Natasha Gurdin, aka Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko or better known as Natalie Wood was born July 20th, 1938, in San Francisco, California. Standing only 5’ tall she towered over many of her peers in stature. She is one of the greatest talents and most beautiful women ever to grace the screen, and remains one of the most popular and controversial actresses of our time more than a quarter century after her tragic, untimely death from drowning. From child star to teen idol to American icon, Natalie Wood made 56 films for TV and the silver screen and received 3 Oscar nominations before turning 25.

Her parents were Russian émigrés who spoke barely comprehensible English, but they changed the family name to Gurdin after becoming US citizens. When she was just four years old, Natalie appeared in her first film, Happy Land. In 1947, at the age of 9, stardom came Natalie’s way in the form of the all time Christmas classic Miracle on 34th Street, as she won the hearts of movie patrons around the country. When she was 16, Natalie appeared in Rebel Without a Cause with James Dean, Sal Mineo, and Dennis Hopper. She played Judy, a rebellious high school student who was more concerned with hanging out with the wrong crowd than being a sweet teenager like her contemporaries. The result was her first Academy Award nomination and a defining moment in her development as an adult actress. Natalie’s career quickly skyrocketed with roles in classic hits like Gypsy in 1962 and West Side Story in 1961, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Natalie was a rebellious teenager, started smoking and dated famous older men, including Dennis Hopper, Elvis Presley, and Robert Wagner. With Elvis Presley, she was 17; Elvis wanted to marry her, but Gladys Presley did not personally like Natalie. “Elvis was so square, we'd go . . . for hot fudge sundaes. He didn't drink, he didn't swear, he didn't even smoke. It was like having the date that I never had in high school.”

She and Wagner became involved in the spring of 1957 when she was 18 and he was 27, and they married later that year on Saturday, December 28th, 1957. In 1961 Natalie starred in two blockbuster films. The first was Splendor in the Grass, a drama about teen love co-starring Warren Beatty. Natalie received her second Academy Award nomination for her role, this time as Best Actress. The other film she made that year was West Side Story, a musical about rival gangs in New York. During this time her marriage to RJ crumbled. Although he said that their careers conflicted with the marriage, biographer Suzanne Finstad says that she caught him "in a compromising position with another man." Their divorce was final in April 1962, and she began a relationship with Warren Beatty.

After This Property Is Condemned in 1966 with Robert Redford, Natalie stayed away from Hollywood for three years to have time for herself and to consider where she was going. Her personal life was suffering after her breakup with Warren Beatty and her suicide attempt in November of 1966. She began seeing a psychiatrist and turned down opportunities to star in Bonnie and Clyde and Barefoot in the Park, among others, and later regretted her decisions. When she did return, her star quality had not diminished a bit, as evidenced by her playing Carol Sanders in the hit Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice in 1969. After this, Natalie didn't work as much.

In 1969, 30-year old Natalie married British producer Richard Gregson after a year-and-a-half of dating. In September of 1970, she gave birth to a daughter, Natasha Gregson Wagner. She loved being a new mother and devoted all her attention to her newborn. Sadly, it turned out that Gregson was having an affair with his secretary, and the couple separated in August of 1971 when their daughter was just ten months young. In 1971 and 1972, Natalie dated politician Jerry Brown and actor Steve McQueen, but neither relationship lasted very long. At this time she was quoted as saying that she would never marry again. However, she reconciled with Robert Wagner in early 1972 and within a few months they were engaged. On Saturday, March 9th, 1974, Natalie gave birth to her second child, daughter Courtney Wagner.

As the 1970s came to an end, Natalie began acting more frequently and appeared in a string of films, including the disaster movie Meteor in 1979 opposite Sean Connery and the mini-series that same year, "From Here to Eternity" with Kim Basinger. The latter won her a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in 1980. Natalie began work on Brainstorm at the end of 1981 with Christopher Walken. She did not live to see it released. On the night of Sunday, November 29th, 1981, she was sailing on the yacht she shared with her husband, Robert Wagner, and their friend Walken, when Natalie fell in the ocean and drowned. She was 43 years old. Brainstorm was posthumously released on Friday, September 30th, 1983.

The stories about how she ended up in the water have been conflicting. On the morning of Sunday, November 29th, 1981, her body was found floating in a cove. Rumors of foul play immediately surfaced. She was 43 years old. Wagner gained custody of Natalie's daughter Natasha and raised her. He also cut off all contact with the rest of Natalie's family. In 1984, her sister, Lana wrote the best-selling tell-all Natalie: a Memoir by Her Sister, in which she expressed her disappointment concerning Wagner's behavior. This only worsened the rift between the family. Don Henley wrote the song "Dirty Laundry" to express his outrage at the tabloid press for their treatment of her after her death. Her legacy lives on in her sisters, nieces, nephews, and daughters. She inspired everyone who knew her and everyone who watched her. She made a great impact in modern film, and her memory will live on for generations to come through her friends, family and fans. In March 2010, her sister Lana Wood spoke out about her death, announcing that she wants the case re-opened. In 1981 Natalie was quoted, “I've always been terrified, still am, of water -- dark water or sea water, or river water or whatever.” "Natalie's Song" by David Pack, was written about Natalie Wood as well as "Eyes Like Natalie Wood" by Kathy Fleischmann.

Before her death she exclaimed, “You know what I want? I want yesterday.”

  People Magazine named her one of "The 25 most intriguing People of 1976"
  Entertainment Weekly placed her on the "100 greatest stars of all time" at #70.
  Voted one of the top sex stars of the 1970s in Playboy magazine.
  Called "The Most Beautiful Teenager in the World" by Life magazine in 1956.
  Her death was listed at number 24 on E! Televisions 101 Most Shocking Moments in Entertainment.