South Bay history: Actress Natalie Wood’s 1981 death near Catalina Island remains unsolved
Natalie Wood was four years old when she first appeared in a Hollywood film.
She played a young girl who drops her ice cream cone and looks suitably sad about it in the 1943 drama “Happy Land.” Her nonspeaking role was uncredited; she was on screen for about 15 seconds.
She was born Natalia Nikolaevna Zacharenko in San Francisco on July 20, 1938, to Russian immigrant parents. The family bought a house in Santa Rosa in 1942, and the young girl caught the attention of the “Happy Land” film crew working nearby the following year.
Her first major role came as an 8-year-old in the 1947 holiday classic “Miracle on 34th Street.” She would go on to earn three Academy Award nominations before turning 25, for “Rebel Without a Cause,” “Splendor in the Grass” and “Love With the Proper Stranger.” She also famously portrayed Maria in the film adaptation of the Broadway musical “West Side Story.”
She married actor Robert Wagner for the first time in 1957. They divorced in 1962. Each married and divorced other spouses, before reconciling and remarrying each other on a boat in Paradise Cove in Malibu in 1972.
Wood slowed her career during the 1970s while raising a family, appearing in just a few films. She made several television appearances, winning a best-actress Golden Globe award for her work in the 1979 TV miniseries version of “From Here to Eternity.”
She had just finished location shooting for the sci-fi thriller “Brainstorm,” her final film, in late 1981 when she and husband Wagner, her co-star Christopher Walken, and boat captain Dennis Davern took a Thanksgiving weekend cruise to Catalina Island.
After a family dinner on Thanksgiving Day in her Beverly Hills home, Wood and Wagner invited friends to come with them on the trip to Catalina Island, a favorite weekend boating destination of theirs, but most demurred due to stormy weather conditions.
Walken was the only one who decided to go along. They spent Friday night in Avalon before deciding to take the Splendour to their favorite part of the island, mooring the boat at the Isthmus/Two Harbors area about 21 miles west of Avalon.
The trio had dinner and drinks onshore on Saturday night, Nov. 28, 1981, at Doug’s Harbor Reef, the restaurant owned by Two Harbors general manager Doug Bombard. They returned to the Splendour, where Walken and Wagner had an argument with each other, with Wood retiring to the stateroom to sleep.
What happened next has been the subject of speculation for more than four decades. At around 3 a.m., Wood got up and went onto the boat’s deck.
When Wagner realized she had gone above board, he went to look for her. He didn’t find her, but did notice that the dinghy attached to the boat was also missing. He contacted the Harbor Patrol, who searched, but didn’t find her. The Coast Guard was enlisted to join in the search.
Shortly before dawn, the authorities contacted Doug Bombard, thinking his local knowledge of the area might help. By this time, they had already located the dinghy, but not Wood.
Bombard told The Catalina Islander in 2012 that he began by checking the kelp line, following it east from Two Harbors around Blue Cavern Point just east of Two Harbors. There, he spotted a red object which turned out to be part of Wood’s red down jacket, and he called for another boat to come help lift her body from the ocean.
The down jacket had filled with water, adding an estimated 40 pounds to Wood’s body, which was clad in a flannel nightgown.
Various explanations have been offered as to what happened to the 43-year-old actress.
In his original 1981 autopsy report, Los Angeles County Coroner Thomas Noguchi stated Wood drowned after boarding the dinghy to get away from the arguing Walken and Wagner.
Two years later, Noguchi changed his tune in his book, “Coroner” (Simon & Schuster, 1983), speculating that Wood, who had had a few drinks, went above board to try to keep the dinghy from banging noisily into the Splendour, which was keeping her awake. Not a practiced swimmer, she then fell into the ocean, possibly hitting her head, and drowned.
Thirty years after her death, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s office reopened its investigation in November 2011, citing “new information” in the case. In August 2012, the cause of death on the official autopsy report was altered from “accidental drowning” to “drowning and other undetermined factors.”
The change came after the coroner’s office could not discern whether bruises and scratches on Wood’s face and arms occurred before or after she drowned.
Varying accounts of the events surrounding her death told by boat captain Davern, Wood’s sister Lana, the authorities and innumerable sensationalist tabloid articles and gossipy celebrity TV segments have attempted to cast further doubt upon what actually transpired.
In 2020, Wood’s daughter from second husband Richard Gregson, Natasha Gregson Wagner, released the HBO documentary, “Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind.” In addition to celebrating her mother’s life and accomplishments, the film also presents a strong, clear-eyed look at what is known and not known about Wood’s death.
Even so, the case remains officially open to date. Movie star mysteries, even 43-year-old ones, seem to take on a life of their own.
Sources:
Daily Breeze archives.
Los Angeles Times archives.
“Mysterious Island: Natalie Wood,” by Jim Watson, The Catalina Islander website, Dec. 1, 2012.
Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind, directed by Laurent Bouzerau, HBO Documentary Films, 2020.