Natalie Wood: Hollywood's Russian Princess

Hollywood has had its share of legendary stars, preserved eternally on the silver screen. Others sadly have been forgotten while others have become more famous for their off screen escapades than their achievements on screen. One of these is Natalie Wood. Today, she is remembered more for her tragic death in 1981 than for her great performances.

At one time Natalie was considered Hollywood Royalty and was indeed an extraordinary actress, one who could rival the likes of Elizabeth Taylor, a fellow child star turned respectable adult actress. She received three Oscar nominations and starred opposite the likes of Orson Welles, James Dean, Steve McQueen and Claudette Colbert. In her prime Natalie was the most sought after actress in Hollywood with fantastic performances in films such as Splendour In The Grass, Gypsy and Love With The Proper Stranger. The majority of her choices involved characters pushed to the limit of their sanity and who claw their way back, much like her own struggle in her own life.

Born Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko on 20th July 1938, to Russian immigrants; her fate already decided by her ambitious mother, a former ballerina who fled Siberia after the Russian Revolution. Maria had always had dreams of fame and fortune and upon Natalie's birth worked tirelessly to instill those passions into her daughter. After appearing in Happy Land for a mere few seconds Maria moved the entire family to Los Angeles where Natasha made a screen test. After a year or so she was cast alongside Orson Welles and Claudette Colbert in Tomorrow Is Forever. It was a breakout performance for a seven year old who Welles said 'was so good she was terrifying'.

After this success she was cast in the classic Miracle on 34th Street, as the cynical daughter of Maureen O'Hara. One film historian describes her as being 'very good at not being sentimental and giving [the film] a sense of reality'. This resulted in a slew of movies playing the daughter of great actors such as James Stewart in The Jackpot and Bette Davis' daughter in The Star. But it was in 1955's Rebel Without A Cause that she made the transition from child actress to ingenue. It is an interesting film and Natalie's performance is stunning. Starring alongside James Dean, a member of the new method style of acting, she fought hard to get the role of Judy, a character she felt she could relate to. And this is where her natural abilities to perform come through, instinctual rather than methodical. And it resulted in Natalie's first Oscar nomination and won a Golden Globe for Most Promising Newcomer.

After the success of Rebel, Natalie made her way through many great performances, not all of which were received well by critics, but the public loved her regardless. She appeared in the classic western The Searchers, playing the kidnapped victim in A Cry In The Night and an actress in Marjorie Morningstar. But it was in 1960 that she had her next big success with West Side Story, now a classic musical. Despite not being a professional singer and dancer she held her own within the large cast, but her voice was sadly dubbed by a professional singer.

After West Side Story, Natalie made some of her most successful films acting wise. Splendor In The Grass was a melodramatic but well made film directed by Elia Kazan. She portrayed a high school student torn between being the good girl her mother wants her to be and her desire to be with her high school sweetheart which sadly leads her into a mental institution. It was a complex role that mirrored much of her own life, every bit as dramatic as any role she could've played. Starring opposite newcomer Warren Beatty, Natalie gives a brave and relatable performance that earned her another Oscar and Golden Globe nomination as well as a BAFTA nod for Best Foreign Actress.

This was followed up with Gypsy, another musical, this time the biopic of Gypsy Rose Lee, the famous burlesque performer, resulting in another Golden Globe nomination. She received further acclaim for her performance in Love With The Proper Stranger opposite Steve McQueen, for which she received her last Oscar nod for the film which looks at the subject of abortion at a time when abortions were illegal. It is a great film and Wood has great chemistry with co-star McQueen.

After this Natalie's career slid  downward, her films weren't performing as well and her depression got the worst of her and she attempted suicide in 1966. After receiving help she regained some sense of normalcy, focusing on family life with the birth of her daughter Natasha in 1970. Her career never reached the successes of Splendor or Rebel again and she appeared in more TV dramas in the 70s, winning a Golden Globe for From Here To Eternity in 1979.

It was in 1981 that she signed up for what she hoped would be a movie come-back. Brainstorm was a sci-fi film where she co-starred with Christopher Walken of Deer Hunter. She had filmed the majority of the project when she and her husband Robert Wagner took a trip on their boat, inviting Walken along. No one really knows what happened that night but on 29th November 1981 Natalie Wood was found dead at sea in Catalina. She was 43 years old.

Her death resulted in a global scandal, a mystery that to this day has never been solved. There are many theories about how she died but the one fact that remains is that it was a tragedy. At the time of her death her career was taking an upward turn and she was in the midst of rehearsing the play Anastasia that was to open in February 1982, with Natalie in the titular role; taking her back to her Russian roots. Anastasia was her first foray into the theatre.

Natalie Wood was Hollywood's very own princess. She was a unique beauty, unlike anyone else at that time, and expressed a sense of intelligence that is enviable by today's standards. She was Hollywood royalty, and in the way Anastasia became Russia's lost princess Natalie Wood is perhaps Hollywood's very own Russian Princess, tragically lost before her time.

Further Reading:

Natasha: The Biography of Natalie Wood; Finstad, Suzanne; Arrow