Wednesday
Jul202016
Beauty Break: Natalie Wood Forever
Wednesday, July 20, 2016 at 1:31PM My first true actress love as a wee boy watching her movies on TV whenever they'd pop up. She would have been 78 today. Happy Birthday in the Cosmic Cinema Pantheon, Natalie. Here are 12 glorious photos of her and a few listicles...
Man Crazy
(men she married)
- RJ Wagner
- Richard Gregson
- RJ Wagner (again)
(famous men she reportedly dated)
- Warren Beatty
- Elvis Presley
- Christopher Walken
- Michael Caine
- Tony Curtis
- Nick Adams
- Dennis Hopper
- Nicholas Hilton (Conrad Hilton Jr)
- Robert Vaughn
- Steve McQueen
Multiple Collaborations
- Robert Redford (The Candidate, This Property is Condemned, Inside Daisy Clover)
- Tony Curtis (The Great Race, Sex and the Single Girl, Kings Go Forth)
- Karl Malden (Gypsy, Meteor, Bombers B52)
- Jim Backus (Rebel Without a Cause, The Girl He Left Behind, The Rose Bowl Story)
- RJ Wagner (All the Fine Young Cannibals, The Affair -tv, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof -tv, Hart to Hart -guest star, Switch -guest star)
- Cinematographer Charles Lang (Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, The Ghost and Mrs Muir, Inside Daisy Clover, Sex and the Single Girl,
- Costume Designer Moss Mabry (Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, Rebel Without a Cause, The Girl He Left Behind, a Cry in the Night)
- Director Robert Mulligan (Inside Daisy Clover, Love With the Proper Stranger)
- Cinematography Harry Stradling Sr (Gypsy, Penelope, Marjorie Morningstar)
- Costume Designer Edith Head (Sex and the Single Girl, Penelope, This Property is Condemned, Love with the Proper Stranger)
- Director Irving Pichel (Tomorrow is Forever -her debut, 2 uncredited roles before that in his pictures)
- Director Paul Mazursky (Willie & Phil, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice)
- James Garner (The Girl He Left Behind, Cash McCall, Conflict -guest star)
- Tab Hunter (The Burning Hills, The Girl He Left Behind)
- Director Stuart Heisler (The Burning Hills, The Star)
- Director George Seaton (Miracle on 34th Street, Chicken Every Sunday)
- Maureen O'Hara (Miracle on 34th Street, Father was a Fullback)
- Fred MacMurray (Father was a Fullback, Never a Dull Moment)
- Everett Sloane (The Blue Veil, Marjorie Morningstar)
- Karl Malden (Gypsy, Meteor)
- Jane Wyman (The Blue Veil, Just For You)
- Vera Miles (The Searchers, The Rose Bowl Story)
- Peter Falk (The Great Race, Penelope)
- Walter Brennan (Scudda Hoo Scudda Hay, The Green Promise)
- Cinematographer (West Side Story, Kings Go Forth)
- Dennis Hooper (Rebel Without a Cause, Kaiser Aluminum Hour - guest star, Kings Row - guest star)
- James Dean (Rebel Without a Cause, General Electric Theater - guest star)
Five Best Performances
- Splendor in the Grass (1961)
- Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
- Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969)
- West Side Story (1961)
- Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
Reader Comments (27)
Natalie Wood looked gorgeous in just about everything, I love your top 5 performances.
May I add one? "The Great Race" was a comedy that used to be played on TV a lot.
Wood was such a natural beauty and I think that she looks her best in this movie. Natalie & Jack Lemmon had perfect chemistry in this film as well!
I wonder if "The Great Race" could be remade today?
Oof it pains me to say that I do not understand her performances. Her work in Rebel felt very exaggerated, always with the wide-eyed shock face for almost anything. Her voice too feels very uncontrolled. Overall, it felt unnatural. The same can actually be said about her work in West Side Story. Hope I like her in Bob and Carol.
