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www.titlovi.com

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I remember it was Sunday morning after
Thanksgiving. �I was 11 years old,

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and I had spent the night at
my best friend Tracy's house.

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The clock radio went off and woke
me up, and I heard a news report say

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my mom's body was found
off the coast of Catalina.

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The next thing I knew, my stepdad's driver
was there with our nanny, Willie Mae.

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They had come to pick me up
and take me home.

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It had rained, and the streets were
wet, and I was asking, "Is Mommy okay?"

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But they were just comforting me, and they
weren't really telling me what happened.

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When I got home, I got into my mom's
bed and tried to comfort myself.

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I said, "Maybe she just has a
broken leg or something like that."

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Then my stepdad came back. �I went
down the steps, and I could tell,

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just when I looked at his face,
that something awful had happened.

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The day my mom died,
my entire world was shattered,

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and our family
has never been the same.

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Since then, there's been so much
speculation and focus on how she died

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that it's overshadowed her life's
work and who she was as a person.

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I'm Natasha Gregson Wagner,
and my mom was Natalie Wood.

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Hello, Natalie. -Oh, hello again. �Please
sit down. -Thank you. �How's the food?

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Best location food I ever ate.
�Well, I must say, you certainly seem

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to thrive on it. �Well, I was brought up
on it. �I've been eating lunch on the set

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since I was four years old. �That's
correct. Natalie's a movie veteran.

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Been in pictures since 1941.
Is that correct? �That's right.

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My original real name was
Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko.

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Zakharenko was always being mispronounced.
�It was very difficult, so my parents

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changed their name to Gurdin, and
then that got mispronounced a lot,

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so when I was five years old and
William Goetz put me into my first film,

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he that that Gurdin
was not a good name,

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and at this point,
I was being called Natasha,

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which is really a nickname for Natalia, so
he chose Natalie, and then he chose Wood

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in honor of his friend Sam Wood, the
director. �So that's how I got named.

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Oh, daisies on your coffeepot! �They're
my favorite flower. �With Natalie Wood,

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one of the most fascinating
things about her is,

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generations of people watched her
grow up, and so it was congruent

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with what was happening
with their own development.

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No, Mom.
We haven't gone too far.

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When you're an adolescent,
you're a very different person

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than you were when you were
five years old,

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and she certainly was that but on
steroids, 'cause she was a movie star.

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Wish me luck! �I'm gonna
make a noise in the world!

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The business she was in is a tough
business, and to survive in that business,

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you had to have a tough side to you,
and so I think she had to develop that.

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But it wasn't comfortable.

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What she really wanted to do was to laugh
and have fun and just be a regular person.

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But mainly, she had a big heart,
and that showed up in her work.

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You can't pinpoint what it is
that draws you to a character.

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You just suddenly say, "I know her.
�I know that I can make her be real."

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People knew she was smart
and incredibly well-organized,

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and in a town where women
were not always respected,

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not in their work and not
socially, she was an exception.

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She knew how it should be lit,
she knew how the sound should be,

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she knew how she should look, and she
sure knew how to give a great performance.

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I know this may come as a great
big shock to the both of you,

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but underneath all this hair
and skin is a human girl

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with all the regular things going
for me, and believe it or not,

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I don't want to spend
the rest of my life

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married to a man
who's doing me a big favor!

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Primarily, I'm an actress, and I think
that at the point when you're a star,

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mainly, I was thinking of the work,
not of the stardom that follows it.

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I've enjoyed the part
where you act,

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where the red light goes on and the camera
rolls and you really can do your work,

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and in the film business,
there are so many other things

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that enter into making it
possible for those moments

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where you just are able
to do your craft

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without the interference
of a lot of other things.

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I always knew that she was an actor,
but, you know, around the house,

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my mom didn't wear a lot of
makeup, and she was very casual,

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so I would look at her and think, "What
is-what's the big deal about you, lady?"

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But then she and my stepdad
would get dressed up,

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and they would go out to dinner or
something, and she was amazing-looking.

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But we weren't raised by someone
who seemed like a movie star at all.

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All she just seemed was sort of larger
than life but not because she was famous,

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more because she was just her.

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I was seven when she passed away,
and I feel like my memories of her

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are just ever-evolving. �You
know, there's her beautiful face

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and her voice and her hands and
all those things that I remember.

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But when I try to think of my mom now,
it's so hard; like, I will literally

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come across a picture,
and I'll just look at it,

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and I'll look at it a little bit more,
thinking, "Is that really my mom?

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How is it that she's my mom?"
�I just have this famous mother,

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and she's like this mythology
character. �I- you know.

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I hope one day, I'll get to a place where
I can really access the true feeling

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that this was my mother, that I
came from her and that she was mine

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for a short time, you
know? �Like, I feel like

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it's just been very hard
to hold on to that.

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I have two fathers. �My biological
father is Richard Gregson.

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I call him Daddy Gregson. �My stepfather
is Robert Wagner, who everyone calls RJ,

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and I call him Daddy Wagner. �My mom
was the one that started calling them

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Daddy Gregson and Daddy Wagner to clarify
who was who in case people got confused.

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And then it's just
nicknames that have stuck.

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From the age of two, I was
primarily raised by my Daddy Wagner,

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and in all that time, he
treated me like his own blood.

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So, Dad, I just want to say

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that I'm really excited to talk to
you about my mom... �Yes, I am too.

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And everything we've been
through, the highs and the lows,

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how we've always stayed connected through
all of it. �I don't think there's a day

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that has ever gone by in my life
that there hasn't been a moment

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that I haven't thought about
Natalie and how much she meant to me

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in my heart and in my soul. �We started so
young. �To see her evolve over the years

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into the woman that she
was was very special.

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How did you two meet?
I want to hear both versions.

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Well, actually, when I was ten years
old and RJ was about 18, I guess,

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when you were first
under contract,

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I remember walking down
the hallway with my mother,

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and I saw him,
and I said to my mother,

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"When I grow up, I wish that I could marry
him." �Did you really? -I really did.

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Did you really know that she...
�Well, I didn't know it then.

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It sure could've saved me a
lot of trouble, I'll tell you.

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Could I ask for your version of when you
met? �When I came into Natalie's life,

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I was sort of
a Happy Jack Squirrel kid,

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you know, with nothing on my
mind much but my hair and...

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She sort of resisted me a bit, actually,
at the beginning, because- -I did?

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I was-yeah, well,
I was so different

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than all the rest of the-
-I don't remember that.

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Well, yes, you did,
and then I finally started

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taking you-I remember
I took you out on-

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On my 18th birthday, mm-hmm. -On your 18th
birthday. �I took her out on her birthday,

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July 20, 1956. �I had done a picture

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with Spencer Tracy
called "The Mountain",

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and we went to the premiere,
and that sort of started it.

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Everybody knew about Robert Wagner,
and my dad had introduced me to RJ

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when I was maybe nine when
he did "Prince Valiant",

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which was, at the time, my favorite
movie, and there he was, Prince Valiant.

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There was nobody handsomer.
�And he was so kind to me.

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On December 6, 1957, I made a reservation
at a restaurant in Beverly Hills

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called Romanoff's. �Man,
I got Natalie down there,

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and I opened a bottle of
champagne. �We had some champagne,

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and I suddenly looked in my
glass, and there was a ring in it,

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and I took the ring out
and looked,

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and he said, "Look, guys",
and, "My God, what is this?"

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Then he said, "Look on the
inside", and it said, "Marry me."

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We got married in Scottsdale, Arizona,
and I got a private railroad car.

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After the ceremony,
we went to the private car,

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and a big train came by and picked
us up, and off we went to Chicago.

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It was pretty exciting.

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Maybe we should stay too.
�Well, I think you ought to go.

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I really think you ought to. �Maybe
she'll be better by the morning. �Here.

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Will you come back to the apartment?
�Yeah, yeah. It's 695 Park Avenue.

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Yeah, I'll come back. �I loved
working with RJ and Natalie.

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There was something about her
that was incredibly ingratiating.

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She made you feel important,
not her.

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Something that's one of the
tricks of life and success

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is to make other people
feel important

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when they're around you, not
because you are an important person.

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While here, still enjoying the plaudits
for his "In Love and War" role,

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is Robert Wagner with his
lovely wife, Natalie Wood.

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The studios were always anxious to
get publicity, and at that time,

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the movie magazines were the
thing- "Photoplay", "Modern Screen"-

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and Natalie and I were one of
the hot things for the magazines,

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so they were very much
involved in our relationship.

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Nat and RJ
were both major stars,

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and I didn't feel like one
was outshining the other.

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There's a sort of royalty
to that business,

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and RJ and Nat
were that royalty.

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So why don't we start by you telling
me how you and my mom met? �Oh, okay.

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Let's see. How did we meet? �Well,
I met your mother and Daddy Wagner

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the same day, the same moment, because I
was working for the director Elia Kazan,

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and I was a production assistant
on "Splendor in the Grass."

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There, I had to go and get
your mother every morning.

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Therefore, we talked an awful
lot, and it was clear to me

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that there was trouble
in their marriage. �Mm.

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I discovered that my mom had written an
article for "Ladies' Home Journal" in 1966

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that was never published. �It was called
"Public Property, Private Person."

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It was amazing
to read this article.

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I found out so many things about
my mom's life that I didn't know,

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especially during a really
challenging time for her.

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"After two years of marriage,
"things began to change.

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"We were aware that we had problems, "but
we tried to avoid the real conflicts.

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"We maintained a superficially
happy relationship

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"and hoped that by pretending
there was nothing wrong,

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"the problems would go away. "How do
you separate reality from illusion

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"when you have been trapped
in make-believe all your life?

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"Marriage requires patience
and work,

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"as well as the capacity
to accept another human being,

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"flaws and all, without cloaking him
in a smothering mantle of perfection."

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With the pressure of being
this wonderful couple

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and the marriage starting
to have difficulties in it,

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I could feel it unraveling, and
so could she, and that time,

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her career really started to catch on
fire. �It was like striking a match.

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And when she did "Splendor" with Kazan, I
mean, this was a dream come true for her.

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"Though nothing can bring back the
hour "of splendor in the grass,

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"glory in the flower,
"we will grieve not,

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"rather find the strength

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in what remains behind." �And
on that picture, she knew

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that she was not Kazan's first
choice, and she was out to prove

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that she was a serious
actress. �Miss Metcalf,

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may I please be e-

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The opportunity to work with
Kazan was just fantastic,

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but it was emotionally a very
demanding role, and it-I don't know.

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It had quite an effect
on my life, I think.

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"As RJ and I struggled
to make our marriage work,

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"the problems
continued to pile up.

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"After finishing work
on 'Splendor in the Grass, '

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"I went directly
into 'West Side Story'

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"for another solid
and rigorous eight months.

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"The rest of the cast
had been rehearsing together

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"for a month
while I finished 'Splendor.'

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"Now I had to cram four weeks
of rehearsals "into weekends.

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"I was worn out, "and I didn't have time
to be the kind of wife "I wanted to be.

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"During this hectic period,
"RJ went through an ordeal

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"that all performers, including
myself, "have to face.

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"His career hit a momentary lull.
"Sometimes I waited for him to complain

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"or start a fight, "but his
calm exterior remained intact.

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His coolness
drove me frantic."

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My career was not igniting like hers was,
but that wasn't really a very big factor

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in the fact that we separated
and then finally divorced.

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It was the pressure on her and her
career that caused that, and also,

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I think that I might have been able
to handle it a little bit better.

209
00:16:19,701 --> 00:16:22,076
If I'd have been a little bit
older and had more experience,

210
00:16:22,201 --> 00:16:27,076
I might have been able to have worked
it out. �Any rumors that you've heard-

211
00:16:27,201 --> 00:16:31,744
I mean, I'm here to say that
Warren Beatty, who was her costar

212
00:16:31,869 --> 00:16:36,784
in "Splendor in the Grass",
was not the problem at all,

213
00:16:36,909 --> 00:16:41,576
and there definitely did not
develop a relationship between them

214
00:16:41,701 --> 00:16:48,118
until long after "Splendor" had wrapped.
�We were separated, and Warren, I think,

215
00:16:48,243 --> 00:16:51,326
was very much taken by her,
and why wouldn't he be?

216
00:16:51,451 --> 00:16:55,326
But that was a very difficult
time because I was so upset

217
00:16:55,451 --> 00:16:59,118
and so disturbed by everything,
I was ready to go after him.

218
00:16:59,243 --> 00:17:00,619
I can talk about that
pretty easily now,

219
00:17:00,744 --> 00:17:04,618
but at the time, it was a little
bit difficult, as you can imagine.

220
00:17:04,743 --> 00:17:07,367
The relationship between her
and Warren Beatty was hot.

221
00:17:07,492 --> 00:17:10,117
You could almost not look at them.
�Your eyes were gonna burn out.

222
00:17:10,242 --> 00:17:15,826
They were so good-looking. �I was
alone, I didn't have anybody in my life,

223
00:17:15,951 --> 00:17:20,493
and I just couldn't stay in Los
Angeles anymore and be alone,

224
00:17:20,618 --> 00:17:24,992
and I made a decision to move
to Europe. �So I talked to her,

225
00:17:25,117 --> 00:17:29,867
and I said I was going to Europe. "Do
you feel like you'd want to come there?"

226
00:17:29,992 --> 00:17:34,035
And she said,
"No, I have other plans",

227
00:17:34,160 --> 00:17:39,535
and I said, "Okay",
and I hung up the phone,

228
00:17:39,660 --> 00:17:45,992
and that was it. "Neither Warren nor I
was ready "for a permanent relationship,

229
00:17:46,117 --> 00:17:49,701
"although our romance lasted
approximately two years.

230
00:17:49,826 --> 00:17:53,201
"Our affair was a collision
from start to finish.

231
00:17:53,326 --> 00:17:57,660
"While RJ never did express
hostility, "Warren couldn't stop,

232
00:17:57,785 --> 00:18:02,410
"and I contributed my share of fireworks
too. "In fact, we were both so confused

233
00:18:02,535 --> 00:18:07,326
"that we thought fighting and hostility
meant real emotional honesty."

234
00:18:08,785 --> 00:18:11,867
After her relationship
with Warren had broken up,

235
00:18:11,992 --> 00:18:16,076
my mom had a string of
relationships, and during the '60s,

236
00:18:16,201 --> 00:18:20,242
before she married my Daddy Gregson,
she had a couple of broken engagements,

237
00:18:20,367 --> 00:18:24,867
one with Arthur Loew Jr., who
remained a very close friend of hers,

238
00:18:24,992 --> 00:18:29,867
another with Ladislav Blatnik, who was
known as the shoe king of Venezuela,

239
00:18:29,992 --> 00:18:35,992
but I think that my mom was longing
to be taken care of emotionally,

240
00:18:36,117 --> 00:18:39,867
and I think that's what she was
looking for during that time.

241
00:18:39,992 --> 00:18:41,867
I was flattered
that I was, I think,

242
00:18:41,992 --> 00:18:43,992
the only one she ever dated
who was younger than she,

243
00:18:44,117 --> 00:18:48,535
and I was four years younger than she
was. �Didn't bother me. Didn't bother her.

244
00:18:48,660 --> 00:18:52,785
But it was never gonna go anywhere.
�It was never supposed to go anywhere.

245
00:18:52,910 --> 00:18:54,951
It was fun
for as long as it lasted,

246
00:18:55,076 --> 00:18:58,410
and it-the friendship lasted
way beyond the dating period.

247
00:19:00,701 --> 00:19:04,076
"For the first time in my
life, "I considered, in horror,

248
00:19:04,201 --> 00:19:08,785
"the possibility that I might join
"that sad parade of famous movie ladies

249
00:19:08,910 --> 00:19:13,785
"who wind up desperately lonely "with
nothing more substantial to sustain them

250
00:19:13,910 --> 00:19:20,035
"than their scrapbooks and old photos
"and memories of romances and divorces.

251
00:19:20,160 --> 00:19:26,242
"My ex-husband's first child had just
been born. "I cried when I heard the news.

252
00:19:26,367 --> 00:19:30,618
"It wasn't only from the sense of loss
I felt "for something we never shared.

253
00:19:30,743 --> 00:19:35,493
It was also happiness for him."
�My mom's name was Marion Marshall

254
00:19:35,618 --> 00:19:37,451
when she was
in the picture business,

255
00:19:37,576 --> 00:19:42,117
Marion Donen when she was married to
Stanley Donen, and she had two boys,

256
00:19:42,242 --> 00:19:46,535
my brothers Josh Donen and Peter Donen,
who are eight and ten years older than me.

