Suzanne Finstad - Natalie Wood: The Complete Biography

Suzanne Finstad presents a poignant, intensely sympathetic portrait of the vulnerable, sensitive little girl who grew up to be the quintessential Hollywood star.

Los Angeles Times

Finstad also has a keen sense of how that citys dream factory simultaneously turns women into stars and leaves them bereftthe woman who emerges in this biography is not a distant celebrity but a real person

The Washington Post Book World

Emotionally compellingFinstad is an effective storytelleran unusually sympathetic look at an actress who used her personal demons to fuel the emotions that she brought to her roles even as she struggled to hide those demons from a public that worshiped her.

San Francisco Chronicle

A haunting portrait of the late film star

Chicago Tribune

[Natalie Wood] is at once unusual, impressive, disturbing, and revelatoryimpressive in its detail, in the authors careful examination of the information and in the way it is skillfully woven into the story.The information Finstad has discovered about Woods horrific childhood, her anxiety-ridden stardom, and her mysterious death is deeply disturbing.

Variety

[Finstad] pursued every thread, every story, every source she could find to develop a complete picture of the woman who grew up in the movies and died before completing her last onea tragedy foretold at every turn of the pagean eerie tale.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Finstad has crafted a page-turner here that is akin to watching a car wreck in slow motion. You dont like whats happening; you hate the result but you cant avert your eyes.

Detroit Free Press

Remarkably researched and occasionally shockingcertain things stay with you

The Baltimore Sun

Compellingly readable, carefully researched, and always sympathetic to its troubled heroine. The description of the last fatal voyage to Catalina is a powerfully gripping murder mystery in its own right.

The London Daily Telegraph

This book, which will likely be an instant bestseller, should give you a few sleepless nightsa page-turner that will leave you smitten with its heroine, rooting for her, and deeply moved by her passing.

New Jersey Bergen County Record

This is an ambitious and engrossing biography, acute in its insights.

London Literary Review

Fascinatingmeticulously researchedthe perfect guilty summer pleasure.

Houston Chronicle

Finstads research into Hollywood and Woods part in it is simply phenomenala detailed, realistic, and frightening portrait of a child forced outside herself to live the dreams and fulfill the needs of others by becoming the star known as Natalie Wood.

Rocky Mountain News

Sheds new light on Woods life, which has been clouded by time, myth, and Hollywood publicitycontradicting a half-century of Hollywood legend.

Reuters

Compelling and revealinggrippinggreat depth.

Premiere

Brimming with detailsa lot of juicy tales about making movies but the true drama is behind the scenes.

Biography

Gathers momentum, offering fleeting glimpses into the dynamics of Hollywood legendsbut throughout the biography the brightest star is Wood

The Oregonian

Natalie Woods life makes for an insightful, haunting, page-turner of a book as written by Suzanne Finstad in [Natalie Wood].

Palo Alto Daily News

A life entangled in mystical odditiesthe climaxdeath by drowningis reached with a Chekhovian inevitabilitythe most incredible secondary biographical character ever brought back to lifefraught with drama.

Toronto National Post

[This] thorough biography of film star Natalie Wood has all the traditional elements of a summer blockbuster

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Juicythe actress seems to face a Marilyn Monroeesque misfortune on every other page.

US

Exhaustively researchedenormously sympathetic to its subjecta touching tale of a stars impossible struggle to attain normality.

Glasgow Sunday Herald

For once, the truth is more interesting than publishing fictionclearly a labour of love and an eloquent portrait of an extraordinary woman with a lot of demons.

Nottingham Evening Post

THE SOURCE MATERIAL for Natalie Wood is located at the back of the book, set forth in chapter order with page numbers. If an individual or a publication is quoted without being named in the text, consult the Notes section for identification.

For consistency and correctness, the Russian spellings of names are courtesy of Professor Olga T. Yokoyama, UCLA Department of Slavic Languages.

Lana Wood Collection, courtesy of Lana Wood.

Natasha with her beloved, tormented Fahd.

Lana Wood Collection, courtesy of Lana Wood.

The smile that lit