I saw The Great Race in the movies when I was 10... and swooned for Natalie big time. I agree that she looks very close to her best in that film. Her (non-Marni Nixon-dubbed) performance of "The Sweatheart Tree" is adorable!
And Lady Edith, why would you want a remake? It would be totally overblown, and they'd never get a cast with that level of chemistry (Wood, Lemmon, Curtis, Falk, Wynn, et.al.) It wouldn't be a passion project made for the love of silent comedy like it was for Blake Edwards then... it would just be another souless remake. NO!
Whether you remember me as a Natalie Wood fanatic or not,,, I thank you very much for still recognizing her, I have seen all of her post-Rebel movies multiple times.
Even though she is my all time favorite, I thought her acting was rather unsteady and self-conscious.. I did not care, I just wanted twitch o watch her ... she was luminous.
I agree with your 5 favorite performances but I would put Love with the Proper Stranger at #1 ..
She gave the most relaxed and real performance ever. Do me a fav and rematch it... if you have time.
twitch?????? "to"
Nathaniel... I wrote out a check and noticed the day is July 19 Her birthday is July 20!
I checked again and in a couple of places it had the 19th.
I always feel a bit sorry for her sister Lana, though.
@Dr.Strange - fair point -no to a re-make- I would settle for a restored Blu-ray for The Great Race instead.
I guess I was just longing for a nice full on romp that involved cars that wasn't "The Fast & Furious"
or a chase sequence in a Bourne film. I want a Fun car chase.
So beautiful that it actually hurts.
Don't forget - she also dated Tom Courtenay and his fine self.
A luminous woman. While she could be an uneven actress if she connected with the character as she did in Splendor and Love with the Proper Stranger and a few others she was right up there with the best.
I've seen all but two of her films, The Last Married Couple in America & No Sad Songs for Me-which I came thisclose to seeing but it was dubbed in Russian and without Natalie and Margaret Sullavan's distinctive voices I just couldn't do it. She was an incredibly natural child performer-as she herself said never a star but a utility contract player-open, pert and sassy it was as she matured that at times she could be wooden.
But no matter whether she was comfortable in the part or not she ALWAYS exuded the sort of star quality that is rare to find and the reason she endures.
Wood was a true movie icon- a talented actress, a beautiful movie star.
Natalie Wood is very special to me, she was a formative figure in my growing love for classic films. I first saw her in West Side Story, but then watched her in Splendor in the Grass a week later and I was just consumed by her performance in it (so much so I ended up watching it again the following week). I quickly went into a Natalie spiral and watched This Property Is Condemned the next day, and watched Rebel Without a Cause and Inside Daisy Clover soon after. She was truly radiant on-screen, gone way too soon.
She would have been an Oscar winner by now if she were still alive.
I also love her in West Side Story. Her acting was amazing in that movie and Marni Nixon's voice is of course angelic.
Damn tho, Warren Beatty was FUINE.
She had "it." I think her talent and her sex appeal had a lot in common with that of two of her contemporaries, Elizabeth Taylor (a few years older) and Romy Schneider (born the same year). All three child actresses, all three cosmopolitan (Russian-American, Anglo-American, Austro-German turned expatriate in France). Like Schneider, Wood always had an inherent playful sweetness that was less majesterial than Taylor's glamour; and not only were she and Schneider born within months of each other, they also died tragically a half-year to the day apart. (Taylor, of course, survived them both, despite lifelong health crises.)
However, it makes perfect sense to me that she was Nat's first actress love because she reminds me a lot of Michelle Pfeiffer, in terms of the type of beauty, the unevenness of the career (albeit for different reasons) and the general appeal. I appreciate Wood more than I do Pfeiffer, but she'd never make an all-time favorite actress list of mine. She might easily land on a favorite Hollywood celebrity list, though, on the strength of those Roddy McDowall home movies alone.
(Personally, I've always thought she was better in Gypsy than as Maria in West Side Story.)