257
00:19:48,618 --> 00:19:54,493
I left Los Angeles and lived in Rome
for three years, and I saw Marion,

258
00:19:54,618 --> 00:19:58,160
and Marion and I started going out,
traveling all over Europe together,

259
00:19:58,285 --> 00:19:59,535
and fell in love
with each other

260
00:19:59,660 --> 00:20:03,285
and got married and came back
to the United States.

261
00:20:03,410 --> 00:20:06,992
She had two sons, Peter and
Josh. �I loved these two boys,

262
00:20:07,117 --> 00:20:12,367
and we had a wonderful life together, and
I had a daughter with her called Katie,

263
00:20:12,492 --> 00:20:15,076
and that was a joy in my life.

264
00:20:20,785 --> 00:20:25,035
Here we are in Wales at my
father Richard Gregson's house.

265
00:20:25,160 --> 00:20:28,367
My dad has Parkinson's
at this point in his life,

266
00:20:28,492 --> 00:20:34,410
and this might be one of the last
times we get to speak about my mom.

267
00:20:58,868 --> 00:21:01,660
I was with her
the night she met your father.

268
00:21:01,785 --> 00:21:05,951
They started seeing each other,
dating, and it got serious.

269
00:21:06,076 --> 00:21:10,743
Richard Gregson was my agent, and then
he became a producer from being my agent,

270
00:21:10,868 --> 00:21:15,367
and right from the beginning, I saw
him as a very, very smart, elegant guy

271
00:21:15,492 --> 00:21:17,367
and very, very sophisticated,

272
00:21:17,492 --> 00:21:20,410
more so than any of the agents
that I knew in Hollywood.

273
00:21:20,535 --> 00:21:24,576
And I was best man at their wedding.
�I remember a story with him saying

274
00:21:24,701 --> 00:21:29,867
that he asked all his wives to
marry him but they turned him down,

275
00:21:29,992 --> 00:21:34,410
so he then had to wait for them to ask
him. �And eventually, Natalie asked him

276
00:21:34,535 --> 00:21:37,785
to marry him, and they'd been together
for three or four years at that time.

277
00:21:37,910 --> 00:21:42,618
And they had a big, big, fancy wedding
at a Russian church, Russian ceremony,

278
00:21:42,743 --> 00:21:44,743
and it was beautiful.

279
00:21:52,868 --> 00:21:55,910
How long have you been married
now? �Five months. -Five months.

280
00:21:56,035 --> 00:22:01,576
Five months. And they said it
wouldn't last. �Don't say that!

281
00:22:01,701 --> 00:22:04,076
And you've been quoted as saying
you wouldn't now take a film

282
00:22:04,201 --> 00:22:07,910
that was thousands of miles apart? �Not
if it meant being away from Richard,

283
00:22:08,035 --> 00:22:13,910
no, I wouldn't. �How long have you
been married, Robert? 11 years.

284
00:22:17,410 --> 00:22:22,451
And what advice would you give this young
couple? �Yes, Redford, tell us what to do.

285
00:22:22,576 --> 00:22:26,992
Well, just try to keep track of
how many years you're married

286
00:22:27,117 --> 00:22:30,451
and, you know, remember
the dates when they come up.

287
00:22:30,576 --> 00:22:31,910
That's right, 'cause somebody
asked you last week,

288
00:22:32,035 --> 00:22:36,785
and they said, "What day were you married
on?" and simultaneously, I said May 30th,

289
00:22:36,910 --> 00:22:42,618
and he said May 31st. �You don't need
to ask who was wrong, right? �Yeah.

290
00:23:01,160 --> 00:23:04,992
There's nothing quite like finding
out for the very first time

291
00:23:05,117 --> 00:23:08,535
that you're gonna be pregnant and
to go through that first pregnancy.

292
00:23:08,660 --> 00:23:12,493
There's just nothing ever
quite as miraculous as that.

293
00:23:12,618 --> 00:23:17,826
Ah. -She didn't "get pregnant." �She
got pregnant because she wanted a baby,

294
00:23:17,951 --> 00:23:22,992
so she was doing what she wanted and
doing it well, and then the work,

295
00:23:23,117 --> 00:23:25,826
she put it aside for a while.
�She knew she'd get back to it.

296
00:23:25,951 --> 00:23:27,867
There was nothing
more important to Natalie

297
00:23:27,992 --> 00:23:30,493
than being a mom;
that was really clear.

298
00:23:30,618 --> 00:23:34,701
I once walked in,
and she was coddling you,

299
00:23:34,826 --> 00:23:37,035
and she just looked up at me
and said,

300
00:23:37,160 --> 00:23:42,242
"Who needs show business
when one has this?"

301
00:23:42,367 --> 00:23:45,410
My God, you were
the spitting image of her,

302
00:23:45,535 --> 00:23:49,201
you know, when you were born
and a child. �It was incredible.

303
00:23:49,326 --> 00:23:52,867
Before Natasha was born, she would
do a great deal of things with us.

304
00:23:52,992 --> 00:23:56,076
We'd go out, we'd go to
SeaWorld, we'd go to Disneyland,

305
00:23:56,201 --> 00:23:58,410
but then
when Natasha was born,

306
00:23:58,535 --> 00:24:01,785
her sole focus, really,
I would say, was on Natasha.

307
00:24:12,492 --> 00:24:18,242
Richard felt that Natalie was so involved
and emotionally connected to Natasha

308
00:24:18,367 --> 00:24:22,701
that there wasn't any room for him,
so he did something really stupid

309
00:24:22,826 --> 00:24:26,660
and got thrown out. �What happened
when you and Mommy got divorced?

310
00:24:44,910 --> 00:24:46,910
Changed the locks, I think.

311
00:24:56,242 --> 00:24:59,618
I love the story about how
you and Mommy reconnected

312
00:24:59,743 --> 00:25:04,117
at your friend John Foreman's party.
�We saw each other at this party,

313
00:25:04,242 --> 00:25:08,576
and so the sparks sort of flew a little
bit, and then I offered to drive her home,

314
00:25:08,701 --> 00:25:12,951
and I did drive her home and dropped her
off and said good night to her, and...

315
00:25:13,076 --> 00:25:19,785
And then she got into her house
on Bentley and started to cry,

316
00:25:19,910 --> 00:25:23,326
and then what did you do? �I drove
down the street, and I stopped,

317
00:25:23,451 --> 00:25:27,785
and I had tears in my eyes as
well. �Because you guys realized

318
00:25:27,910 --> 00:25:32,576
that you still missed each other. �How
come you got married to Bob Wagner again?

319
00:25:32,701 --> 00:25:33,826
Again?
-I mean, and how does it feel

320
00:25:33,951 --> 00:25:37,117
when you marry your husband
after you divorced him?

321
00:25:37,242 --> 00:25:39,701
And if you don't want to talk about
it, we'll pass. �Oh, it feels terrific.

322
00:25:39,826 --> 00:25:42,326
I don't mind talking about it. -Okay.
�I was just fortunate, you know?

323
00:25:42,451 --> 00:25:47,660
Timing was on our side. �We happened to
meet at a time when we were both free.

324
00:25:47,785 --> 00:25:52,117
The fact that we both had feelings toward
the other one we didn't keep to ourselves.

325
00:25:52,242 --> 00:25:56,660
I mean, we managed to convey that.
�Because I really had no idea that RJ

326
00:25:56,785 --> 00:25:59,493
felt something still toward me,
even though I knew that I did,

327
00:25:59,618 --> 00:26:02,160
and he felt the same way
and didn't know if I did.

328
00:26:02,285 --> 00:26:06,201
But luckily, we didn't
keep that to ourselves.

329
00:26:06,326 --> 00:26:10,660
I came into Natalie's life
through RJ.

330
00:26:10,785 --> 00:26:16,076
RJ married my mother, and when
RJ and my mother divorced,

331
00:26:16,201 --> 00:26:22,076
I remained very close to RJ, so when
he started seeing Natalie again,

332
00:26:22,201 --> 00:26:27,743
naturally, that's how I was introduced
to Natalie, and after college,

333
00:26:27,868 --> 00:26:32,867
Natalie said, "Come and live in our guest
house", and I stayed there for years,

334
00:26:32,992 --> 00:26:34,326
and that's when we became
really close.

335
00:26:34,451 --> 00:26:36,493
You know, and it was clear,
seeing them together,

336
00:26:36,618 --> 00:26:39,201
that they loved each other,
but it was more.

337
00:26:39,326 --> 00:26:45,867
It seemed to me that they should
be together. �This seemed right.

338
00:26:45,992 --> 00:26:51,160
When you and Mommy got back together,
she was a mom and you were a dad.

339
00:26:51,285 --> 00:26:54,242
That's right. -And you guys
had had ten years between.

340
00:26:54,367 --> 00:26:59,242
So had you both really grown up? �I think
so. �You know, when we were younger,

341
00:26:59,367 --> 00:27:03,035
we were very interested in our
careers and where we could go with it,

342
00:27:03,160 --> 00:27:08,910
and that became less important the second
time. �I mean, it had more to do with us

343
00:27:09,035 --> 00:27:14,285
and you and Katie. �It was pretty
exciting to be a part of that

344
00:27:14,410 --> 00:27:16,367
relationship
and that love affair.

345
00:27:16,492 --> 00:27:20,201
And then they got married the second
time around on the "Ramblin' Rose",

346
00:27:20,326 --> 00:27:22,743
and it was just an incredible day.
�It was a small group of people,

347
00:27:22,868 --> 00:27:24,868
probably about 30 people.

348
00:27:27,785 --> 00:27:31,743
We got married in Paradise Cove,
and then we went from Paradise Cove

349
00:27:31,868 --> 00:27:35,326
over to the Isthmus, and we
spent our honeymoon in Catalina.

350
00:27:38,535 --> 00:27:41,826
Clearly, RJ was the love of her life,
because when they got back together,

351
00:27:41,951 --> 00:27:46,117
it was like just two parts of the
same whole coming together again,

352
00:27:46,242 --> 00:27:50,868
and I saw her in a more complete way.
�You know, she was totally happy.

353
00:27:53,367 --> 00:27:56,451
Natalie, you tried natural
childbirth with your second child.

354
00:27:56,576 --> 00:27:59,743
Well, with my first child, I did
have- �You tried it? -I was awake,

355
00:27:59,868 --> 00:28:02,618
and I watched Natasha being born.
�Mm-hmm. -And with Courtney,

356
00:28:02,743 --> 00:28:07,451
suddenly, there were complications, you
know, after about 17 or 18 hours of labor,

357
00:28:07,576 --> 00:28:09,618
and all of a sudden,
the doctor said,

358
00:28:09,743 --> 00:28:11,660
"Oh, no, this is gonna be
an emergency section",

359
00:28:11,785 --> 00:28:15,117
and he got Courtney out in
two minutes, saved her life.

360
00:28:17,992 --> 00:28:22,951
I was born March 9, 1974,
and I think there was a big-

361
00:28:23,076 --> 00:28:27,951
like, a whole thing in the paper saying
that, like, I was near death and-

362
00:28:28,076 --> 00:28:30,410
but I was the lovechild.

363
00:28:38,326 --> 00:28:43,201
I had had Katie with Marion, and
she had had Natasha with Richard,

364
00:28:43,326 --> 00:28:48,493
and we had Courtney together,
so we were-we were thrilled.

365
00:28:48,618 --> 00:28:51,285
Do you know something more
the second time around?

366
00:28:51,410 --> 00:28:55,535
I know to appreciate him for what- �Oh,
you're taking the blame, huh?

367
00:28:55,660 --> 00:28:57,992
You didn't appreciate him first time
around? �No, no, no. Not necessarily.

368
00:28:58,117 --> 00:29:00,160
I think we both appreciate
each other more,

369
00:29:00,285 --> 00:29:03,285
and I think we know
each other better as people,

370
00:29:03,410 --> 00:29:06,410
and we're kind of on the same wavelength.
�You know, we like to do the same things,

371
00:29:06,535 --> 00:29:10,326
and we like hanging out together.
�We like hanging out with the kids.

372
00:29:13,492 --> 00:29:17,826
When we got married, we were living in the
Springs. �I had this home in Palm Springs.

373
00:29:17,951 --> 00:29:21,867
And then we found this house on
Cañon Drive in Beverly Hills,

374
00:29:21,992 --> 00:29:24,826
and then we bought that
and moved into there.

375
00:29:28,035 --> 00:29:33,117
When we were all very much a family in the
'70s, it was you, Mommy, Courtney, and I,

376
00:29:33,242 --> 00:29:37,035
and Katie came and lived with
us, and that was our group

377
00:29:37,160 --> 00:29:42,367
with visits from Josh and Peter,
Sarah, Charlotte, and Hugo.

378
00:29:42,492 --> 00:29:45,992
The guest house was rather filled, wasn't
it? �Yeah, it was always turning over,

379
00:29:46,117 --> 00:29:52,410
and many, many dogs, many cats, many
birds, many- �Lizards. -Lizards. �Ducks.

380
00:29:52,535 --> 00:29:57,285
We had this amazing nanny named Willie Mae
who lived with us until she passed away

381
00:29:57,410 --> 00:30:03,242
at the age of 90. �Great lady. �I
was really attached to Willie Mae.

382
00:30:03,367 --> 00:30:06,785
I was always much more attached to
Willie Mae, really, than my mom.

383
00:30:06,910 --> 00:30:09,743
I felt that Natasha had my
mom and I had Willie Mae.

384
00:30:09,868 --> 00:30:11,367
And then, you know,
we had each other,

385
00:30:11,492 --> 00:30:14,035
but I just-I don't know
what it was about Willie Mae.

386
00:30:14,160 --> 00:30:20,076
I just loved Willie Mae so much. �Willie
Mae Worthen was the nanny, who I adored.

387
00:30:20,201 --> 00:30:24,743
Everybody adored her. �She was this
six-foot giant from down South,

388
00:30:24,868 --> 00:30:29,826
very brusque but loving.
�She was part of the family.

389
00:30:29,951 --> 00:30:33,785
And I was Natalie Wood's personal
assistant for four years.

390
00:30:33,910 --> 00:30:37,451
My office was literally in the
corner of the master bedroom.

391
00:30:37,576 --> 00:30:42,117
These two were in bed. �It was
quite- it was quite funny, actually,

392
00:30:42,242 --> 00:30:45,451
to be in that situation,
having come from an office.

393
00:30:45,576 --> 00:30:50,951
And Natalie would give incredible
parties, but the main one each year

394
00:30:51,076 --> 00:30:53,992
would be the New Year's Eve
party. �The guests would come.

395
00:30:54,117 --> 00:30:55,867
There would be
George Segal and his wife.

396
00:30:55,992 --> 00:30:59,785
There would be Gregory Peck,
Jimmy Stewart, Roddy McDowall.

397
00:30:59,910 --> 00:31:05,201
I look to my right, and
there I saw, I swear to God,

398
00:31:05,326 --> 00:31:10,117
Fred Astaire singing Cole Porter
with a pianist accompanying him,

399
00:31:10,242 --> 00:31:13,160
and he finished his song, and
everybody burst into applause.

400
00:31:13,285 --> 00:31:16,493
Those parties were the best.
�You'd be talking to someone

401
00:31:16,618 --> 00:31:20,160
and turn around, and, ooh,
Sir Laurence Olivier.

402
00:31:20,285 --> 00:31:24,160
Now I have to figure out what kind
of conversation �I can have with him.

403
00:31:24,285 --> 00:31:30,326
And the house was just so
full of love and happiness,

404
00:31:30,451 --> 00:31:34,660
it made you feel good to be there.
�So many people coming and going

405
00:31:34,785 --> 00:31:38,367
in the Cañon Drive house that were not
only famous but just friends, you know,

406
00:31:38,492 --> 00:31:41,660
really, really great friends.
�They had parties all the time.

407
00:31:41,785 --> 00:31:43,410
You know,
our holidays were huge.

408
00:31:43,535 --> 00:31:45,535
Courtney got as many presents
at Natasha's birthday

409
00:31:45,660 --> 00:31:48,160
as Natasha got
at Courtney's birthday.

410
00:31:59,492 --> 00:32:04,367
Everything was heaven. �The house
was so beautiful and also welcoming,

411
00:32:04,492 --> 00:32:09,367
and Natalie was so candid, and the focus
was the children, not the grown-ups.

