Robert Wagner Now A 'person Of Interest' In Natalie Wood's Death

[Willie Oleson]

I mean, did he make any jokes about his late wife being the only kind of wood that doesn't float? Because that would be horrible

Did someone just get away with something....?

 

[Mel O'Drama]

She said it in some interviews, including a TV interview she did the year before she died.

She seemed to be a good talker

They're really quite chilling, all told.

As an aside, I don't think I've heard Natalie speak before. The vocal fry surprised me, particularly in the first interview, dated 1980. I suppose I'd built up a kind of idea of how I thought she would sound after all these years seeing only pictures of her.

 

[Toni]

Do you remember what kind of interviews? Because there's a difference between focussing on a theme/phobia (a la Oprah Winfrey) or the answer to random questions like: what kind of fruit do you like the most/did you want to become an actress when you were a child/what's your biggest fear etc etc.

How did this subject come up in the first place? Everyone's afraid of something but apparently her fear was relevant. Had it something to do with a movie she's done? Did she struggle with certain scenes because they took place on/in/close to deep water? What kind of impact did it have on her life, personally and professionally? Was she asked to do The Poseidon Adventure or something like that?

Willie, I have watched a few interviews with her and her co-stars, and there is a constant in her career: directors very often asked her to do water-related scenes: in bathtubs, rivers, shipwrecks and so on. I´m sure everybody in Hollywood knew about her fear of water (or of dying drowned, better said) but even so, the demands kept coming. I can´t help but chilling when I think of the (censored) argument with the mother at the bathroom and the river scene in "Splendor in the Grass", the very sexy love-making in the sea with William Devane in the TV version of "From Here to Eternity", or the ship sinking in "The Memory of Eva Ryker".

Right now I can´t remember anything like this in her last movie "Brainstorm", though there was a scene by the beach, I seem to recall. She also filmed scenes in a boat in "The Star" (when she was a teenager) and, well, inside an empty pool in "Rebel Without a Cause", ahem. One of the most intense homoerotic scenes in movie history, by the way...

There is a quite good biographical miniseries about her titled "The Mystery of Natalie Wood" with a fantastic actress called Justine Waddell playing her. Natalie´s hydrophobia is handled in it too, and overall the movie is a true character study and a condemn to Hollywood´s harassment and "casting couch" policy that is even more valid 13 years after its release. She was constantly pressured by directors to do things she really didn´t want to do on screen, and even had to get drunk to play one of the scenes in "This Property Is Condemned".

She truly was the last classic movie star...

​

I just found this pic on line and thought you might be as surprised to see it as moi...Does that staircase remind you of any other...?

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

They're really quite chilling, all told.

As an aside, I don't think I've heard Natalie speak before. The vocal fry surprised me, particularly in the first interview, dated 1980. I suppose I'd built up a kind of idea of how I thought she would sound after all these years seeing only pictures of her.

Really? I'm not catching any vocal fry.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Did someone just get away with something....?

I was actually kidding about the only-wood-that-doesn't-float joke. I doubt RJ said it.

However, if Lana and/or the captain isn't lying about the story of Wagner taunting Natalie in the water by telling the captain to let them "teach her a lesson" by letting her splash around, knowing full well she couldn't swim, and then she went under --- that may not be murder per se but surely some lesser womanslaughter kind of crime.

Sad.

 

[Willie Oleson]

I doubt RJ said it.

I wasn't referring to him.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

There's also the scene in REBEL where she looks for a moment as if she might jump from the cliff to the water below where Corey Allen is now swimming with the fishes after the chicken run with Dean.

Somehow, it may be the most chilling of all these premonitory movie scenes, because she seems to be looking ahead, almost consciously, into the future.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Oh, funny, I thought this was Elizabeth Taylor in the '70s...

Must be Natalie's and Elizabeth's shared Libra Rising (although recent charts on the net have shifted Taylor to a Sag Rising --- as if.... Sun in Pisces/Moon in Scorpio -- are you listening @Toni ? --- that's Tammy Faye Bakker when you slap a Sag Rising on it, but not Elizabeth... Sure, they share a ranting neurosis, but Taylor did it with intelligence and style, unlike poor TFB). Taylor's looks, star quality, hangdog face and eyes when she was heavy, vocal trill, she's the very definition of Libra Rising. It's why everybody thought she seemed like Vivien Leigh's daughter (they didn't even have to reshoot long shots when Taylor replaced Leigh in ELEPHANT WALK) -- they were also both Libra Rising (although most charts cite the "sunset" birthtime which gives Leigh another Rising sign, but she was actually born around 3AM).

Rising sign data is so volatile.

Also, Libra Rising are the most famous murder victims of the zodiac, with Aries Rising coming in second. And, as I stated above, Natalie was a Sun in Cancer/Libra Rising/Moon in Taurus just like the Lindbergh baby.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Wagner will be 88 on Saturday...

Natalie would have been 80 this summer.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Buzzfeed's silly-ish analysis of the story:

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Natalie Wood would have turned 80 a week ago. So sister Lana is out and about pimping her latest "RJ killed Natalie" version.

I prefer the scenario where they'd had a fight, Natalie went out to the dinghy and slipped, and RJ taunted her as she splashed around and then she accidentally drowned as a result.

It's more tragic than the boring old "he murdered her" explanation.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Natalie Wood's Daughter and Husband Speak Out About Her Death in New Doc

Kayleigh Roberts

There are few Hollywood mysteries more enduring—or more heartbreaking—than the one surrounding Natalie Wood's tragic death.

