Natalie Wood was a glamorous and beloved actress, whose career was cut short by tragedy. Her sister tells her story in this warm and candid memoir.

From her first scene as a cherub-cheeked cynic in Miracle on 34th Street to her coming of age in Rebel Without a Cause and West Side Story, Wood effortlessly inhabited glamour.

A Hollywood Icon Dies, But Her Legacy Lives On

For the past four decades, Natalie Wood has been a cultural touchstone, an icon of femininity and strength who was as much of a force offscreen as she was on. Directed and co-produced by Laurent Bouzereau (Five Came Back), this HBO Documentary Films and Amblin Television documentary focuses on her remarkable career.

It opens a window on the actress’s life from her childhood through her last days, as told by her daughter, Natasha Gregson Wagner. It mixes personal interviews with friends and family (including husband Robert Wagner, who speaks on-camera about his wife’s death for the first time) with extensive archival material. Excerpts from her films—Miracle on 34th Street, Rebel Without a Cause, Splendor in the Grass and West Side Story—are matched with family photos, documents, diaries and never-before-seen home movies.

At a time when women were still largely considered “housewife” roles, Wood rose to stardom on the strength of her talent and the quality of her work. She became an Oscar nominee for her role in 1955’s Rebel Without a Cause and again for 1961’s Splendor in the Grass, which starred off-screen love interest Warren Beatty. The movie industry often treated stars like puppets, and a young Wood had to learn how to manage her career and her personal life—often at the same time.

As she grew older, Wood continued to act in both feature films and TV shows. But she was also known for her off-screen life, and rumors of affairs with men such as Dennis Hopper, hotel heir Nicky Hilton and singer Elvis Presley persisted. Her death in 1981, at age 43, was mysterious and elicited lurid speculation on how she died. Was it an accidental drowning off her yacht, the Splendour? Or did she kill herself? It was never fully clear, and that mystery casts a shadow over her career.

Movies

Wood’s acting career began in 1943 when she appeared in a 15-second scene in the film Little Girl Dropping Ice Cream Cone. Despite this incredibly short scene, her talent was recognized and she soon found herself receiving film offers. Her first major role was as Susan Walker in the 1947 Christmas classic Miracle on 34th Street, a critical and commercial success that led to Macy’s naming her an honorary parade marshal at Thanksgiving Day. It also led to her signing a contract with 20th Century Fox. After her debut, she appeared in a few films before her first starring role in the 1956 movie Rebel Without a Cause.

Her performance in the James Dean drama received critical acclaim and won her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Her next film, Splendor in the Grass, saw her portraying an emotionally fragile young woman torn by love and social conventions. This role proved to be a breakthrough for her, and she won another Oscar nomination.

Wood continued to work on films throughout the 1960s, and her performances in West Side Story and Gypsy earned her Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress. Her roles in these films, as well as her role in the movie version of Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1976) and the miniseries From Here to Eternity (also 1979), received critical acclaim.

In these films, as well as in her roles in television shows such as The Cracker Factory and Hart to Hart, she displayed her versatility as an actress. She portrayed strong women, as well as the softer side of her character in many of these works. In her roles, she showed the complexities of relationships and the strength of the human spirit.

Towards the end of her career, Wood continued to act, but the movies did not produce the same success as earlier on. Her appearances in the 1979 disaster film Meteor and the 1980 sex comedy The Last Married Couple in America both failed to make an impression with audiences.

Although Wood was no longer an in demand actress by this point, she continued to appear in some television shows such as The Love Boat in 1978 and Hart to Hart in 1979. She was also in the satirical film The Naked Kiss with George Segal and Valerie Harper in 1975 and the sexy spoof movie The Great Race in 1980 with Jack Lemmon and Peter Falk.

Television

When five-year-old Natasha Nikolaevna Gurdin (now Natalie Wood) stepped in front of the camera for her first film role, she did not anticipate that she would become one of Hollywood’s most beloved child stars. Her scene in the 1945 film Happy Land was brief, but her sassy demeanor captured the imagination of audiences and led to several more small roles. She tugged at heartstrings as a young orphan in the 1946 drama Tomorrow Is Forever and won particular acclaim as a precocious Santa Claus skeptic in the 1947 classic Miracle on 34th Street.

As she grew older, she began to find leading roles that were more substantial, including her breakout performance as rebellious ingenue Judy in 1955’s Rebel Without a Cause. Her portrayal of the troubled girl earned her an Academy Award nomination. Wood also starred in the 1956 Western The Burning Hills and was the female lead of John Ford’s 1960 drama A Cry in the Night. She would appear in more than two dozen television shows over the next decade, including guest appearances on popular anthology series like Studio One in Hollywood, Camera Three, Kings Row, Warner Brothers Presents, and the Kaiser Aluminum Hour.

Despite her popularity and success, the spotlight often focused on Wood’s personal life. Her marriages and relationships garnered considerable media attention. She married actor Robert Wagner in 1957 and they divorced in 1962. She married writer Richard Gregson in 1969 and they had a daughter, Natasha. The couple later separated, supposedly due to Gregson’s indiscretions with Wood’s assistant.

By the late ’60s, Wood had begun to feel that her career was winding down and went into semi-retirement with just four more theatrical films — Peeper (1975), Meteor (1979), The Last Married Couple in America (1980) and Brainstorm (1981).

Then came tragedy. On November 29, 1981, Wood was found dead of an apparent drug overdose on a yacht off the coast of California’s Catalina Island. An HBO documentary called Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind reveals the details of her troubled, tragic life. It is a film that leaves no stone unturned and shines a light on the many ways that Wood was exploited by men—men she trusted, men she loved, and even the men who ultimately killed her.

Personal Life

The documentary delves into Wood’s private life. Rare photographs and home movies, some of which were rediscovered by Gregson Wagner in his family’s storage unit, paint a rich portrait of a devoted daughter, wife and mother whose professional choices were boldly forward-thinking for the time. A 1966 article she wrote for Ladies Home Journal that was never published reveals her innermost thoughts on fame, affairs of the heart and family and also provides context for her controversial choices in films such as Love with a Proper Stranger (1963) and Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969).

The film also explores her turbulent relationships with men. In 1962’s Gypsy Rose Lee, she played the title character of a stripper driven by her domineering stage mother—a role that could be seen as a metaphor for Wood’s real-life struggles with her own father. Wood’s volatile marriage to actor Robert Wagner ended in 1961, but she remarried him in 1972 and the two remained together until her death. She also dated a variety of celebrities, including Dennis Hopper and hotel dynasty heir Nicky Hilton.

As an adult, Wood continued to make a wide range of films, including westerns like The Searchers (1956) and classic musicals such as West Side Story (1961). But it was her role in the 1971 melodrama Splendor in the Grass as a woman torn between desire and social convention that brought her greatest critical and commercial success.

Her performances in films such as The Great Race (1964) and Brainstorm (1983) cemented her status as a versatile and talented actress, but she made fewer films after the end of her acting career in order to focus on her family.

The final film offers a poignant and thoughtful look at the life of an iconic star whose legacy was tragically cut short by mental illness. Wood was a larger-than-life star who had incredible talent and was able to take on difficult roles, despite her personal problems. She was a force to be reckoned with and was a part of Hollywood at its most glamorous.