412
00:32:12,992 --> 00:32:15,493
I remember the parties.
I remember the laughter.

413
00:32:15,618 --> 00:32:19,867
I remember they were so in love with
each other, and my mom would always say,

414
00:32:19,992 --> 00:32:23,826
"Oh, RJ, honestly!" but then she
would, like, break out laughing.

415
00:32:23,951 --> 00:32:28,576
They were just always laughing.
�That connection that they had

416
00:32:28,701 --> 00:32:33,160
is what I remember growing up. �And they
were always buying each other presents,

417
00:32:33,285 --> 00:32:37,242
and my mom was always concocting
some kind of an incredible surprise

418
00:32:37,367 --> 00:32:39,535
for my dad
that she would tell us about.

419
00:32:40,868 --> 00:32:45,117
The most important thing for me is
my family and my husband, my kids.

420
00:32:45,242 --> 00:32:46,743
That's why we like spending
a lot of time on the boat,

421
00:32:46,868 --> 00:32:49,035
where we really are
just a family

422
00:32:49,160 --> 00:32:51,743
and there aren't a lot
of other things to relate to.

423
00:32:51,868 --> 00:32:56,785
We got a boat together, the
"Splendour", and we spent most weekends

424
00:32:56,910 --> 00:33:00,743
and most vacations in Catalina. �We
spent a lot of time on that island.

425
00:33:02,201 --> 00:33:06,743
Natalie never cooked at home, but she
would always cook breakfast on the boat,

426
00:33:06,868 --> 00:33:11,076
and it was huevos rancheros,
and she enjoyed the boat.

427
00:33:11,201 --> 00:33:14,117
You know, she'd have
the hat on and the outfit.

428
00:33:14,242 --> 00:33:19,535
It was fun for the family, and it was fun
for RJ and Natalie to get away as well.

429
00:33:30,910 --> 00:33:33,242
My parents were very relaxed
on the boat.

430
00:33:33,367 --> 00:33:35,951
They'd bring other friends,
or we'd bring our friends.

431
00:33:36,076 --> 00:33:39,785
We'd go to Catalina. We'd go to
Emerald Bay. �We'd go to the Isthmus.

432
00:33:39,910 --> 00:33:42,910
And it was a really happy time
for us there.

433
00:33:46,076 --> 00:33:49,785
As we reported earlier, actress
Natalie Wood was found dead today.

434
00:33:49,910 --> 00:33:53,826
Her body was discovered fully clothed
in waters off Santa Catalina Island.

435
00:33:53,951 --> 00:33:58,451
Los Angeles County officials can only
confirm the 43-year-old Ms. Wood drowned,

436
00:33:58,576 --> 00:34:03,660
but nothing further on the
circumstances. �David Burrington reports.

437
00:34:03,785 --> 00:34:08,327
Natalie Wood and her husband, actor Robert
Wagner, had sailed to Catalina Island

438
00:34:08,452 --> 00:34:11,034
to spend the holiday weekend
with friends.

439
00:34:11,159 --> 00:34:15,494
Apparently, they had returned to their
yacht, the "Splendour", after dinner,

440
00:34:15,619 --> 00:34:18,784
when Natalie went back out on
the water in this rubber boat.

441
00:34:18,909 --> 00:34:21,452
Exactly what happened then,
nobody knows,

442
00:34:21,577 --> 00:34:23,992
but her body was found
after dawn this morning

443
00:34:24,117 --> 00:34:28,951
in a small cove not far from the
rubber boat. �It was on the news,

444
00:34:29,076 --> 00:34:31,577
and I called our mutual friend
Leonard Gershe,

445
00:34:31,702 --> 00:34:37,242
and I said, "Is Natalie all right?"
�And he said, "No. Nat's..."

446
00:34:41,869 --> 00:34:46,702
Natalie was gone. �I remember
being devastated by that news

447
00:34:46,827 --> 00:34:52,992
and, having such affection
for her, hurt by the news.

448
00:34:53,117 --> 00:34:56,202
The phone rang, and I
pick up the phone...

449
00:34:56,327 --> 00:35:02,367
And RJ screams into the phone...

450
00:35:05,827 --> 00:35:11,202
"She's gone!" �My brother Peter
Donen called me-my late brother-

451
00:35:11,327 --> 00:35:15,367
called me about 6:00 in the morning,
and he-I picked up my phone in my room,

452
00:35:15,492 --> 00:35:19,327
and he said, "Natalie's dead.
She drowned."

453
00:35:19,452 --> 00:35:22,494
And I thought to myself, "Well, she
drowned, but she'll be back, right?"

454
00:35:22,619 --> 00:35:26,076
I mean, that weird thing that you think
when you hear something like that.

455
00:35:26,201 --> 00:35:31,867
I was walking along the beach, and it was
early in the morning, and I saw my brother

456
00:35:31,992 --> 00:35:35,409
came out onto the beach, and he came
over to me; he put his arms around me.

457
00:35:35,534 --> 00:35:40,159
He said, "Natalie's died." �And
I was just in a state of shock.

458
00:35:40,284 --> 00:35:45,867
That was one of the worst mornings
that we've ever experienced.

459
00:35:45,992 --> 00:35:50,452
So we got in the car
and went over to Cañon,

460
00:35:50,577 --> 00:35:55,076
and already, there was press out in
the street and cameras and all of that,

461
00:35:55,201 --> 00:35:59,744
and we were there before RJ was
there. �Eventually, RJ came home,

462
00:35:59,869 --> 00:36:04,619
and we went downstairs, and
he came in looking like death.

463
00:36:04,744 --> 00:36:08,076
I remember Willie Mae
woke me up,

464
00:36:08,201 --> 00:36:14,284
and I could hear my sister Natasha
crying, and I saw all of these people

465
00:36:14,409 --> 00:36:17,784
in the living room, and I
was walking down the steps,

466
00:36:17,909 --> 00:36:20,284
and my dad was at the edge
of the steps,

467
00:36:20,409 --> 00:36:24,159
and he said to me, "You know, you're
not gonna see your mom anymore."

468
00:36:24,284 --> 00:36:30,284
He said, "But I want you to know
"that we're going to be all right.

469
00:36:30,409 --> 00:36:36,619
"We're staying together, "we're still a
family, and we're gonna get through this."

470
00:36:36,744 --> 00:36:42,659
It was heavy-duty stuff,
and he just clung on to them

471
00:36:42,784 --> 00:36:47,659
and they on him. �It's like, the
instant that my mom passed away

472
00:36:47,784 --> 00:36:53,327
is like the air in the balloon that was
our life, you know, it just-it just-

473
00:36:53,452 --> 00:36:56,327
you know, it just-
the party was over.

474
00:37:02,702 --> 00:37:07,494
I remember hearing that my grandma
fainted, but I remember that I didn't want

475
00:37:07,619 --> 00:37:11,659
to be around my grandma
because she was too hysterical.

476
00:37:11,784 --> 00:37:14,494
I think I was more
of a private griever,

477
00:37:14,619 --> 00:37:19,159
and my grandma
was so kind of colorful

478
00:37:19,284 --> 00:37:24,494
with her grief, so I didn't
feel safe around her.

479
00:37:24,619 --> 00:37:27,367
I remember my grandmother
being really-

480
00:37:27,492 --> 00:37:30,034
I mean, talk about someone
that was checked out.

481
00:37:30,159 --> 00:37:34,242
I mean, she would just faint, you
know. �She was very dramatic too.

482
00:37:34,367 --> 00:37:36,034
I mean, there would be times
where you would hear

483
00:37:36,159 --> 00:37:39,744
that, like, she suddenly just got
frightened and she ran into a wall

484
00:37:39,869 --> 00:37:40,909
because she wasn't
paying attention.

485
00:37:41,034 --> 00:37:45,076
I mean, she was just- you know, this
was a woman that was grief-stricken

486
00:37:45,201 --> 00:37:49,744
and whose whole life
revolved around her daughter.

487
00:37:52,492 --> 00:37:56,909
My mom's parents, my grandparents,
were Nick and Maria Gurdin.

488
00:37:57,034 --> 00:38:00,826
They spoke with these thick Russian
accents because they were both immigrants

489
00:38:00,951 --> 00:38:06,534
who met and married in San Francisco.
�My mom called her parents Mud and Fad,

490
00:38:06,659 --> 00:38:11,202
short for Mudda and Fadda. �My mom
was the middle child of three girls.

491
00:38:11,327 --> 00:38:15,577
She had an older half sister named
Olga who was ten years older than her

492
00:38:15,702 --> 00:38:19,452
and a younger sister, Lana,
who was eight years younger.

493
00:38:19,577 --> 00:38:25,117
My parents moved from San Francisco to
Santa Rosa when I was about two, I think,

494
00:38:25,242 --> 00:38:27,909
and then a movie company
came to Santa Rosa

495
00:38:28,034 --> 00:38:32,409
on location, and they needed a little
girl to drop an ice cream cone and cry,

496
00:38:32,534 --> 00:38:37,117
and I think my mama gave me a little
nudge in the right direction and said,

497
00:38:37,242 --> 00:38:43,034
"Why don't you go talk to that nice man,
sing him some of your songs?" �And...

498
00:38:43,159 --> 00:38:46,202
So I did, and he chose me
to drop the ice cream cone,

499
00:38:46,327 --> 00:38:51,784
and then he remembered me a year later
when he was doing "Tomorrow is Forever."

500
00:38:51,909 --> 00:38:54,909
His name was Irving Pichel, and
he wrote to my parents and said

501
00:38:55,034 --> 00:38:58,659
that he would like to have me come
to Los Angeles and do a screen test

502
00:38:58,784 --> 00:39:01,159
because he had a part
for a young German girl,

503
00:39:01,284 --> 00:39:06,744
and against my father's deeper wishes,
my mother and I traveled down by train,

504
00:39:06,869 --> 00:39:09,076
and I made the screen test,
got the part,

505
00:39:09,201 --> 00:39:12,826
and it seemed a good idea
to move down to Los Angeles,

506
00:39:12,951 --> 00:39:15,242
which we then did,
and my father began working

507
00:39:15,367 --> 00:39:18,577
in the miniature prop
department at the studios,

508
00:39:18,702 --> 00:39:22,619
so we would sometimes bump into
each other. �We were both working.

509
00:39:22,744 --> 00:39:24,951
Shall we go away soon, Father?

510
00:39:27,577 --> 00:39:34,117
Go? �You said maybe we would leave
here. �I was her first leading man,

511
00:39:34,242 --> 00:39:40,826
and for six or seven takes, I kept
blowing my lines. �Not Natalie.

512
00:39:40,951 --> 00:39:45,367
I think it was her first picture, but
she was already a perfect little pro.

513
00:39:45,492 --> 00:39:49,284
Well, young lady, what's your
name? �Susan Walker. What's yours?

514
00:39:49,409 --> 00:39:54,034
Mine? Kriss Kringle. �I'm Santa Claus.

515
00:39:54,159 --> 00:39:59,826
Oh, you don't believe that, do you?
�Mm-mm. �You see, my mother's Mrs. Walker,

516
00:39:59,951 --> 00:40:03,867
the lady who hired you.
-Oh. �But I must say,

517
00:40:03,992 --> 00:40:07,284
you're the best-looking one I've ever
seen. �Really? -Your beard doesn't have

518
00:40:07,409 --> 00:40:10,659
one of those things that goes over your
ears. �Well, that's because it's real,

519
00:40:10,784 --> 00:40:12,992
just like I'm
really Santa Claus.

520
00:40:13,117 --> 00:40:16,117
What stands out about
Natalie Wood's performance

521
00:40:16,242 --> 00:40:20,117
in "Miracle on 34th Street"
is, there's no artifice.

522
00:40:20,242 --> 00:40:27,242
She's so watchful and skeptical and
very sure-seeming in who she was,

523
00:40:27,367 --> 00:40:32,202
and then in the end, she had the same
dreams and fantasies as everybody else,

524
00:40:32,327 --> 00:40:35,827
and I think that's what was
so appealing about it.

525
00:40:38,492 --> 00:40:41,992
"The reality of Hollywood
was a dash of cold water.

526
00:40:42,117 --> 00:40:46,702
"Instead of glamour, I found
myself immersed "in work and study.

527
00:40:46,827 --> 00:40:51,409
"By the time I was 12, "my father suffered
the first of a series of heart attacks.

528
00:40:51,534 --> 00:40:53,951
"For a few years,
he couldn't work at all.

529
00:40:54,076 --> 00:40:58,409
"This meant my acting was the sole
economic support "of my family,

530
00:40:58,534 --> 00:41:02,577
"and therefore, getting jobs
"became a tremendous responsibility.

531
00:41:02,702 --> 00:41:07,951
"Sometimes I had nightmares about
the family starving if I didn't act."

532
00:41:08,076 --> 00:41:10,619
The story I remember �Natalie
telling me about her mother

533
00:41:10,744 --> 00:41:16,242
was an audition she went to, and her
mother felt it hadn't gone terribly well,

534
00:41:16,367 --> 00:41:21,284
and on the way out of the
studio, she said to Natalie,

535
00:41:21,409 --> 00:41:25,909
"Well, that wasn't very good, was
it? �No new shoes for your sister."

536
00:41:26,034 --> 00:41:29,284
Of course, Natalie was called back
and did get the role, so presumably,

537
00:41:29,409 --> 00:41:31,659
Lana did get her new shoes.

538
00:41:33,534 --> 00:41:37,284
But there was a lot of
pressure on young Natalie.

539
00:41:39,201 --> 00:41:43,242
When she did a film called "The Green
Promise", she injured her wrist...

540
00:41:46,784 --> 00:41:51,076
And it never healed properly,
and so her wrist bone was bigger

541
00:41:51,201 --> 00:41:54,577
on one wrist than the other, and
she felt self-conscious about it,

542
00:41:54,702 --> 00:41:59,494
so she always wore a bracelet to cover it
up. �She had a bracelet she always wore,

543
00:41:59,619 --> 00:42:04,076
and it covered up a thing on her wrist,
and it always kind of made me think,

544
00:42:04,201 --> 00:42:09,659
"This is a woman in total control but
had a flaw that she was aware of."

545
00:42:09,784 --> 00:42:11,992
Didn't mean anything,
but in a way,

546
00:42:12,117 --> 00:42:15,659
it made me feel a connection
with her vulnerability

547
00:42:15,784 --> 00:42:20,494
and this childhood stardom that she had
had that she was childhood star, huge.

548
00:42:20,619 --> 00:42:23,327
Don't you know that children
should be seen and not heard?

549
00:42:23,452 --> 00:42:26,367
Not according to Jeremiah.
"Say not I am a child,

550
00:42:26,492 --> 00:42:28,659
"for thou shalt go
to all that I shalt send thee,

551
00:42:28,784 --> 00:42:31,534
and whatsoever I command thee,
thou shalt speak."

552
00:42:31,659 --> 00:42:35,784
Steven, will you take her away from here?
�Did you not feel that you were missing

553
00:42:35,909 --> 00:42:37,534
a lot of the fun
of being a child?

554
00:42:37,659 --> 00:42:40,659
Well, I wasn't aware of it at the time,
you know? �I mean, I guess I wasn't aware

555
00:42:40,784 --> 00:42:46,284
that other kids did other things.
�And then when I was about 12,

556
00:42:46,409 --> 00:42:49,534
I started going to a regular
school in between jobs,

557
00:42:49,659 --> 00:42:52,867
and I did feel a bit of a
misfit then during that period,

558
00:42:52,992 --> 00:42:56,494
because I was so comfortable with adults
and rather uncomfortable with kids,

559
00:42:56,619 --> 00:42:58,619
having not been around
very many.

560
00:43:01,784 --> 00:43:06,159
I met Natalie Wood in junior high.
�She was very nice, very pleasant.

561
00:43:06,284 --> 00:43:11,367
She wasn't, "Ha, look at me. I'm a movie
star", not with anyone in the school,

562
00:43:11,492 --> 00:43:15,702
and they didn't treat her like she
was. �But we became fast friends,

563
00:43:15,827 --> 00:43:21,367
and her mother was very protective of who
she chatted with, who she went out with,

564
00:43:21,492 --> 00:43:27,494
and I passed her mother's
test. �So that was good.

565
00:43:27,619 --> 00:43:32,534
Natalie's parents were very involved with
her. �They knew everything that she did

566
00:43:32,659 --> 00:43:37,034
and where she went and what she wore, and
they were helicopter parents, you know?

