Natalie Wood: Beauty Lost

by Marjorie Dorfman | More from this Blogger

16 Apr 2006 03:55 AM

Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko was the eldest of two daughters born to Russian immigrants. Her birth date was July 20, 1938. The family settled in Santa Rosa and spoke little English, but they changed their surname to Gurdin after becoming US citizens. In 1943, at the tender age of four, Natalie appeared in her first film, "Happy Land." It was a tiny part involving a lost ice cream cone and a crying little girl, but it was enough to spark Mrs. Gurdin's dream of her daughter becoming a star. Mrs. Gurdin packed up the family and moved south to Los Angeles. It would take three years for Natalie to land another part, and the family barely managed to scrape by financially. In 1946, Natalie appeared in her second film, "Tomorrow is Forever". In 1947, she became a child start for her darling portrayal of Susan Walker in "Miracle on Thirty-fourth Street."

She appeared in no les than 18 films in the late 1940s and early 1950s. At the age of seventeen in 1955, her defining moment as an actress arrived with the part of Judy in Nicholas Ray's disturbing study of restless youth, "Rebel Without A Cause" opposite James Dean and Sal Mineo. For her performance, she earned an Oscar nomination. "Splendor in The Grass" (1961), West Side Story" (1961), "Gypsy" (1962) and "Love With The Proper Stranger" (1963) followed, netting her two additional nominations.

Although she worked in some films during the mid 1960s, most notably "This Property is Condemned" and "Bob And Carol and Ted and Alice", she spent most of her time raising a family. Her last film, "Brainstorm", opposite Christopher Walken, began filming in 1981. She did not live to see its release in 1983, drowning on November 29, 1981, while trying to board a dinghy tied up along side the family yacht, "Splendor." She was 43 years old. Two daughters and her husband, Robert Wagner, survive her. Her star still shines brightly, but sadly, from too far away for all of her many fans. (This author included).

Learn more about Marjorie Dorfman

Marjorie Dorfman is a freelance writer and former teacher originally from Brooklyn, New York.

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