The actress—known for starring roles in films like West Side Story, Rebel Without a Cause, and Splendor in the Grass—drowned in 1981, when she was just 43 years old; but the circumstances surrounding the fatality are barely any clearer today than they were when the news first broke. Now, in HBO's new documentary, Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind, Wood's oldest daughter, Natasha Gregson Wagner, is digging into her mother's life and death with brand new interviews with those closest to her. This includes a very direct conversation with Wood's husband, actor Robert Wagner, whom many believe to be a prime suspect in any fowl play that may have played a role in her untimely end.

© Paul Schutzer - Getty Images

Natalie Wood's life and the mysterious circumstances of her death are examined in HBO's new documentary, Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind.
Below, a timeline of the known events of Wood's passing, which remains cloaked in mystery to this day.

Late November 1981

© Chris Wood - Getty Images Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner in 1972.

After Thanksgiving 1981, Wood and Wagner began planning one of their frequent boat trips to Catalina Island, off the coast of California. According to several interviews in Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind, the actress invited multiple friends to join them on the trip, but most of the invitees declined, citing the less-than-ideal sailing weather that weekend. Wood's Brainstorm costar, Christopher Walken, who was in town for the film, but not from Los Angeles, was the only person to accepted, joining Wood, Wagner, and Dennis Davern, the captain of the couple's yacht, Splendour.

November 28, 1981
Wood, Wagner, Walken, and Davern enjoyed a champagne-filled dinner at the restaurant Doug's Harbor Reef in Catalina before re-boarding the yacht for the evening. Don Whiting, the night manager of the restaurant, later said he was worried that all four were too intoxicated to make it back to the boat safely in their dinghy after the meal and even went so far as to ask Kurt Craig of the Harbor Patrol to make sure the group made it safely back to their yacht when they left the restaurant at 10:30 p.m. The toxicology report released after Wood's death revealed that the actress had a blood alcohol content of 0.14 percent at the time of her death.

In the HBO documentary, Wagner describes having a heated conversation with Walken after dinner, during which Wood was not present, but believed to be safe elsewhere onboard.

At around 11:05 p.m. that evening, other passengers realized that Wood had gone missing and began looking for her. Around this time, they realized that the boat's dinghy was also gone.

November 29, 1981
At 1:30 a.m., a ship-to-shore call was made and two hours later, at 3:30 a.m., the Coast Guard was finally called. This part of the timeline has become of particular interest to investigators.

"There are many, many things that should be examined, but mainly the four-hour wait to call for the Coast Guard," Marti Rulli, co-author of the book, Goodbye Natalie, Goodbye Splendour previously told CNN.

© Paul Harris - Getty Images Wood and Wagner’s boat, The Splendour.

At around 8 a.m., Wood's body was found about a mile south of the couple's yacht, off an isolated cove known as Blue Cavern Point.

November 30, 1981
Dr. Joseph Choi, a deputy medical examiner at the Los Angeles Medical Examiner’s Office performed an autopsy on Wood. Noting Wood's blood alcohol levels and several bruises on her arms, legs, and face, believed to be consistent with a fall overboard while she was trying to board the dinghy, the office ruled the death an accident, according to Huffington Post.

September 1, 1997
Walken broke his silence on the night of Wood's death, offering a theory as to how she died. The actor's account of the evening, given during an interview with Playboy Magazine, was consistent with investigators' initial findings.

In the interview, Walken said, per The Hollywood Reporter:

"Anybody there saw the logistics—of the boat, the night, where we were, that it was raining—and would know exactly what happened. You hear about things happening to people—they slip in the bathtub, fall down the stairs, step off the curb in London because they think that the cars come the other way—and they die. You feel you want to die making an effort at something; you don’t want to die in some unnecessary way. "What happened that night only she knows, because she was alone. She had gone to bed before us, and her room was at the back. A dinghy was bouncing against the side of the boat, and I think she went out to move it. There was a ski ramp that was partially in the water. It was slippery—I had walked on it myself. She had told me she couldn’t swim; in fact, they had to cut a swimming scene from [Brainstorm]. She was probably half asleep, and she was wearing a coat."

November 17, 2011
Thirty years after her death, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department reopened their investigation after receiving "additional information" from unidentified sources who contacted the authorities.

November 18, 2011
In an interview with NBC's Today, Davern said he lied about Wood's death when he was originally questioned by police. He also claimed that Wagner was actually responsible for the tragedy.

January 14, 2013
The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department officially changed Wood's cause of death from an accidental drowning to "drowning and other undetermined factors." The change came after investigators determined that some of the bruises found on Wood's body during her initial autopsy may have been sustained before she drowned. However, coroners said they couldn't definitely confirm when exactly the bruises were inflicted.

February 1, 2018
Wagner was officially named as a person of interest in Wood's death for the first time. Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Lieutenant John Corina disclosed the update during an interview with CBS News' 48 Hours.

2020
In Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind, her daughter, Natasha Gregson Wagner, confronts Wagner on-camera about speculation that he had something to do with Wood's death. He denied the accusations and Gregson Wagner offered her emphatic support, stressing that she does not believe he was involved in her mother's death in anyway.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

She's now been gone almost as long as she was here...

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Well, if you can't trust Dr. Oz.....

 

[Seaviewer]

37 years later, and now he's a "person of interest"?! Absurd!

This thread is now over five years old. Have they now lost interest?

 

[tommie]

This thread is now over five years old. Have they now lost interest?

I think it's more of a case that they can't prove anything.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

This thread is now over five years old. Have they now lost interest?

Well, the crime -- if there is one -- is 42 years old. And Wagner is closing in on 94.

It's the death penalty either way.