567
00:43:37,159 --> 00:43:40,702
They were always hovering
around her all the time.

568
00:43:40,827 --> 00:43:45,534
Natalie's father, Nick, he was
very quiet. �When I met him,

569
00:43:45,659 --> 00:43:50,409
I think he had developed a heart problem,
and he generally was a quiet, gentle man,

570
00:43:50,534 --> 00:43:55,577
that I knew. �Didn't have a lot of
dialogue with him, but with Maria, I did.

571
00:43:55,702 --> 00:43:59,577
She was a strange lady. �She would say,
"Don't walk on that side of the road

572
00:43:59,702 --> 00:44:03,117
"when the sun is shining,
because you'll be struck down."

573
00:44:03,242 --> 00:44:09,409
And lots of little fears. �My
grandma was incredibly superstitious,

574
00:44:09,534 --> 00:44:14,076
so she filled my mom's head
with all kinds of crazy stories.

575
00:44:14,201 --> 00:44:18,242
I've always been terrified-
still am-of water,

576
00:44:18,367 --> 00:44:21,409
dark water, seawater
or, you know, river water.

577
00:44:21,534 --> 00:44:24,784
There's this story
that a gypsy told my grandma

578
00:44:24,909 --> 00:44:28,577
that her second daughter
would become world-famous...

579
00:44:29,744 --> 00:44:32,784
Oh! �But to beware of dark water.

580
00:44:35,076 --> 00:44:41,494
Can you swim? �A little! �All right,
cut. �People are fixated on the fact

581
00:44:41,619 --> 00:44:45,494
that my mom was afraid of dark water,
I think, simply because she drowned.

582
00:44:45,619 --> 00:44:49,534
But, you know, as a child, she was in the
pool with us all the time, and she and I

583
00:44:49,659 --> 00:44:55,534
never talked about her fear of dark water,
so it never felt like this big thing.

584
00:44:55,659 --> 00:45:00,159
I mean, who likes dark water?
�It's not very enticing.

585
00:45:00,284 --> 00:45:06,452
But my grandma was so fantastical. �She
was so twirling and swirling with stories

586
00:45:06,577 --> 00:45:10,992
that I don't know what was real and what
wasn't. �I remember Natalie was in bed,

587
00:45:11,117 --> 00:45:16,202
studying her script, and Maria
was in one of the second bedrooms,

588
00:45:16,327 --> 00:45:21,202
and all of a sudden, she started
to tremble, and her eyes rolled up,

589
00:45:21,327 --> 00:45:24,494
and I dashed
back into the room to Natalie.

590
00:45:24,619 --> 00:45:28,327
I put her on the bed, and I said,
"Natalie, "your mother, she's ill.

591
00:45:28,452 --> 00:45:32,951
I think she's having an epileptic
fit." �And so Natalie said...

592
00:45:34,327 --> 00:45:38,327
"She'll be all right in a
minute." �Never blinked an eye.

593
00:45:38,452 --> 00:45:40,117
And it was from then I learned

594
00:45:40,242 --> 00:45:43,826
that this was a regular habit
of Maria's to get attention.

595
00:45:43,951 --> 00:45:47,992
My mom's very complicated relationship
with my grandma and being a daughter

596
00:45:48,117 --> 00:45:52,702
of a narcissistic,
controlling, possessive mother-

597
00:45:52,827 --> 00:45:55,202
I mean, that's played out
in so many of her films.

598
00:45:55,327 --> 00:46:00,826
On "Gypsy", your mother actually said
to me, "I don't know how I'm gonna play

599
00:46:00,951 --> 00:46:06,202
this last scene", and I just nearly
fell on the floor, and I said,

600
00:46:06,327 --> 00:46:11,534
"What?" "You don't know
how to play that scene?

601
00:46:11,659 --> 00:46:16,867
"I mean, just look at Rosalind Russell
in the eye "and pretend it's your mother,

602
00:46:16,992 --> 00:46:23,867
"it's Maria Gurdin, and you got it."
�Mama, look at me now! I'm a star!

603
00:46:23,992 --> 00:46:28,452
Look! Look how I live! �Look at
my friends. Look where I'm going.

604
00:46:28,577 --> 00:46:32,744
I'm not staying in burlesque.
�I'm moving, maybe up, maybe down,

605
00:46:32,869 --> 00:46:36,951
but wherever it is, I'm enjoying
it. �I'm having the time of my life

606
00:46:37,076 --> 00:46:42,619
because for the first time, it is my life,
and I love it. �I love every second of it,

607
00:46:42,744 --> 00:46:47,034
and I'll be damned if you're gonna
take it away from me! �Her mother was

608
00:46:47,159 --> 00:46:51,744
like a lot of mothers of successful
people. �She was determined

609
00:46:51,869 --> 00:46:57,744
that her daughter was going to be
successful, I think, and Natalie was.

610
00:46:57,869 --> 00:47:01,909
I think she once told me
that she didn't really decide

611
00:47:02,034 --> 00:47:06,076
that that was what she wanted
to do was be an actress

612
00:47:06,201 --> 00:47:10,909
until Nick Ray and "Rebel",
and then it was clear to her

613
00:47:11,034 --> 00:47:15,784
that she was not just being pushed
by her mother any longer. -Mm-hmm.

614
00:47:16,702 --> 00:47:22,452
He looks at me like �I was the
ugliest thing in the world.

615
00:47:22,577 --> 00:47:27,577
He doesn't like my friends. �He
doesn't like one thing about me.

616
00:47:27,702 --> 00:47:31,909
And he called me...

617
00:47:32,034 --> 00:47:37,242
he called me a dirty
tramp! �My own father!

618
00:47:37,367 --> 00:47:40,452
It was a very important film
for me personally

619
00:47:40,577 --> 00:47:42,784
because up until then,
I had worked as a child,

620
00:47:42,909 --> 00:47:45,117
and I had always just done
as I was told.

621
00:47:45,242 --> 00:47:48,076
I was-you know, "You do this picture
next, and then you do that picture next",

622
00:47:48,201 --> 00:47:50,619
and I was
a rather dutiful child.

623
00:47:50,744 --> 00:47:53,826
And when my parents read
the script of "Rebel",

624
00:47:53,951 --> 00:47:56,826
they said, "Oh, no, not this one",
'cause this, you know, showed parents

625
00:47:56,951 --> 00:47:59,327
in a rather unsympathetic
light,

626
00:47:59,452 --> 00:48:02,494
and yet I read it, and for the first time
in my life, I said, "Oh, wait a minute.

627
00:48:02,619 --> 00:48:06,826
I have to do this. I love this."
�You know, I love Judy, and I felt

628
00:48:06,951 --> 00:48:10,034
very much of a connection,
identification with the part,

629
00:48:10,159 --> 00:48:12,702
and I guess I was going
through my first rebellion.

630
00:48:12,827 --> 00:48:15,034
My mom wanted to make
"Rebel Without a Cause"

631
00:48:15,159 --> 00:48:17,284
because she knew
that it was gonna take her

632
00:48:17,409 --> 00:48:21,992
away from these sort of good little
girl roles into leading lady roles,

633
00:48:22,117 --> 00:48:26,659
and so she fought really hard to get
that part. �When I was 15 years old

634
00:48:26,784 --> 00:48:29,494
and doing "Rebel Without
a Cause", at that time,

635
00:48:29,619 --> 00:48:31,951
the director and the studios and
so forth said I was too young,

636
00:48:32,076 --> 00:48:34,577
even though I was exactly the right age.
�They were sort of testing older girls,

637
00:48:34,702 --> 00:48:37,867
and they also saw me
in pigtails with a pinafore,

638
00:48:37,992 --> 00:48:42,494
because those were the kind of parts that
I was associated with. �So I tested for it

639
00:48:42,619 --> 00:48:45,367
a number of times, as a matter of
fact. �Well, it's all right now.

640
00:48:45,492 --> 00:48:49,659
You're our baby now. �I think
I also got into a car accident,

641
00:48:49,784 --> 00:48:53,034
and instead of telling them to call my
parents, I told them to call the director

642
00:48:53,159 --> 00:48:56,494
because one of the policemen
called me a juvenile delinquent,

643
00:48:56,619 --> 00:49:01,702
and I said, "Oh, well, then that
must mean that I have the part."

644
00:49:01,827 --> 00:49:05,034
"Call Nick Ray." �There's
sort of a famous story

645
00:49:05,159 --> 00:49:08,242
where she went to the Chateau Marmont
to get together with Nicholas Ray,

646
00:49:08,367 --> 00:49:09,867
the director
of "Rebel Without a Cause",

647
00:49:09,992 --> 00:49:13,744
and something intimate went on with the
two of them, a risky business back then.

648
00:49:13,869 --> 00:49:17,744
She was underage, and he was older, right,
so that would've been a problem today.

649
00:49:17,869 --> 00:49:22,702
I met Nicholas Ray a couple of times
even before she was in "Rebel",

650
00:49:22,827 --> 00:49:28,951
and I knew when we went to Nicholas Ray's
apartment that I never went upstairs.

651
00:49:29,577 --> 00:49:31,867
And she would tell me
the next day or two

652
00:49:31,992 --> 00:49:34,534
she just thought she was
in love with Nicholas Ray,

653
00:49:34,659 --> 00:49:38,744
and I said, "Natalie, he's so old."
�She's, "Well, you know I like older men."

654
00:49:38,869 --> 00:49:42,909
I said, "But this is really old."
�At no time did any of the gentlemen

655
00:49:43,034 --> 00:49:46,744
who were considered your bosses- did
they ever ask you to do something

656
00:49:46,869 --> 00:49:52,534
that might be considered immoral? �No.

657
00:49:56,409 --> 00:50:02,284
Natalie is a product of the studio system:
getting there on time in the morning,

658
00:50:02,409 --> 00:50:06,659
working all day long, knowing
all of her lines all the time.

659
00:50:06,784 --> 00:50:12,826
That was the training in that system, and
she came out of it in such a good way.

660
00:50:12,951 --> 00:50:18,619
Not everybody did, because that system
controlled everything in your life.

661
00:50:18,744 --> 00:50:23,992
You were just told what pictures you're
gonna do and what time to report.

662
00:50:24,117 --> 00:50:27,452
She was owned by the studio,
and she didn't want to be owned.

663
00:50:27,577 --> 00:50:29,784
She wanted to have control
over the choices.

664
00:50:29,909 --> 00:50:34,284
I mean, if she's gonna spend three months
doing a film, she wants to believe in it,

665
00:50:34,409 --> 00:50:37,951
so she took on Jack Warner and
told him, "I'm gonna go on strike

666
00:50:38,076 --> 00:50:41,659
"because I don't like the roles
that you're choosing for me."

667
00:50:41,784 --> 00:50:46,367
The suspension lasted about 18
months, so that-the punishment was

668
00:50:46,492 --> 00:50:49,867
that if you wouldn't work for them,
you couldn't work anywhere else either.

669
00:50:49,992 --> 00:50:53,992
Right. -It wasn't that I was trying to get
more money. �That really wasn't it at all.

670
00:50:54,117 --> 00:50:56,659
But what I eventually did get
the right to do

671
00:50:56,784 --> 00:51:01,992
was the right to choose one picture
a year that, you know, was my choice.

672
00:51:02,117 --> 00:51:04,826
The first one that I was able
to choose was "West Side Story."

673
00:51:04,951 --> 00:51:09,784
Tonight is the real beginning of
my life as a young lady of America.

674
00:51:09,909 --> 00:51:14,202
With "West Side Story", she
became iconic, a great legend.

675
00:51:14,327 --> 00:51:19,284
I remember going to train stations with
Natalie or going to airports with her,

676
00:51:19,409 --> 00:51:22,534
and there-hundreds of people
would recognize her.

677
00:51:22,659 --> 00:51:29,034
Madre de Dios, I will do anything. �Make
me die, only please make it to be true!

678
00:51:29,159 --> 00:51:33,159
Today she would never be cast in that
role because she's not Puerto Rican.

679
00:51:33,284 --> 00:51:35,659
That was obviously a different
time. �It's sort of interesting

680
00:51:35,784 --> 00:51:41,534
that Natalie Wood would not have one
of her iconic roles today, for sure.

681
00:51:41,659 --> 00:51:45,367
You didn't get nominated for an
Academy Award for "West Side Story",

682
00:51:45,492 --> 00:51:47,867
but there was
a particular reason why.

683
00:51:47,992 --> 00:51:51,534
Well, I was nominated for
"Splendor in the Grass." �Right.

684
00:51:51,659 --> 00:51:55,284
By the age of 25, my mom had
been nominated for three Oscars.

685
00:51:55,409 --> 00:51:58,992
She was nominated for Best Supporting
Actress for "Rebel Without a Cause",

686
00:51:59,117 --> 00:52:02,076
she was nominated for Best Actress
for "Splendor in the Grass",

687
00:52:02,201 --> 00:52:05,702
and she was nominated for Best Actress
for "Love with the Proper Stranger."

688
00:52:05,827 --> 00:52:09,951
Unfortunately, she never
won, but I remember, in 1980,

689
00:52:10,076 --> 00:52:14,076
my parents getting dressed up to go to
the Golden Globe Awards, and she won.

690
00:52:14,201 --> 00:52:19,242
Natalie Wood. �She won a Golden
Globe for the television version

691
00:52:19,367 --> 00:52:24,826
of "From Here to Eternity" with William
Devane. �This really feels nice.

692
00:52:24,951 --> 00:52:31,409
Thank you very much. �I'm completely
surprised. �She always had the ability

693
00:52:31,534 --> 00:52:36,117
to recognize good material,
and when she did "Splendor"

694
00:52:36,242 --> 00:52:39,452
and after "West Side Story"
was a tremendous hit,

695
00:52:39,577 --> 00:52:42,867
she could start to make her own
decisions on what she wanted to do

696
00:52:42,992 --> 00:52:46,117
and what was available for her. �She
stepped out there and took risks.

697
00:52:46,242 --> 00:52:48,159
I'm a female
past the age of consent.

698
00:52:48,284 --> 00:52:50,784
I was the first woman to edit
the newspaper at my college.

699
00:52:50,909 --> 00:52:55,159
And I shall remain handcuffed to this door
until I become the first female reporter

700
00:52:55,284 --> 00:52:59,117
of the "New York Sentinel." -Over
my dead body. �In "The Great Race",

701
00:52:59,242 --> 00:53:03,409
even though it was a comedy, she
still was playing a character

702
00:53:03,534 --> 00:53:08,327
who was defending women, believed in
women, but she found out that she was not

703
00:53:08,452 --> 00:53:13,409
being paid or treated equally
to Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon,

704
00:53:13,534 --> 00:53:18,452
so she went to all kinds of extremes
to make sure that everything was equal,

705
00:53:18,577 --> 00:53:22,202
down to the length of the
phone cord in their rooms.

706
00:53:22,327 --> 00:53:27,034
And she was one of the few women that
had the power to do that at that time.

707
00:53:27,159 --> 00:53:30,659
There weren't a lot of women that
did and who were outspoken enough

708
00:53:30,784 --> 00:53:34,867
and could back it up with her knowledge,
and everyone who worked with her knew it.

709
00:53:34,992 --> 00:53:37,452
They all learned from her.
�There's a picture of her

710
00:53:37,577 --> 00:53:41,992
where she's at the head of the table, and
then there's her publicist, her agent,

711
00:53:42,117 --> 00:53:46,034
her business manager. �They all
work for her. �She's the only woman,

712
00:53:46,159 --> 00:53:50,492
and she's at the head of the table.
�And she wasn't afraid to be empowered.

713
00:53:52,284 --> 00:53:56,034
I certainly owe the beginning
of my career in film to her

714
00:53:56,159 --> 00:53:58,867
'cause I was an actor
on Broadway in the theater,

715
00:53:58,992 --> 00:54:03,076
and so she came to see a play that I
was in, came backstage to say hello.

716
00:54:03,201 --> 00:54:05,494
I was very flattered,
and then that was that.

717
00:54:05,619 --> 00:54:07,327
Then a while later,
when they were getting her

718
00:54:07,452 --> 00:54:10,034
to do "Inside Daisy Clover",
my name came up,

719
00:54:10,159 --> 00:54:14,242
but I wasn't known at all in
Hollywood, and she was the one

720
00:54:14,367 --> 00:54:17,034
that stuck up for me
and said, "I want him."

