Wood Natalie - Natalie Wood: a life

ALSO BY GAVIN LAMBERT

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Inside Daisy Clover

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A Case for the Angels

The Goodby People

On Cukor

GWTW: The Making of Gone with the Wind

The Dangerous Edge

In the Night All Cats Are Grey

Running Time

Norma Shearer: A Life

Nazimova

Mainly About Lindsay Anderson

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

Copyright 2004 by Gavin Lambert

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Distributed by Random House, Inc., New York.
www.aaknopf.com

Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lambert, Gavin.
Natalie Wood : a life / Gavin Lambert 1st ed.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-81680-1
1. Wood, Natalie. 2. Motion picture actors and actressesUnited States Biography. I. Title.
PN2287.W59L36 2004
791.43028092dc21

[ B ] 2003047578

v3.1

To Leslie Caron

Everyone who has studied the matter in depth says it is not necessary to die, ever, but one by one everybody has died, including the specialists who had said that it was really not necessary, but they probably left messages saying that yes, it is not necessary, they simply decided they wanted to, and did, and thus became the same as the rest of us, the living who die, but one thing is certain and painful: it is not fun at all when somebody dies prematurely.

William Saroyan, Obituaries

Maria and her mother with sisters Zoya, Lilia and Kalia, 1927 (Private collection)

Just married: Maria and Alexei Tatuloff, 1928 (Private collection)

Maria at the White Russian Veterans Ball, 1935 (Private collection)

Just married: Nina and the Captain, George Zepaloff, 1941 (Private collection)

Natalie Gurdin, age 3, 1941 (Private collection)

Natasha Gurdina at Ermolovas Dancing Studio, 1944 (Private collection)

Natalie Wood and Orson Welles in Tomorrow Is Forever, 1946 (AMPAS)

Natalie with Richard Long on the set of Tomorrow Is Forever (Photofest)

Natalie in a cowgirl costume, 1946 (Private collection)

Miracle on 34th Street: Natalie, John Payne, Edmund Gwenn (AMPAS)

Editors of Box Office present Natalie with the Blue Ribbon Award. (Private collection)

As Jenny in Driftwood (Private collection)

Michael Panaieffs ballet class (Courtesy Bob Banas)

Natalie on the set of The Green Promise (Private collection)

Natalie as a bridesmaid at Olga Viripaeffs wedding (Private collection)

Ideal screen family in Our Very Own (AMPAS)

With Fred MacMurray in Father Was a Fullback (AMPAS)

With Bette Davis in The Star (AMPAS)

With Margaret Sullavan and Wendell Corey in No Sad Songs for Me (Photofest)

Natalie, James Dean and Marsha Hunt on the set of Rebel Without a Cause (Private collection)

Sal Mineo, James Dean and Natalie in Rebel Without a Cause (AMPAS)

Nick Ray, James Dean and Natalie on the deserted mansion set of Rebel Without a Cause (AMPAS)

Natalie and James Dean at play between setups (Photofest)

Natalie and James Dean at rest between setups (Photofest)

Dennis Hopper and Natalie at a studio screening of A Streetcar Named Desire (Private collection)

Natalie, John Wayne and Jeffrey Hunter in The Searchers (Photofest)

As a half-Mexican spitfire, with Tab Hunter, in The Burning Hills (AMPAS)

Natalie and Tab Hunter during a break on location for The Girl He Left Behind (Private collection)

Natalie, age nineteen, with Nick Gurdin, 1957 (Private collection)

Graduation picture of Natasha Zepaloff, age seventeen (Private collection)

Natalie, age seventeen, with Nicky Hilton (Private collection)

As the mulatto girl in Kings Go Forth with Frank Sinatra (AMPAS)

Natalie and RJ, 1958 (Photofest)

Just married: Natalie and RJ with Lana Wood, Barbara Gould, Nick Gurdin and Robert Wagner Sr., 1957 (Photofest)

Natalie and RJ at Natalies twenty-first birthday party (Photograph by Murray Garrett/Getty Images)

Natalie lapsing into Russian melancholy (Photograph by Murray Garrett/Getty Images)

Natalie with her sister, Lana (Private collection)

Natalie in Splendor in the Grass (AMPAS)

Audrey Christie and Natalie in Splendor in the Grass (Photofest)

Joan Collins, Warren Beatty, Elia Kazan, Natalie and RJ during a set break (AMPAS)

Elia Kazan, Natalie and Warren Beatty at a Warner Bros. celebration (Photofest)

Kazan with Warren Beatty and Natalie on the set of Splendor in the Grass (AMPAS)

The farewell scene of Splendor in the Grass (AMPAS)

The final scene of West Side Story (AMPAS)

RJ in Europe, 1962 (Private collection)

Ethel Merman meets Natalie and RJ (Photofest)

Natalie and Warren Beatty at the Cannes Film Festival, 1962 (Photofest)

As the young Louise in Gypsy (Private collection)

As Gypsy Rose Lee (Private collection)

Natalie and Steve McQueen in Love with the Proper Stranger (Photograph by William Claxton/courtesy of Demont Photo Management)

Natalie with costume designer Edith Head (Photograph by Dominick Dunne)

At Marguerite Littmans London party (Photograph by Mark Littman)

Natalie and Roddy McDowall (Photofest)

Wardrobe test for The Great Race (Private collection)

Blake Edwards and Natalie in The Great Race (Photofest)

Robert Mulligan and Natalie on the set of Inside Daisy Clover (Private collection)

With Robert Redford in This Property Is Condemned (AMPAS)

Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (AMPAS)

Just married: Natalie and Richard Gregson, May 30, 1969 (Private collection)

Mother and child: with Natasha Gregson Wagner, age 5 months (Private collection)

At Olga Viripaeffs house, 1972 (Private collection)

Natalie and RJ on board Ramblin Rose, July 16, 1972 (Private collection)

RJ with Norma Crane, Howard Jeffrey and Mart Crowley (Private collection)

Maria and Cesar Romero at a charity event (Private collection)

Natalie, c. 1970 (Photograph by Michael Childers)

With RJ as Brick in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Photograph by Michael Childers)

With Laurence Olivier as Big Daddy (Private collection)