I didn’t write about it because I recognized my bias: I see in NW a deer blinded by the light while the Perp was in my view Robert Wagner, her husband. This name repulsed me even before seeing his face and without Natalie creating a chivalrous response on my part. I remember watching as a kid on TV a soap called Wagner with Richard Burton. He played a despicable character that deeply annoyed me. I could not bring myself to watch it to the end even though it was the only thing to watch on TV.

As for Natalie, her death can be summarized by this photo, taken on their yacht 2 weeks before it happened:

She seems tired of him and rejects him. He was her teenage crush and she married him before she had fully become adult. In her interviews, she used to decry how she grew up around adults, always doing what she was told and always trying to please. I have a feeling she was beginning to wake up and come to her senses and realized she doesn’t really love this man, who was becoming more and more pushy and jealous as a result, feeling he was losing her.

Still, this guilty verdict I have for Robert Wagner has more to do with my attraction to her and my desire to have (had) sex with her than with reality.

Sources / More info: dm-wood1, dm-wood2, wiki-wood, yt-splendor

Cracanel, crime and punishment, drowning, yacht, investigation, natalie wood, actors, actress, criminal, terrible, death (Tags)