721
00:54:17,159 --> 00:54:19,367
And there were a lot of people
that tried to resist that,

722
00:54:19,492 --> 00:54:20,577
said,
"Well, he's just not known,

723
00:54:20,702 --> 00:54:22,494
and you're a big star
and he's not", and so forth.

724
00:54:22,619 --> 00:54:26,867
She-"I don't care. I want to do it with
him." �There was a young lady named Cherry

725
00:54:26,992 --> 00:54:33,909
who used to get swacked on sweet sherry.
�And when they said- uh, when they said.

726
00:54:34,034 --> 00:54:40,619
What-what... what-what-help me! �Um...
-When they said what? �Um... -Do you think

727
00:54:40,744 --> 00:54:45,159
it's a sensible drink? �That's good.

728
00:54:46,159 --> 00:54:48,159
She replied...

729
00:54:51,492 --> 00:54:56,284
Not very. �So once that
happened and we made that film,

730
00:54:56,409 --> 00:54:58,076
then we went into
"This Property Is Condemned",

731
00:54:58,201 --> 00:55:02,242
which she was desperate to make. �She's,
"Well, I'd like to stay connected to Bob",

732
00:55:02,367 --> 00:55:04,242
so she just sort of
carried me along.

733
00:55:04,367 --> 00:55:05,951
Just because some people
might think I'm beautiful,

734
00:55:06,076 --> 00:55:08,367
that doesn't mean
I'm everybody's property.

735
00:55:08,492 --> 00:55:11,452
If you really thought you were beautiful,
you wouldn't be anybody's property.

736
00:55:11,577 --> 00:55:15,577
You'd be your own girl. �I
am my own girl, Mr. Legate,

737
00:55:15,702 --> 00:55:17,744
and I certainly don't need
some smart aleck like you

738
00:55:17,869 --> 00:55:19,744
to come along and point out
the error of my ways.

739
00:55:19,869 --> 00:55:22,367
When I watch her films,
I straddle a fine line

740
00:55:22,492 --> 00:55:25,284
between being caught
in her performance

741
00:55:25,409 --> 00:55:29,744
and then searching for clues
about who she was.

742
00:55:29,869 --> 00:55:32,117
I think many of the movies
that my mom chose

743
00:55:32,242 --> 00:55:35,867
had a cathartic aspect,
"Daisy Clover" especially.

744
00:55:35,992 --> 00:55:39,744
The scene in the recording booth
where she's supposed to dub herself

745
00:55:39,869 --> 00:55:41,577
and we can't hear her
'cause we're outside

746
00:55:41,702 --> 00:55:43,784
of the recording booth
but she's screaming...

747
00:55:45,409 --> 00:55:48,494
That's how she felt on the inside.
�She was screaming on the inside,

748
00:55:48,619 --> 00:55:53,744
but nobody can hear her because
she was owned by the studio.

749
00:55:53,869 --> 00:55:57,452
You have, in "Daisy Clover", the
really brilliant crack-up scene.

750
00:55:57,577 --> 00:56:00,951
You have another one in "Splendor
in the Grass" in the bathtub.

751
00:56:01,076 --> 00:56:05,367
Those scenes must have been difficult to
do. �I think they're the kind of scenes

752
00:56:05,492 --> 00:56:09,242
that one does just have to, you
know, get into a certain mood,

753
00:56:09,367 --> 00:56:13,534
and it's the kind of thing that you can't
do very many times over and over again.

754
00:56:13,659 --> 00:56:19,159
No, Mom! I'm not spoiled! �I'm
not spoiled, Mom! -Deanie...

755
00:56:19,284 --> 00:56:22,452
I'm just as fresh and I'm virginal
like the day I was born, Mom!

756
00:56:22,577 --> 00:56:26,327
Stop it! Stop it! �In the
time that my mom came of age,

757
00:56:26,452 --> 00:56:30,909
nervous breakdowns and mental
institutions and suicide,

758
00:56:31,034 --> 00:56:35,159
that was more of a taboo thing. �There
was a stigma about all that stuff.

759
00:56:35,284 --> 00:56:37,909
Deanie, come back here! �And
in "Splendor in the Grass",

760
00:56:38,034 --> 00:56:43,702
she tries to commit suicide in the water,
and then she goes to a mental institution

761
00:56:43,827 --> 00:56:49,034
for two years. �She hasn't spoken a word
of sense since they brought her in here.

762
00:56:49,159 --> 00:56:52,992
But in 1964, three years
after "Splendor" was released,

763
00:56:53,117 --> 00:56:56,826
these themes were actually
reflected in her real life.

764
00:56:56,951 --> 00:57:01,494
While she was filming "The Great
Race", she felt lonely and unhappy

765
00:57:01,619 --> 00:57:07,034
and afraid of never being able to maintain
a stable and healthy relationship,

766
00:57:07,159 --> 00:57:12,702
so she took enough sleeping pills to kill
herself. �When I found out about all this,

767
00:57:12,827 --> 00:57:15,367
my Daddy Wagner
told me to talk to Mart

768
00:57:15,492 --> 00:57:18,744
because he was spending the night
at her house when it happened.

769
00:57:18,869 --> 00:57:24,034
It was an overdose and a half. �I
mean, God almighty, she was out.

770
00:57:24,159 --> 00:57:28,327
And I was told that, you know, after
they pumped her stomach, they didn't know

771
00:57:28,452 --> 00:57:31,577
whether she was gonna pull
through or not, but she did.

772
00:57:31,702 --> 00:57:34,494
She spent the weekend in the
hospital, and on Monday morning,

773
00:57:34,619 --> 00:57:36,367
she was back at work
on "The Great Race."

774
00:57:36,492 --> 00:57:39,784
But I don't necessarily look at
that night as a suicide attempt.

775
00:57:39,909 --> 00:57:43,744
It was really a cry for help.
�After she swallowed the pills,

776
00:57:43,869 --> 00:57:48,242
she banged on Mart's door, so
obviously, she wanted to live.

777
00:57:48,367 --> 00:57:51,409
I read that you were in analysis- �I
don't know if this is correct or not-

778
00:57:51,534 --> 00:57:55,034
eight year-for eight years, five days
a week, in Freudian analysis. -Mm-hmm.

779
00:57:55,159 --> 00:57:57,202
You must have dry-cleaned
your mother and father,

780
00:57:57,327 --> 00:58:00,784
I mean, during that period of time.
�Well, I sorted out a few problems.

781
00:58:00,909 --> 00:58:04,242
Dr. Judd,
don't they realize I'm me?

782
00:58:04,367 --> 00:58:07,367
I don't think I could ever
go back home again.

783
00:58:07,492 --> 00:58:12,034
I don't think I could ever feel the
same way �I used to feel about them.

784
00:58:12,659 --> 00:58:16,619
We didn't talk a lot about her
childhood, but I knew some things,

785
00:58:16,744 --> 00:58:21,117
and she needed some help, and she
wasn't gonna get that from her mom,

786
00:58:21,242 --> 00:58:25,159
and it probably went way
back, undoubtedly, all of it.

787
00:58:25,284 --> 00:58:31,284
So with her own significant
intelligence and a good therapist,

788
00:58:31,409 --> 00:58:35,076
she was able to make sense
of some pretty severe nonsense

789
00:58:35,201 --> 00:58:37,909
that had come and gone
her way. �How do you know?

790
00:58:38,034 --> 00:58:40,494
Because I've been your analyst for three
years. �I know what you're capable of,

791
00:58:40,619 --> 00:58:42,867
and I know what you're not capable
of. �Would you like to bet?

792
00:58:42,992 --> 00:58:46,076
My reputation in psychiatry against
anything you care to put up.

793
00:58:46,201 --> 00:58:49,409
Will this be enough? �I feel I
got a great deal out of analysis,

794
00:58:49,534 --> 00:58:53,284
and I think a lot of people think that
analysis makes one become introspective,

795
00:58:53,409 --> 00:58:55,619
and I think it does the
opposite. �I think it opens you.

796
00:58:55,744 --> 00:59:00,159
I think it frees you from being locked
into your own- worrying about yourself.

797
00:59:00,284 --> 00:59:04,327
One of the most wonderful things that
she ever did for me was, she convinced me

798
00:59:04,452 --> 00:59:08,452
to get into analysis, and it
saved my life, without question.

799
00:59:08,577 --> 00:59:12,452
I remember the day
that I saw Barbra Streisand

800
00:59:12,577 --> 00:59:14,659
come to the set
to talk to Natalie

801
00:59:14,784 --> 00:59:19,327
about how to block off time
to see your psychiatrist

802
00:59:19,452 --> 00:59:22,826
during a movie, 'cause stars didn't have
that in their contracts at that time,

803
00:59:22,951 --> 00:59:26,951
but she did. �There was nothing
out-of-bounds with Natalie.

804
00:59:27,076 --> 00:59:32,619
I felt so comfortable with her. �Here's a
toast to Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice.

805
00:59:32,744 --> 00:59:35,619
That's a good- I'll drink to
us. �Hats and horns. -Four...

806
00:59:35,744 --> 00:59:39,951
of the grooviest people I've ever
known. �This movie was about infidelity

807
00:59:40,076 --> 00:59:43,867
and these encounter groups where
people were looking into their real me

808
00:59:43,992 --> 00:59:49,034
and all the things that were spanking
new at the time and very controversial.

809
00:59:49,159 --> 00:59:53,867
It just seems wrong. �Oh, it's not.
�Look, it's just nice feelings.

810
00:59:53,992 --> 00:59:59,202
It's something that we've never done
before. �It's physical fun. It's just sex.

811
00:59:59,327 --> 01:00:03,452
I was not sure of it. �I
thought it might be exploitative

812
01:00:03,577 --> 01:00:10,034
in terms of the sexual aspect of it, but
Natalie brought what the film needed:

813
01:00:10,159 --> 01:00:15,159
not only a star but a
quality of intelligence

814
01:00:15,284 --> 01:00:20,867
that an audience could identify
with. �And even the scene

815
01:00:20,992 --> 01:00:25,951
when we're all in bed together, I
wore two pairs of jockey shorts,

816
01:00:26,076 --> 01:00:31,409
but Natalie made it so
easy and so natural.

817
01:00:31,534 --> 01:00:34,867
So that was a great gift
for all of us.

818
01:00:34,992 --> 01:00:40,117
In 1970, she had just come off a big
success with "Bob and Carol

819
01:00:40,242 --> 01:00:43,452
My Daddy Gregson called her
"rich and happy"

820
01:00:43,577 --> 01:00:48,409
because she owned points in that film, and
so I think she was in a really good place

821
01:00:48,534 --> 01:00:50,534
at that time.

822
01:00:53,201 --> 01:00:57,951
At one point, you had
unbelievable power for a female

823
01:00:58,076 --> 01:01:02,034
when you were one of the few females
who could get a picture made,

824
01:01:02,159 --> 01:01:07,284
and then you seemed to
opt out of stardom. �Why?

825
01:01:07,409 --> 01:01:12,784
Oh, gosh, Rona, I don't know. �I've
been acting since I was five, really,

826
01:01:12,909 --> 01:01:16,117
and I think that I came
to a point in my life

827
01:01:16,242 --> 01:01:19,909
where I felt that I wanted to
live some of my life without work,

828
01:01:20,034 --> 01:01:22,992
because I'd always been
so absorbed in work.

829
01:01:23,117 --> 01:01:26,242
And I also got married
and wanted to have children,

830
01:01:26,367 --> 01:01:29,659
and I really just enjoyed
being with them.

831
01:01:37,909 --> 01:01:42,867
After I was born in 1970, my
mom took a break from acting

832
01:01:42,992 --> 01:01:48,367
for maybe four or five years because
she wanted to be a stay-at-home mom.

833
01:01:48,492 --> 01:01:52,202
And then slowly, you know, the
acting bug came back around,

834
01:01:52,327 --> 01:01:56,327
and so she did start to feel the need
to go back to work. �May I come in?

835
01:01:56,452 --> 01:01:59,159
Why the hell not?
�Better late than never.

836
01:01:59,284 --> 01:02:02,992
And then when Courtney and I were
getting older, she wanted to act

837
01:02:03,117 --> 01:02:06,951
with the knowledge of
being a mother. �All right.

838
01:02:07,076 --> 01:02:10,826
That's little Cassie, always obedient.
�Kiss your mother. Go to confession.

839
01:02:10,951 --> 01:02:12,534
Change the baby.
Shut your mouth.

840
01:02:12,659 --> 01:02:17,076
"The Cracker Factory" was a big
television event of that time,

841
01:02:17,201 --> 01:02:21,034
and it was very unusual
that a big movie star

842
01:02:21,159 --> 01:02:26,327
was going to portray a character on
television that had so many flaws.

843
01:02:26,452 --> 01:02:30,076
And I played her daughter, and
I remember her being excited

844
01:02:30,201 --> 01:02:34,577
about playing real struggles of
people's families and about being real.

845
01:02:34,702 --> 01:02:36,867
It was a book that I just
thought was wonderful,

846
01:02:36,992 --> 01:02:41,784
and I thought what made it unusual is the
woman's real wit and her way of dealing

847
01:02:41,909 --> 01:02:45,951
with the problems that she had. �And I
think it wasn't only about alcoholism.

848
01:02:46,076 --> 01:02:48,367
I think it was also
about the many pressures

849
01:02:48,492 --> 01:02:52,867
that face a woman,
wife, mother today.

850
01:02:52,992 --> 01:02:58,327
I would hear discussions with Natalie
and RJ 'cause here they are in the bed,

851
01:02:58,452 --> 01:03:02,702
and I'm over here at the desk.
�RJ was doing "Hart to Hart",

852
01:03:02,827 --> 01:03:06,992
and Natalie would say, "Well, I've got
the script, 'Meteor' with Sean Connery."

853
01:03:07,117 --> 01:03:09,619
And he'd say, "Well, okay,
I have a break

854
01:03:09,744 --> 01:03:13,202
during this time",
because their main rule was,

855
01:03:13,327 --> 01:03:15,117
they wouldn't both
be working at the same time,

856
01:03:15,242 --> 01:03:17,117
that somebody would be home
for the children.

857
01:03:17,242 --> 01:03:20,409
It doesn't look like you're ready to jump
rope. �Well, I think I'm gonna watch,

858
01:03:20,534 --> 01:03:23,452
and I'll let the Harts jump rope
today. �But we do jump rope at home,

859
01:03:23,577 --> 01:03:26,409
and the kids are gonna jump
rope, Courtney, Natasha, Katie.

860
01:03:26,534 --> 01:03:31,992
I love jump rope. �Why? -Because.
�Does it make you feel good? -Yes.

861
01:03:32,117 --> 01:03:34,867
Do you recommend it? �I don't know.

862
01:03:34,992 --> 01:03:40,951
I think women today are trying to have it
all in the sense that we don't just choose

863
01:03:41,076 --> 01:03:42,867
to be one thing or the other.

864
01:03:42,992 --> 01:03:45,452
We don't just say, "Well,
now we're gonna give up career,

865
01:03:45,577 --> 01:03:48,367
"sacrifice our life,
and be a wife and a mother,

866
01:03:48,492 --> 01:03:50,951
or we're gonna be
a career woman, pursue that."

867
01:03:51,076 --> 01:03:56,784
I mean, I think a lot of us are
trying to do all of it, you know,

868
01:03:56,909 --> 01:04:01,951
without having, you know, one suffer.
�I think it was difficult for her.

869
01:04:02,076 --> 01:04:07,784
She was torn by wanting to
be there with her children

870
01:04:07,909 --> 01:04:13,951
in a family unit with RJ and to fulfill
this other side of her that was her core,

871
01:04:14,076 --> 01:04:18,951
and I think that was a real
growing pressure. �Marker.

872
01:04:19,076 --> 01:04:24,452
With your children growing up, with
your going back into doing more movies,

873
01:04:24,577 --> 01:04:29,867
how would you like to see your 40th
birthday approached? �Oh, gosh.

874
01:04:29,992 --> 01:04:33,659
Well, I would like to... work.
�I would like to keep working,

875
01:04:33,784 --> 01:04:37,992
not necessarily at a faster speed, but
I'd like to be able to do good parts.

876
01:04:38,117 --> 01:04:42,034
I loved working in "West Side Story", but
I wouldn't go back. �Today's what counts,

877
01:04:42,159 --> 01:04:44,076
and RainTree helps you
make the most of it.