Hollywood author Christopher Nickens wrote a lovely book back in the mid 1980's entitled: "Natalie Wood" A Life in Pictures. Not sure if it is available today but try and look for it. Lots for great text and wonderful photos. NW was "one of a kind and has a luster that few stars attain". She was riveting in "Splendor" and many other films. A sad and tragic end to a great star.
This Property is Condemned is grossly underrated.
Bruce Roger -- i think i have that one!
Paul - i never thought about Pfeiffer/Wood being similar and now i will have to.
Oh how I adore Natalie! I think she's brilliant and terribly underrated. And she was stunning, absolutely stunning. I think she totally owned the 60s for leading ladies and I reall wish that she had won the Oscar for Splendor.
1. Splendor in the Grass
2. This Property is Condemned
3. Love With the Proper Stranger
4. Inside Daisy Clover
5. Rebel Without A Cause
6. Bob & Caral & Ted & Alice
7. West Side Story
8. Miracle on 34th Street
9. All the Fine Young Cannibals
10. Gypsy
I have a soft spot for Natalie because she had big brown eyes like my mother. And my Mom used to make up her eyes the same way as Nat back in the '60s ; )
Sydney Pollack once said, for him, there were two actresses who combined vulnerability and strength: Natalie and Elizabeth.
Splendor is definitely Natalie's best vehicle, but Wood had her moments in many films, despite their varying quality. I think Natalie's appealing Gypsy makes that mechanical movie watchable.
@Ibis, I completely agree about This Property Is Condemned.
I love Natalie Wood too, so much that I can forgive her for Inside Daisy Clover, one of those movies that's so terrible I kept yelling at it while watching it, lol. Those terrible Previn/Previn SONGS!! Those ridiculous movies she was supposedly making that looked like nothing ever made on earth, especially in the 1930s! What a hilarious train wreck.
Natalie`s ability as an actress will always be debated, but remember she never had formal
training and still made it. But in my eyes, she was the most beautiful woman to walk the earth.
Her looks were absolutely stunning to be sure. With all the extensive research I`ve done,
she was also very beautiful on the inside too. She was a devoted mother, and wife. Her family,
especially her children, came before her career. It wasn`t even close. She loved being at home
and loved animals. What else do you need? I first saw her on television when I was about
twelve years old and instantly fell in love. I`m 57 now and I`m still in love. I even married a girl
who looks strikingly like Natalie. She was even the same size- 5-2" 100lbs! Then I named my
daughter Natalie. OK, someone is going to correct me and say Natalie was 5-0". True.
By the way, my wife knew I had a huge crush on Natalie and liked the name so she was
alright naming our daughter after her. I kind of wish we named her Natasha though. That is
Natalie Wood`s birth name. Natasha Zacharenko. She was a Russian beauty. Sorry about the weird format of this text. My computer is a piece of garbage!
Some people say Natalie was photogenic.I disagree.She was simply pure beauty.The only way to take a bad picture of her is to use a broken camera.
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I think Natalie Wood had one of the most seductive eyes I've ever seen. When one looks at her in a photo, one can't help it, but to fall in love with her. She had a personality about herself that made her lovable. I don't think I've ever heard a bad thing written about Natalie at all. I love her a lot and I wish she was here with us. She's very much missed here on Earth. I wish I would've met her in real life.
I`ve looked at thousands of pictures of Natalie Wood. Never seen a "bad"one. She is stunningly beautiful. I can stare at her forever. She was still gorgeous into her forties and I`m sure she would have aged beautifully well into old age. The only way to get a bad picture of Natalie is to use a broken camera. Rest in Peace Natasha.You are loved by millions.
I absolutely love Natalie Wood(Natasha Zakharenko). I think she is the most beautiful woman ever to grace this Earth. I can stare into her gorgeous eyes forever, and that smile makes me melt. RIP Natasha. If there is a heaven, then I will get to kiss your hand.