Natalie Wood: Accidental Drowning or Murder?
Natalie Wood was a famous Hollywood actress who rose to fame at age 16 when she co-starred in the film Rebel Without a Cause, with James Dean in 1955, and her famous role as Maria in the 1961 film West Side Story.
While Wood seemed to be thriving to the public eye, behind closed doors, her life wasn’t all glitz and glamour. According to Biography, she got married in 1957 at age 18 to her first husband Robert Wagner, but they ended up splitting in 1962. After attending years of therapy, Wood reached a breaking point in 1966 and attempted to commit suicide through a drug overdose that year, and later took a break from making movies as a part of her recovery process.
In 1969, Wood married her second husband, Richard Gregson and the pair had a daughter together in 1970, however, the pair ended up divorcing in 1972 and Wood remarried Wagner, her first husband, with whom she had a child with, and they remained married until her tragic death in 1981.
On November 29, 1981 at age 43, Wood tragically died due to what was ruled as an accidental drowning, but the public and media were having a hard time believing that to be true.
E News claims that on the night of Wood’s death, she and her husband had been spending the weekend on their yacht with Wood’s fellow Brainstorm co-star, Christopher Walken. Allegedly, Wood and Wagner had gotten into an explosive fight, and Wagner had been blaming Wood for whatever had happened, according to Dennis Davern, the captain of the couple's yacht that night.
Wagner claims that he and Walken had been arguing about politics and that when they boarded the boat, Wood excused herself after about a half hour. An hour later, Wagner allegedly returned to their stateroom and found that Wood wasn’t there, and when he walked around looking for her, he noticed that the inflatable dinghy wasn’t there either, but he wasn’t too worried about it since Wood had allegedly taken it out alone before. After 10 to 15 minutes, he went out to look for her again in a smaller cruiser, but still, she was nowhere to be found, so Wagner decided to radio ashore and eventually the Baywatch Isthmus patrol and the Coast Guard began searching.
Sadly Wood’s was found floating in the water at 7:45 a.m. on November 29. The coroner at the time had concluded that Wood’s death was an accidental drowning, supporting that statement with the fact that Wood had allegedly consumed seven to eight glasses of wine that night, and there were fresh bruises on her legs and arms, along with a scratch on her left cheek that could’ve been synonymous with a fall.
Wagner wrote in his memoir Heart to Heart With Robert Wagner that “It was only after I was told that she was dressed in a sleeping gown, heavy socks, and a parka that it dawned on me what had really occurred. Natalie obviously had trouble sleeping with that dinghy slamming up against the boat.” He also went on to add “...She probably skidded on one of the steps after untying the ropes. The steps are slick as ice because of the algae and seaweed that's always clinging to them. After slipping on the steps, she hit her head against the boat...I only hope she was unconscious when she hit the water.”
However Wood’s sister, Lana Wood, insisted that her sister never would’ve tried to retie the dinghy based on the fact that Natalie was terrified of water, even revealing in an interview herself in the 1970s that “I've always been terrified, still am, of water—dark water, sea water.”
While Wood’s death was ruled an accidental drowning, her family and the public don’t believe that to be the full story. Lana Wood, along with many of the public, believes that Wagner played a role in Wood’s death.
In 2011, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department Homicide Bureau reopened the investigation because they had received new information. In 2018 the investigators from the department had claimed that Wagner was a person of interest but not a suspect. E News claims that John Corina, a lieutenant with the sheriff’s department stated on a 48 Hours special that “Wagner absolutely does know more than he's said, because he's the last one to see her. She got in the water somehow, and I don't think she got into the water by herself.”
Though Natalie Wood’s death happened over 40 years ago, hopefully her and her family will be able to get justice and closure as to the details of what truly happened on the night of her death.