878
01:04:44,201 --> 01:04:46,367
She was going through
a transition in age,

879
01:04:46,492 --> 01:04:49,327
which Hollywood was not
very accepting of,

880
01:04:49,452 --> 01:04:53,494
and even now, it's a problem once
you get those crow's-feet, you know?

881
01:04:53,619 --> 01:04:54,992
Maybe you don't get
the great roles.

882
01:04:55,117 --> 01:04:57,659
If you're like me, you don't
want to go back in time.

883
01:04:57,784 --> 01:05:01,534
You want to stay ahead of
it. �But she was unsinkable.

884
01:05:01,659 --> 01:05:05,619
She would accept that, "Yes, I'm now
40", which seems like nothing now,

885
01:05:05,744 --> 01:05:09,452
"and I'm gonna work, and I'm gonna be a
woman my age, and it's gonna be great."

886
01:05:09,577 --> 01:05:14,452
Come on, now. Stop holding things
back. �All right, God damn it.

887
01:05:14,577 --> 01:05:18,409
I'm not sorry they're getting divorced. �I
mean, I am sorry they're getting divorced.

888
01:05:20,577 --> 01:05:24,367
She had, like, two personalities,
both of which she controlled,

889
01:05:24,492 --> 01:05:31,284
but when she chose to be a movie star,
she was all made up. �And, honey... -Yeah.

890
01:05:31,409 --> 01:05:34,909
While you're finishing your
hot dog, think of this.

891
01:05:35,034 --> 01:05:40,284
I'm not wearing anything underneath
my coat. �You're kidding.

892
01:05:42,284 --> 01:05:47,744
So she was very wise about
how she dispensed herself,

893
01:05:47,869 --> 01:05:51,992
the commercial side of her.
�My mom had a great publicist

894
01:05:52,117 --> 01:05:56,784
named George Kirvey, and he felt,
when she was hitting her 40s,

895
01:05:56,909 --> 01:06:00,784
that it was time to revamp her image.
�I was working for "Look" magazine

896
01:06:00,909 --> 01:06:05,242
and "People" magazine,
and George Kirvey said,

897
01:06:05,367 --> 01:06:09,284
"Maybe, you know, we want
to change Natalie's image

898
01:06:09,409 --> 01:06:12,659
"to some more sensual,
maybe a little sexier,

899
01:06:12,784 --> 01:06:18,034
and more of the '70s time", and we did
that, and we really accomplished that.

900
01:06:18,159 --> 01:06:22,869
It's been written about: I changed the
whole professional look of Natalie Wood.

901
01:06:24,076 --> 01:06:28,867
This is my favorite photo
of Natalie Wood.

902
01:06:28,992 --> 01:06:32,452
This is published
all around the world.

903
01:06:32,577 --> 01:06:38,992
And this is the "Anastasia" poster
portrait that we did for- you hold it up-

904
01:06:39,117 --> 01:06:44,992
for the Ahmanson Theatre. �It was an
exciting time for her professionally.

905
01:06:45,117 --> 01:06:48,577
I remember having conversations
with her and George

906
01:06:48,702 --> 01:06:53,159
about her first stage
appearance in "Anastasia."

907
01:06:53,284 --> 01:06:57,951
She was petrified of the stage
but wanted to overcome it.

908
01:06:58,076 --> 01:07:01,409
During that time that Mommy
was thinking about "Anastasia",

909
01:07:01,534 --> 01:07:04,619
you were working really hard. �Well,
we were still doing "Hart to Hart."

910
01:07:04,744 --> 01:07:08,242
You were doing "Hart to Hart." �I
was in Hawaii, you know, on location

911
01:07:08,367 --> 01:07:11,619
when she was doing
"Brainstorm" in North Carolina.

912
01:07:11,744 --> 01:07:17,242
In 1981, when my mom passed away, she was
in the middle of filming "Brainstorm",

913
01:07:17,367 --> 01:07:20,327
starring Christopher Walken
and Louise Fletcher.

914
01:07:20,452 --> 01:07:24,202
She was shooting on location in North
Carolina, and it was kind of a big deal

915
01:07:24,327 --> 01:07:28,159
because that was the first time
that my mom and my Daddy Wagner

916
01:07:28,284 --> 01:07:31,826
would be working at the same time.
�I think I can get it down to size

917
01:07:31,951 --> 01:07:37,367
and make it look attractive, maybe
something like stereo headphones.

918
01:07:37,492 --> 01:07:42,159
I'm not worried about that. I
know you can. �It's Michael.

919
01:07:42,284 --> 01:07:48,327
You're gonna have to work very closely
with him. �Is that a problem? �No.

920
01:07:48,452 --> 01:07:54,159
That won't be any problem. �Okay. -Not
for me. �At first, I was very intimidated

921
01:07:54,284 --> 01:07:57,494
with the idea of working with Natalie
Wood. �This is an extremely experienced

922
01:07:57,619 --> 01:08:03,076
and competent actress, and Chris Walken
is kind of an experimental performer,

923
01:08:03,201 --> 01:08:06,534
and he's so extraordinary.
�So I never felt any problem

924
01:08:06,659 --> 01:08:10,367
with trying to make them fit together as
a couple. �From a director's standpoint,

925
01:08:10,492 --> 01:08:14,744
I thought it was gonna work fine. �But one
of the things that I wanted to comment on

926
01:08:14,869 --> 01:08:18,868
in the context of this interview is that
there was a love scene between the two,

927
01:08:18,993 --> 01:08:22,702
a sex scene, actually, and I found
out in the shooting of that scene

928
01:08:22,827 --> 01:08:26,826
that there was almost no physical
charisma between them at all,

929
01:08:26,951 --> 01:08:29,702
and so that made me believe,
in retrospect now,

930
01:08:29,827 --> 01:08:31,577
that the suggestion that there
was some love triangle

931
01:08:31,702 --> 01:08:34,368
between Natalie and Christopher
and RJ or something like that,

932
01:08:34,493 --> 01:08:38,452
whatever anybody would make of it, is
not true. �I just think it's impossible.

933
01:08:38,577 --> 01:08:43,368
Based on conversations I had with
Natalie, she was not having an affair.

934
01:08:43,493 --> 01:08:45,868
That's based on what
she was saying to me.

935
01:08:47,534 --> 01:08:52,202
That's what I believe. �How do you
and your wife manage to combine

936
01:08:52,327 --> 01:08:57,493
two successful careers and a good family
life? �She's a really wonderful lady,

937
01:08:57,618 --> 01:08:59,951
and she rather makes it all
work out.

938
01:09:00,076 --> 01:09:02,409
You know, she really-
it's a very difficult thing

939
01:09:02,534 --> 01:09:07,202
to be a mother and an actress and have a
career and have a husband and all of that.

940
01:09:07,327 --> 01:09:10,743
It's difficult because we haven't
really ever been apart this long.

941
01:09:10,868 --> 01:09:12,243
This is the longest
we've been apart,

942
01:09:12,368 --> 01:09:15,659
and it has been-I find it
very difficult, really,

943
01:09:15,784 --> 01:09:17,909
because, you know,
we've been together so much,

944
01:09:18,034 --> 01:09:23,076
and I think it's difficult for anybody
who's in love to be... away from the one-

945
01:09:23,201 --> 01:09:26,493
the person that they're in love with.
�I think it really is a question

946
01:09:26,618 --> 01:09:29,118
of trying to figure out how to use
your time the best way... -Mm-hmm.

947
01:09:29,243 --> 01:09:31,618
And to be flexible. �Because
I think the main thing

948
01:09:31,743 --> 01:09:35,202
is to try to be together as much as
possible so that everybody-you know,

949
01:09:35,327 --> 01:09:36,368
so that you're
with your kids enough

950
01:09:36,493 --> 01:09:39,618
and with your husband enough
and with yourself enough

951
01:09:39,743 --> 01:09:44,618
and doing your own thing enough.
�When she went to North Carolina,

952
01:09:44,743 --> 01:09:46,909
I remember that I would
write her these letters,

953
01:09:47,034 --> 01:09:50,493
and I would cry as I was writing the
letter 'cause I missed her so much,

954
01:09:50,618 --> 01:09:53,826
and then I would draw
around the tear,

955
01:09:53,951 --> 01:09:57,784
and then I would write "tear" with
an arrow... �Because obviously,

956
01:09:57,909 --> 01:10:00,284
she couldn't see the tear
'cause it had dried up.

957
01:10:00,409 --> 01:10:04,076
Yeah, you did miss her a lot. -Yeah.
�I really missed her, and I wasn't used

958
01:10:04,201 --> 01:10:08,993
to her being gone, so when she came back,

959
01:10:09,118 --> 01:10:13,493
we were all really happy to see her.
�We had wrapped in North Carolina.

960
01:10:13,618 --> 01:10:17,118
We were done with the location
shooting, and we were going back to LA

961
01:10:17,243 --> 01:10:21,452
to shoot the interiors and set stuff back
at MGMs after the Thanksgiving holiday.

962
01:10:21,577 --> 01:10:25,702
In 1981, we had Thanksgiving together as
a family at the house on Cañon Drive.

963
01:10:25,827 --> 01:10:30,493
A house full of people, as always.
�Natalie had returned from North Carolina

964
01:10:30,618 --> 01:10:32,534
to finish shooting
"Brainstorm" in Los Angeles,

965
01:10:32,659 --> 01:10:37,034
and Daddy had come back from Hawaii,
where he had been shooting "Hart to Hart",

966
01:10:37,159 --> 01:10:39,784
and it was very rainy
and stormy that weekend.

967
01:10:39,909 --> 01:10:42,493
Natalie and Daddy would go out
on the boat a lot for weekends.

968
01:10:42,618 --> 01:10:43,826
A lot of times,
the kids would go,

969
01:10:43,951 --> 01:10:45,993
but in this case, they were
gonna have an adult weekend,

970
01:10:46,118 --> 01:10:49,534
and I know that Natalie had asked
several people to join them.

971
01:10:49,659 --> 01:10:52,202
Christopher Walken was in Los
Angeles to finish "Brainstorm."

972
01:10:52,327 --> 01:10:55,368
He did not live in Los Angeles.
�And so naturally, she asked him

973
01:10:55,493 --> 01:10:59,034
to go on the boat. �And they
asked several other friends

974
01:10:59,159 --> 01:11:01,909
that just didn't feel comfortable
and didn't want to go.

975
01:11:02,034 --> 01:11:07,826
It's pouring with rain the entire
Thanksgiving. �We all were at dinner.

976
01:11:07,951 --> 01:11:12,243
And I thought, "Well, this is absurd."
�I mean, besides trying to get out of it

977
01:11:12,368 --> 01:11:18,327
because, you know, it was clear that
RJ and Chris were arguing all the time,

978
01:11:18,452 --> 01:11:23,826
I didn't want any part of it. �I remember
feeling that it was a little bit tense,

979
01:11:23,951 --> 01:11:28,868
and I remember staying later
with her to see if she was okay

980
01:11:28,993 --> 01:11:33,743
after we'd all had dinner,
and she told me that she was

981
01:11:33,868 --> 01:11:37,076
and that she'd been under a
lot of pressure in the movie

982
01:11:37,201 --> 01:11:41,743
and would I please come on the
boat, but it was my son's birthday,

983
01:11:41,868 --> 01:11:44,284
so I said to Natalie, "I'm
not gonna come on the boat,

984
01:11:44,409 --> 01:11:47,577
so we'll all have dinner
on the Sunday night",

985
01:11:47,702 --> 01:11:52,534
and that was the last time I saw her.
�We sat up until all hours of the night

986
01:11:52,659 --> 01:11:57,577
on the last night, talking, and she
was anxious about going on the boat

987
01:11:57,702 --> 01:12:04,409
because she felt compromised.
�She loved the life she had,

988
01:12:04,534 --> 01:12:09,327
and she loved the work, and she
knew she couldn't do both fully,

989
01:12:09,452 --> 01:12:13,909
and these two men actually represented
both sides of that argument.

990
01:12:14,034 --> 01:12:18,284
You know, Chris was- in her mind,
he was a free spirit, an artist,

991
01:12:18,409 --> 01:12:22,076
and RJ was a responsible
husband and father.

992
01:12:22,201 --> 01:12:26,702
And I said to her that I thought it
was important that she go on the boat,

993
01:12:26,827 --> 01:12:33,452
that it would give her an opportunity to
work through all of this, and... silly me.

994
01:12:33,577 --> 01:12:39,909
I've never forgiven myself for not going,
because I'm sure there would've been

995
01:12:40,034 --> 01:12:45,659
a different dynamic somewhere.
�The last time I saw my mom

996
01:12:45,784 --> 01:12:50,284
was the day after Thanksgiving
at our house on Cañon Drive.

997
01:12:50,409 --> 01:12:54,868
It was raining outside, and I
didn't want them to go on the boat,

998
01:12:54,993 --> 01:12:56,493
so I was hugging her,
and I was telling her,

999
01:12:56,618 --> 01:12:58,702
"I love you, and I don't want
you to go on the boat",

1000
01:12:58,827 --> 01:13:01,826
and she was comforting me
and telling me not to worry

1001
01:13:01,951 --> 01:13:03,534
and that everything
would be okay.

1002
01:13:03,659 --> 01:13:07,284
So a few hours later,
my parents left on the boat

1003
01:13:07,409 --> 01:13:11,368
for Catalina with Christopher
Walken, who I didn't know very well,

1004
01:13:11,493 --> 01:13:15,826
and Dennis Davern, who my parents
hired to take care of the "Splendour."

1005
01:13:15,951 --> 01:13:21,493
She'd called me from Catalina, and
she left two messages on my machine

1006
01:13:21,618 --> 01:13:26,284
saying, had I heard from RJ? �She and
RJ had had an argument the night before.

1007
01:13:26,409 --> 01:13:30,327
The second was, she had called back to
say everything was fine, not to worry.

1008
01:13:31,284 --> 01:13:36,743
On the first night, Mommy had gone onto
Catalina Island and stayed in a hotel,

1009
01:13:36,868 --> 01:13:38,993
right? -In Avalon. �In
Avalon, right. -Yeah.

1010
01:13:39,118 --> 01:13:41,159
And the reason for that
was because

1011
01:13:41,284 --> 01:13:44,368
we couldn't pick up a mooring
inside the harbor,

1012
01:13:44,493 --> 01:13:49,743
so we dropped the anchor outside on the
breakwater, and it was a very rough night,

1013
01:13:49,868 --> 01:13:53,702
and the boat was, you know, just
going up and down, up and down,

1014
01:13:53,827 --> 01:13:57,368
and it was very uncomfortable.
�So you guys were kind of arguing.

1015
01:13:57,493 --> 01:14:02,409
Yes, that got your mother very nervous,
and so we decided that she'd go ashore,

1016
01:14:02,534 --> 01:14:06,243
and Chris and I stayed on board the
boat and just took watches to see

1017
01:14:06,368 --> 01:14:07,368
that it was all right
and everything,

1018
01:14:07,493 --> 01:14:12,243
and then she came back on board the next
morning, and we decided to go from Avalon

1019
01:14:12,368 --> 01:14:16,327
down to the Isthmus, and we were
gonna show Chris that anyway,

1020
01:14:16,452 --> 01:14:19,826
'cause that's where we spent our
honeymoon and all of that. -Mm-hmm.

1021
01:14:19,951 --> 01:14:24,909
And when we were at the Isthmus, we
tied up there, and I went to sleep

1022
01:14:25,034 --> 01:14:27,951
'cause I was really tired. �From the
night before. -From the night before.

1023
01:14:28,076 --> 01:14:32,534
Uh-huh. -And when I woke up, Chris
and your mother had gone to shore...

1024
01:14:32,659 --> 01:14:37,368
Mm-hmm. -To this bar that was there.
�I met them. I got a shore boat.

1025
01:14:37,493 --> 01:14:38,702
And, you know,
they had these boats

1026
01:14:38,827 --> 01:14:41,243
that came up, picked you up,
and I went and met them,

1027
01:14:41,368 --> 01:14:43,951
and we had dinner,
which was pretty nice,

1028
01:14:44,076 --> 01:14:48,743
and I remember I had, you know,
a few glasses of vino,

1029
01:14:48,868 --> 01:14:53,284
and I was feeling
pretty good, and...

1030
01:14:53,409 --> 01:14:59,743
we came back, you know, to the boat.
�I opened up another bottle of wine

1031
01:14:59,868 --> 01:15:05,284
and had a couple more glasses of wine,
and I sat there with Chris, and...

1032
01:15:05,409 --> 01:15:10,784
we started talking, and... he started
to mention to me about your mother

1033
01:15:10,909 --> 01:15:13,784
and how wonderful she was and
what a great actress she was

1034
01:15:13,909 --> 01:15:17,409
and how he enjoyed working with her, and
he said, "You know, I think it's important

1035
01:15:17,534 --> 01:15:20,743
that she works", and I said, "I think it's
important if you stay out of her life."

1036
01:15:20,868 --> 01:15:26,284
You know, I was a little teed off
about that. �Suddenly, he's telling me

1037
01:15:26,409 --> 01:15:31,076
what she should do and how she
should behave. �I got angry at that.

1038
01:15:31,201 --> 01:15:35,327
And so your mother went down
below, our stateroom, where we st-

1039
01:15:35,452 --> 01:15:39,618
our bedroom was down below, and she went
down below to get ready to go to bed,

1040
01:15:39,743 --> 01:15:43,243
and I sat there with Chris, and
I said, "Why don't you just"-

1041
01:15:43,368 --> 01:15:46,659
you know, "Don't tell her what to
do and, "Stay out of her life",

1042
01:15:46,784 --> 01:15:49,493
and I picked up the bottle
and smashed it on the table,

1043
01:15:49,618 --> 01:15:53,159
and, you know, I was really,
you know...

1044
01:15:53,284 --> 01:16:00,034
angry at him about it, and as I
look back at it, unjustifiably so,

1045
01:16:00,159 --> 01:16:05,951
you know, but he ducked out,
went out, went up on the top

1046
01:16:06,076 --> 01:16:10,493
of the deck, and I
followed him out there,

1047
01:16:10,618 --> 01:16:15,452
and I was still saying to him, you
know, "Just stay out of it, Chris."

1048
01:16:15,577 --> 01:16:18,118
You know, "Don't get involved in it. �It's
important. She's got three children."

1049
01:16:18,243 --> 01:16:23,243
Da-da-you know. -Yeah. �I mean, I was also
a little high at the time, I might say.

1050
01:16:23,368 --> 01:16:29,243
But I calmed down. �You know, I
guess me being out in the air and...

1051
01:16:29,368 --> 01:16:34,702
Anyway, I calmed down, and
we went back down below

1052
01:16:34,827 --> 01:16:40,702
and talked for a while. �You and Chris?
-Yeah. �Uh-huh. -And he went to his cabin,

1053
01:16:40,827 --> 01:16:46,118
which was up on the other part of
the-forward on the boat, and Dennis-

1054
01:16:46,243 --> 01:16:49,159
I had Dennis-you know,
we swept up the glass

1055
01:16:49,284 --> 01:16:53,368
off the floor
and cleaned up the salon a bit.

1056
01:16:53,493 --> 01:16:58,327
And we talked about leaving the
next day to go back to the mainland,

1057
01:16:58,452 --> 01:17:03,202
and then I went below, and when
I went below, she wasn't there,

1058
01:17:03,327 --> 01:17:09,327
and so I looked around. �I looked in the
bathroom, and she wasn't in the bathroom,

1059
01:17:09,452 --> 01:17:13,868
and I went on the aft end of the
boat, and the dinghy was gone,

1060
01:17:13,993 --> 01:17:17,409
and I came back up, and I
said- �I got Dennis and Chris.

1061
01:17:17,534 --> 01:17:22,243
I said, you know, "Natalie's not
here. "She's... she's taken off,

1062
01:17:22,368 --> 01:17:26,368
"I guess, on the dinghy. �I
better-did any of you hear it?"

1063
01:17:26,493 --> 01:17:29,743
And we-n-see, nobody heard anything.
�Right. -I didn't hear anything.

1064
01:17:29,868 --> 01:17:33,534
I didn't hear anything about-you know.
�We would have heard it if- I believe,

1065
01:17:33,659 --> 01:17:39,409
if the dinghy had fired up. �Yes. �So...

1066
01:17:39,534 --> 01:17:45,118
I...called a shore boat when the
guys come out, 'cause I thought

1067
01:17:45,243 --> 01:17:47,743
maybe she had gone back to the
restaurant or back to the Isthmus,

1068
01:17:47,868 --> 01:17:50,118
where there were these little slips where
you could put your boat in and go in.

1069
01:17:50,243 --> 01:17:53,284
I remember those. �The dinghy
wasn't there, and she wasn't there,

1070
01:17:53,409 --> 01:17:57,159
and I yelled up, and the guy says,
"Natalie up there?" "No, she's not here."

1071
01:17:57,284 --> 01:18:02,327
I got back, and the shore boat came back.
�I said, "She's not- she didn't go ashore,

1072
01:18:02,452 --> 01:18:07,243
at least to the Isthmus." -Right. �So it
was then that we called the shore patrol

1073
01:18:07,368 --> 01:18:10,784
and said, "Have you, you know, seen
anything?" "No, we haven't seen anything."

1074
01:18:10,909 --> 01:18:12,452
We called the coast guard.
The coast guard came in.

1075
01:18:12,577 --> 01:18:16,784
And then, you know,
we waited for a long-

1076
01:18:16,909 --> 01:18:20,452
God, it seemed like forever to me, and...
'Cause they were looking for her, right?

1077
01:18:20,577 --> 01:18:23,284
Yeah, they were looking for
her, and this man that I knew

1078
01:18:23,409 --> 01:18:24,951
and that your mother knew,
Doug Bombard,

1079
01:18:25,076 --> 01:18:27,826
he took care of everything
in Catalina at that time

1080
01:18:27,951 --> 01:18:31,534
and had all the moorings,
of which we had one,

1081
01:18:31,659 --> 01:18:35,659
and he said, "We found her",

1082
01:18:35,784 --> 01:18:39,159
and I said...

1083
01:18:39,284 --> 01:18:43,284
"Is she okay?"
and he said, "She's dead."

1084
01:18:43,409 --> 01:18:50,284
And... everything just
went out from under me.

1085
01:18:50,409 --> 01:18:53,993
You know, just-it just-
everything just

1086
01:18:54,118 --> 01:19:00,659
went away from me, and... we were
all stunned, everybody, and...

1087
01:19:05,034 --> 01:19:08,368
That night's gone
through my mind so many times,

1088
01:19:08,493 --> 01:19:12,368
you can imagine, and...

1089
01:19:12,493 --> 01:19:18,327
and I... �You know,
Chris was there with me.

1090
01:19:18,452 --> 01:19:23,659
He, by the way,
is a very stand-up guy

1091
01:19:23,784 --> 01:19:28,034
and a gentleman, a true gentleman.
�I remember that Mart told me

1092
01:19:28,159 --> 01:19:32,702
that he picked you and Chris Walken
up at the helicopter... -Pad, yeah.

1093
01:19:32,827 --> 01:19:36,493
And you drove to see Arthur
Malin... �Mm-hmm. -Your therapist,

1094
01:19:36,618 --> 01:19:40,368
because you needed to talk to him about
how you were gonna tell Courtney and I.

1095
01:19:40,493 --> 01:19:47,368
He said to me... "RJ", he said, "I'll just
tell you one thing. "Don't minimize it.

1096
01:19:47,493 --> 01:19:52,076
Just tell them actually
how devastating it is."

1097
01:19:52,201 --> 01:19:53,743
And I remember,
I took you in my arms,

1098
01:19:53,868 --> 01:19:57,743
and, you know, you were at the
bottom of the stairs. �You remember?

1099
01:19:57,868 --> 01:20:02,409
And I said about your mother.

1100
01:20:02,534 --> 01:20:08,702
And then we were all together.
�And we've been all together.

1101
01:20:08,827 --> 01:20:14,743
Yeah. �Thank God. �Yeah.

1102
01:20:14,868 --> 01:20:18,784
This afternoon, Natalie Wood was buried
in a private ceremony in Los Angeles,

1103
01:20:18,909 --> 01:20:25,076
attended only by family and close friends.
�The funeral was another media storm.

1104
01:20:25,201 --> 01:20:28,076
They weren't allowed
into the cemetery,

1105
01:20:28,201 --> 01:20:32,826
but they got ladders to get up on the
wall, and it was not very pleasant,

1106
01:20:32,951 --> 01:20:37,618
considering we were trying to pay our
respects and hold ourselves together.

1107
01:20:37,743 --> 01:20:41,284
There was photographers
everywhere, taking our picture,

1108
01:20:41,409 --> 01:20:44,951
and I was thinking,
"How can they take my picture

1109
01:20:45,076 --> 01:20:51,577
"when I just said good-bye to
my mom? �It seems so wrong."

1110
01:20:51,702 --> 01:20:54,784
I remember your grandmother's
parting shot to me,

1111
01:20:54,909 --> 01:21:00,159
the last thing that she ever said to me at
the funeral. �She came up to me and said,

1112
01:21:00,284 --> 01:21:05,618
"If you", meaning me, "if
you had been on that boat,

1113
01:21:05,743 --> 01:21:09,201
my daughter would be alive."

1114
01:21:14,409 --> 01:21:15,868
The day after the funeral,

1115
01:21:15,993 --> 01:21:21,618
there was a big, bizarre, hysterical party
at the house. �RJ was in bed upstairs,

1116
01:21:21,743 --> 01:21:23,784
and there were
all these movie stars there.

1117
01:21:23,909 --> 01:21:25,826
It was really odd.
I mean, to me, it was odd.

1118
01:21:25,951 --> 01:21:29,493
It was like Madame Tussauds
brought to life, almost,

1119
01:21:29,618 --> 01:21:32,284
and Elizabeth Taylor was there
with the crystal ball,

1120
01:21:32,409 --> 01:21:35,159
and Shirley MacLaine
was gonna heal RJ,

1121
01:21:35,284 --> 01:21:39,493
and it was just really completely
surreal atmosphere, I thought.

1122
01:21:39,618 --> 01:21:41,826
I definitely was trying
to be strong

1123
01:21:41,951 --> 01:21:45,826
because my Daddy Wagner
was so very fragile.

1124
01:21:45,951 --> 01:21:52,368
I was worried that if I was too upset
that it would be too much for him

1125
01:21:52,493 --> 01:21:56,702
and he would just drop dead.
�He was really suffering,

1126
01:21:56,827 --> 01:22:01,202
and he didn't leave the bed
for days, and then Willie Mae,

1127
01:22:01,327 --> 01:22:04,743
who was really part of the family, she
came up to the bedroom, and she said,

1128
01:22:04,868 --> 01:22:07,243
"RJ, you have to get up "and
get out of this bed right now.

1129
01:22:07,368 --> 01:22:10,702
Your girls think you're gonna
die." �And that was that.

1130
01:22:10,827 --> 01:22:14,577
Thank God for Willie Mae, you
know? �Well, I remember Willie Mae,

1131
01:22:14,702 --> 01:22:19,534
she helped me get up, and I
pulled myself together, and...

1132
01:22:19,659 --> 01:22:26,202
one foot went in front of the
other. �Slowly. �Very slowly.

1133
01:22:26,327 --> 01:22:32,368
The press didn't go away. �It was really
horrible. �The children couldn't go out.

1134
01:22:32,493 --> 01:22:35,659
They could go in the back garden, but
they certainly couldn't go out the front,

1135
01:22:35,784 --> 01:22:39,951
and every friend that came up
to pay their respects,

1136
01:22:40,076 --> 01:22:44,618
click, click, click, click, click. �Most
people can't imagine what that's like,

1137
01:22:44,743 --> 01:22:49,368
to live in that kind of
a fishbowl, and so RJ

1138
01:22:49,493 --> 01:22:52,202
didn't want to be at home
at Christmas.

1139
01:22:52,327 --> 01:22:56,743
We then went away for Christmas to
Switzerland to see his friend David Niven

1140
01:22:56,868 --> 01:23:01,409
and be there and just get away from the
mania that was going on around the house

1141
01:23:01,534 --> 01:23:06,076
on Cañon Drive at the time. �And RJ
brought the kids, encouraged by my father

1142
01:23:06,201 --> 01:23:13,118
to get out of town, and found a chalet
for RJ not far from my father's chalet.

1143
01:23:13,243 --> 01:23:20,076
Soon after that, my dad wanted us to go
to England to be with Richard Gregson.

1144
01:23:20,201 --> 01:23:23,409
It was New Year's Eve,
just after the accident.

1145
01:23:23,534 --> 01:23:25,951
There were reporters
hanging off the trees,

1146
01:23:26,076 --> 01:23:29,951
and RJ was walking around the
garden with Richard in tears,

1147
01:23:30,076 --> 01:23:34,659
but at the same time, we had a party.
�You know, we had fun, if that sounds odd.

1148
01:23:34,784 --> 01:23:38,118
There was so much activity. �When
we were traveling and stuff,

1149
01:23:38,243 --> 01:23:43,452
that seemed rather comforting to me. �I
think it was finally coming back home

1150
01:23:43,577 --> 01:23:47,159
and, like, going back to
school, that didn't feel right.

1151
01:23:47,284 --> 01:23:51,618
My parents had tried so hard to give us
this very stabilized and structured life,

1152
01:23:51,743 --> 01:23:55,618
and then when she died,
everything went upside down.

1153
01:23:55,743 --> 01:23:59,702
So I think it was a lot
of just surviving for a while.

1154
01:24:04,993 --> 01:24:11,659
When I went to pay the condolence call
to the Wagner house, he was broken.

1155
01:24:11,784 --> 01:24:16,659
They were all broken. �And I
had experienced loss of my own.

1156
01:24:16,784 --> 01:24:22,702
I had lost my ex-husband in a plane
crash. �I knew what loss felt like.

1157
01:24:22,827 --> 01:24:28,826
When Jill came into my life, I was
shattered. �I mean, I was totally empty,

1158
01:24:28,951 --> 01:24:34,118
and she had me by my elbow.
�She was holding me up,

1159
01:24:34,243 --> 01:24:39,493
and I was a lot of weight.
�We did fall in love

1160
01:24:39,618 --> 01:24:46,534
but not exactly immediately. �There
was such pain from such a loss,

1161
01:24:46,659 --> 01:24:52,534
and it took time. �Fortunately for us, it
evolved into something quite beautiful.

1162
01:24:52,659 --> 01:24:56,534
You know, in the beginning, when
Daddy Wagner and Jill started dating,

1163
01:24:56,659 --> 01:25:00,577
I would express to him at times that
it was painful and I didn't like it

1164
01:25:00,702 --> 01:25:05,493
and I didn't feel close to Jill, and
she and I talked about it in therapy.

1165
01:25:05,618 --> 01:25:09,702
I mean, it was definitely
a process.

1166
01:25:09,827 --> 01:25:14,868
After my mom passed away and even now, I
feel like I have this ever-present echo

1167
01:25:14,993 --> 01:25:19,909
in my ear that just sounds like it
says... "That's Natalie Wood's daughter.

1168
01:25:20,034 --> 01:25:23,159
That's Natalie Wood's daughter."
�You know, and I just hear that,

1169
01:25:23,284 --> 01:25:28,368
and the only thing I can think of that
I have to balance that weird feeling

1170
01:25:28,493 --> 01:25:31,909
is my sister Natasha,
you know, and my sister Katie.

1171
01:25:32,034 --> 01:25:36,243
I just thank God we had each other
during that and just in life anyway,

1172
01:25:36,368 --> 01:25:39,327
because I'm so, so close
with my sisters.

1173
01:25:39,452 --> 01:25:42,743
Courtney was so young.
She was only seven.

1174
01:25:42,868 --> 01:25:48,577
To think that she lost her mom at that age
is unimaginable, and I think she wanted

1175
01:25:48,702 --> 01:25:53,243
to numb the pain, she wanted to stop it,
so she struggled with drugs and alcohol

1176
01:25:53,368 --> 01:25:57,909
for a really long time, and there
were times when I absolutely thought

1177
01:25:58,034 --> 01:26:00,034
that I would lose my sister.

1178
01:26:02,201 --> 01:26:06,452
When we as a family addressed
Courtney's struggles,

1179
01:26:06,577 --> 01:26:10,118
we were all able to speak
from our hearts

1180
01:26:10,243 --> 01:26:14,409
things, perhaps, we hadn't
vocalized before of how we felt,

1181
01:26:14,534 --> 01:26:17,951
and I believe it brought us
closer as a family.

1182
01:26:18,076 --> 01:26:24,327
The main thing that sobriety has brought
me is that that is where I can have

1183
01:26:24,452 --> 01:26:27,493
total control of my life. �I
thought that the other night.

1184
01:26:27,618 --> 01:26:30,452
I thought, "You know what?
"I'm in control of my life now,

1185
01:26:30,577 --> 01:26:33,493
and I don't have to worry
about anything."

1186
01:26:36,577 --> 01:26:41,284
When my mom was alive, she always said
that I wore my heart on my sleeve,

1187
01:26:41,409 --> 01:26:45,577
and I did. �But when she died,

1188
01:26:45,702 --> 01:26:49,368
I didn't have a safe place
anymore to be vulnerable,

1189
01:26:49,493 --> 01:26:54,327
so I armored myself to the outside
world with, "I'm fine. I'm okay.

1190
01:26:54,452 --> 01:26:58,202
"I don't need your pity. �I'm
just fine, thank you very much."

1191
01:26:58,327 --> 01:27:01,868
But after my mom died, I found
a lot of strength and clarity

1192
01:27:01,993 --> 01:27:05,534
from being in therapy, and I knew
that I wanted to have a child.

1193
01:27:05,659 --> 01:27:09,327
That was really important, and
after my daughter was born,

1194
01:27:09,452 --> 01:27:16,452
I was flooded with so much happiness and
gratitude, so I named my daughter Clover,

1195
01:27:16,577 --> 01:27:21,826
not necessarily after the character
that my mom played, Daisy Clover,

1196
01:27:21,951 --> 01:27:27,659
but mostly because clovers are lucky
and I felt so lucky to have her.

1197
01:27:27,784 --> 01:27:34,534
And having my daughter has been
the most healing thing for me.

1198
01:27:34,659 --> 01:27:38,659
There's a development tonight in one
of Hollywood's most enduring mysteries,

1199
01:27:38,784 --> 01:27:43,702
the death of Natalie Wood. �What
do we think about, recently,

1200
01:27:43,827 --> 01:27:47,577
them reopening this case? �Wood's
death was ruled an accidental drowning,

1201
01:27:47,702 --> 01:27:51,534
but in 2011, Los Angeles sheriff's
detectives reopened the case

1202
01:27:51,659 --> 01:27:55,868
after Dennis Davern coauthored a book in
which he gave a very different account

1203
01:27:55,993 --> 01:28:00,076
of what happened that night. �I
believe that Robert Wagner was with her

1204
01:28:00,201 --> 01:28:03,243
up until the moment she went into the
water. �I mean, I know how I feel.

1205
01:28:03,368 --> 01:28:07,702
I feel like people just want to
have some kind of media storm.

1206
01:28:07,827 --> 01:28:09,868
This new information
is substantial enough

1207
01:28:09,993 --> 01:28:14,618
for us to want to take another look at the
case. �Is Robert Wagner a suspect? -No.

1208
01:28:14,743 --> 01:28:17,951
Oh, the-it's just
so transparent to me.

1209
01:28:18,076 --> 01:28:19,909
They can print anything
that they want to print today,

1210
01:28:20,034 --> 01:28:24,618
and, you know, there was the coast
guard. �There was the highway patrol,

1211
01:28:24,743 --> 01:28:28,076
the police department.
�Everybody was on this.

1212
01:28:28,201 --> 01:28:32,909
When it first happened, yes. -When it
first happened. �Shortly after midnight

1213
01:28:33,034 --> 01:28:38,909
of the Sunday morning,
she apparently attempted

1214
01:28:39,034 --> 01:28:43,202
to get onto the dinghy,

1215
01:28:43,327 --> 01:28:46,577
slipped,
and fell in the water,

1216
01:28:46,702 --> 01:28:51,076
unable to return
to the dinghy or the boat.

1217
01:28:51,201 --> 01:28:55,784
Noguchi said there was no evidence of
foul play. �He did indicate, however,

1218
01:28:55,909 --> 01:28:58,702
that tests revealed Ms. Wood
was technically drunk

1219
01:28:58,827 --> 01:29:02,784
but continually referred to Wood's
condition as "slightly inebriated."

1220
01:29:02,909 --> 01:29:06,076
He nevertheless admitted that
alcohol might have been one reason

1221
01:29:06,201 --> 01:29:08,452
why the actress
was rendered unconscious.

1222
01:29:08,577 --> 01:29:12,243
When the toxicology report
came out after Natalie drowned,

1223
01:29:12,368 --> 01:29:14,618
it was clear that there was a
lot of alcohol in her system.

1224
01:29:14,743 --> 01:29:17,284
There was also a Dalmane, the
sleeping pill that she took.

1225
01:29:17,409 --> 01:29:21,993
The assumption was, when she went
down below, she could have gone out

1226
01:29:22,118 --> 01:29:26,118
to retie the dinghy. �Well, I
remember it used to drive her crazy,

1227
01:29:26,243 --> 01:29:28,618
and she would always say,
"RJ, can you move the dinghy?

1228
01:29:28,743 --> 01:29:33,284
Yeah, 'cause it- -'Cause the way the water
hit up against the boat, it would bang,

1229
01:29:33,409 --> 01:29:36,951
and she was so sensitive to noise.
�Yeah, and when she went out there, was-

1230
01:29:37,076 --> 01:29:42,034
it was a slight mist that night...
�Mm-hmm. -And the assumption is that

1231
01:29:42,159 --> 01:29:48,284
she went out and slipped and hit her
head and rolled into the water. -Mm-hmm.

1232
01:29:48,409 --> 01:29:52,368
But there's always conjecture
about someone who's very famous,

1233
01:29:52,493 --> 01:29:57,452
and your mother was a very famous person.
�And there's always conjecture, I think,

1234
01:29:57,577 --> 01:30:00,159
you know, that always comes
up but not to this degree.

1235
01:30:00,284 --> 01:30:03,534
I mean, this has really been something
that the media has taken over.

1236
01:30:03,659 --> 01:30:07,159
We were approached by a news agency who
wanted to take another look at the case.

1237
01:30:07,284 --> 01:30:10,118
We thought it was a good idea
to try and go ahead and do that.

1238
01:30:10,243 --> 01:30:13,659
What's a person of interest? �Just
that. He's a person of interest

1239
01:30:13,784 --> 01:30:19,368
like... he was there with her, last
person with her before she ends up dead.

1240
01:30:19,493 --> 01:30:23,868
How does it make you feel when
they call you a person of interest?

1241
01:30:23,993 --> 01:30:26,368
I don't pay very much
attention to it, Natasha,

1242
01:30:26,493 --> 01:30:29,826
because they're not gonna
redefine me. �That's right.

1243
01:30:29,951 --> 01:30:32,327
You know, they're not gonna
redefine me. �I know who I am.

1244
01:30:32,452 --> 01:30:36,202
But it's important to me,
Daddy, that people

1245
01:30:36,327 --> 01:30:39,868
think of you
the way I know that you are,

1246
01:30:39,993 --> 01:30:43,534
and it bothers me
that anyone would ever think

1247
01:30:43,659 --> 01:30:46,826
that you would be involved
in what happened to her,

1248
01:30:46,951 --> 01:30:53,202
because you would've given your life for
my mom. �And that's true. I would've.

1249
01:30:53,327 --> 01:30:57,534
We all would've. I mean, if there
was an- if we'd have heard anything

1250
01:30:57,659 --> 01:31:01,909
or known anything that was going on or
any kind of disaster was gonna take place,

1251
01:31:02,034 --> 01:31:06,202
we'd have been there. �Have
you ever been back to Catalina?

1252
01:31:06,327 --> 01:31:09,368
No, I never have gone back
to the island.

1253
01:31:10,659 --> 01:31:13,743
I see it once in a while. �You
know how sometimes you can see it,

1254
01:31:13,868 --> 01:31:18,743
it's so clear? -Mm-hmm. �Or if
I'm taking off from LAX, you know,

1255
01:31:18,868 --> 01:31:23,452
they turn to the south, and you go by the
island, and I look down at the Isthmus,

1256
01:31:23,577 --> 01:31:27,368
and I think of all of the
great times that we had there

1257
01:31:27,493 --> 01:31:29,743
and all of the wonderful
life-giving experiences,

1258
01:31:29,868 --> 01:31:36,368
and... you know, it's just so
ironic that this all happened,

1259
01:31:36,493 --> 01:31:38,577
you know, that it came
to an end like that, so...

1260
01:31:38,702 --> 01:31:42,452
No, but I never have been back. �Do
you have any interest in going back?

1261
01:31:42,577 --> 01:31:45,327
Not particularly, no. �Do
you think that the real story

1262
01:31:45,452 --> 01:31:50,784
of Natalie Wood's death has actually
come out? �The real story of her death

1263
01:31:50,909 --> 01:31:52,909
is that she...

1264
01:31:54,076 --> 01:31:59,784
Drowned, and... nobody
knows how she drowned

1265
01:31:59,909 --> 01:32:04,827
or what happened except... her.

1266
01:32:07,076 --> 01:32:09,493
Even if you have black
and white in the situation,

1267
01:32:09,618 --> 01:32:13,618
the tabloid media will create gray,
so every year around the anniversary

1268
01:32:13,743 --> 01:32:17,577
of Natalie's death, you'd always
start to see things pop up,

1269
01:32:17,702 --> 01:32:21,993
'cause that's when they can sell the most.
�And I've had conversations with editors.

1270
01:32:22,118 --> 01:32:25,452
"Why do you keep running
these awful stories today?"

1271
01:32:25,577 --> 01:32:29,784
"Because they still want to read about
it, so they're still making us money."

1272
01:32:29,909 --> 01:32:32,993
A lot of people have made money
off of Natalie Wood's death.

1273
01:32:33,118 --> 01:32:38,118
On that level, they're just barracudas.
�They're just feeding on something

1274
01:32:38,243 --> 01:32:44,659
that means nothing to them, and
because this meant so much to us,

1275
01:32:44,784 --> 01:32:49,868
to ever exploit this situation
would be criminal to do that,

1276
01:32:49,993 --> 01:32:52,826
and I know there are people
who want to talk about it,

1277
01:32:52,951 --> 01:32:59,034
but they're doing it for themselves,
and how dare they? �How dare they?

1278
01:32:59,159 --> 01:33:02,202
I think the investigation was
mishandled from the beginning.

1279
01:33:02,327 --> 01:33:08,493
Things were oversimplified and ignored.
�Conspiracy is a bit far-fetched,

1280
01:33:08,618 --> 01:33:15,327
but were things covered up and overlooked
purposefully? �I'm certain they were.

1281
01:33:15,452 --> 01:33:20,034
What I read in the press and I see
on these TV shows when Lana appears

1282
01:33:20,159 --> 01:33:24,202
really upsets me 'cause it
hurts RJ, it hurts the girls,

1283
01:33:24,327 --> 01:33:30,368
it hurts the memory of Natalie,
and it makes me sad and angry.

1284
01:33:30,493 --> 01:33:35,659
Are you suggesting that he
knocked her out in some way

1285
01:33:35,784 --> 01:33:40,034
and threw her in the water, or- �It
is something like that, absolutely.

1286
01:33:40,159 --> 01:33:44,909
Natalie was very kind to Lana,
very respectful of her situation,

1287
01:33:45,034 --> 01:33:48,826
because Natalie was the one who was
the big success with the parents,

1288
01:33:48,951 --> 01:33:53,577
and Natalie took great care of
her. �Lana became an actress,

1289
01:33:53,702 --> 01:33:58,034
I think, because her sister was a
star, and her name was not Wood,

1290
01:33:58,159 --> 01:34:02,743
but her mother changed it to Lana Wood.
�I don't know; the whole thing with Lana,

1291
01:34:02,868 --> 01:34:07,951
it's just... �I don't even think
she believes what she's saying.

1292
01:34:08,076 --> 01:34:10,577
I think she's just angry,
and I can understand that.

1293
01:34:10,702 --> 01:34:12,702
I can understand being angry.

1294
01:34:12,827 --> 01:34:15,034
I can certainly understand
having misplaced feelings.

1295
01:34:15,159 --> 01:34:19,868
I can understand all of that, but
when I just think about, like, my dad

1296
01:34:19,993 --> 01:34:23,743
having to deal with any of this stuff,
it's just so hard to even imagine

1297
01:34:23,868 --> 01:34:30,118
when, you know, he experienced, like, a
true nightmare. �I mean, a true nightmare.

1298
01:34:30,243 --> 01:34:34,951
One thing that I've heard Lana
say is that my stepdad, RJ,

1299
01:34:35,076 --> 01:34:39,784
kept her away from us, but I don't
have a memory of being close to Lana

1300
01:34:39,909 --> 01:34:44,159
even before my mom died. �When she
would come to our house on Cañon Drive,

1301
01:34:44,284 --> 01:34:48,327
it always felt like she was more
focused on my mom than Courtney or me,

1302
01:34:48,452 --> 01:34:51,409
so I never had that kind
of relationship with her

1303
01:34:51,534 --> 01:34:54,159
that my daughter has
with my sisters.

1304
01:34:54,284 --> 01:34:58,118
And she's literally accused
my dad of killing my mom

1305
01:34:58,243 --> 01:35:01,743
when that's the farthest thing
from the truth.

1306
01:35:02,909 --> 01:35:07,243
Sadly, some of the residue of
the tragedy will always be there,

1307
01:35:07,368 --> 01:35:09,826
because people like drama,
don't they, and tragedy,

1308
01:35:09,951 --> 01:35:14,284
and they'll have theories about it.
�And even my friends sometimes say-

1309
01:35:14,409 --> 01:35:16,868
you know, they almost, like,
take you aside and say,

1310
01:35:16,993 --> 01:35:18,993
"Okay, you can tell me
what really happened",

1311
01:35:19,118 --> 01:35:22,826
as if you have
some great scoop on it.

1312
01:35:22,951 --> 01:35:29,826
Natalie Wood falls into the category
of Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley.

1313
01:35:29,951 --> 01:35:36,327
They were such icons, the things about
their passing will always be brought up.

1314
01:35:36,452 --> 01:35:41,493
But Natalie is not a headline.
�Natalie was a life well lived.

1315
01:35:41,618 --> 01:35:45,951
It was foreshortened, but she
did a lot in that lifetime

1316
01:35:46,076 --> 01:35:52,577
for her children, for her friends, for
the industry. �She made a difference.

1317
01:35:52,702 --> 01:35:55,202
It's really sad
that she died when she did,

1318
01:35:55,327 --> 01:35:58,034
because it'd be really great
to see what she was gonna do

1319
01:35:58,159 --> 01:36:04,743
as a woman in her 40s and 50s and the
kinds of roles she would take on over time

1320
01:36:04,868 --> 01:36:08,868
because she was always grappling
with what it means to be a woman

1321
01:36:08,993 --> 01:36:11,409
in different stages of life.
-Ah!

1322
01:36:11,534 --> 01:36:13,368
But that's the great thing
about being an actor.

1323
01:36:13,493 --> 01:36:18,784
You're always alive. Those movies
still exist. �Natalie was unique.

1324
01:36:18,909 --> 01:36:23,909
She doesn't have a false moment
in her films. �She didn't "act."

1325
01:36:24,034 --> 01:36:28,618
She found something in her gut, in
her heart, and in her intellect,

1326
01:36:28,743 --> 01:36:35,577
and she applied all of that. �I love you,
Mother. �And young women seeing that now,

1327
01:36:35,702 --> 01:36:39,452
supposing you decide to catch one
of these movies, you'd be struck

1328
01:36:39,577 --> 01:36:46,577
by a multidimensional young woman
unafraid to show her vulnerabilities,

1329
01:36:46,702 --> 01:36:52,909
her passion, her strength, and her
intelligence. �All of that is there.

1330
01:36:53,034 --> 01:36:56,534
Won't you join me back in the
limelight, little lady of pain?

1331
01:36:57,201 --> 01:37:01,993
All she was ever looking for was the
comfort of good friends, good people,

1332
01:37:02,118 --> 01:37:06,202
and being able to be a normal
human being. �That was her search.

1333
01:37:06,327 --> 01:37:09,577
It was so hard against the
reputation of being a movie star.

1334
01:37:09,702 --> 01:37:12,618
And I witnessed her desire,
her reaching out

1335
01:37:12,743 --> 01:37:17,243
to try to be just a regular human
being against the odds of being treated

1336
01:37:17,368 --> 01:37:20,493
like a movie star, and
she did it beautifully.

1337
01:37:23,493 --> 01:37:27,493
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