How Did Natalie Wood Die? HBO Documentary Features New Statement From Robert Wagner
HBO’s new documentary, Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind, wants to put to rest the mystery of Natalie Wood‘s death, which has fascinated the press and the public for nearly four decades. Natasha Gregson Wagner—Wood’s oldest daughter whom she had with producer Richard Gregson—produced the documentary, and notes early on that “there has been so much speculation and focus on how she died, that it’s overshadowed her life’s work and who she was as a person.”And yet, despite those words, much of the film does focus on Wood’s death and ends in a way that will no doubt stir up curiosity regarding the matter all over again. After taking us through Wood’s life and career—including a treasure trove of never-before-seen photos and footage from the Oscar-
nominated actresses illustrious career, which spanned from the little girl in Miracle on 34th Street to the lead role in West Side Story—the final 20 minutes of the film features an extended interview with Robert “RJ” Wagner, Wood’s widower husband who was declared a person of interest in the ongoing investigation of Wood’s death in 2018.
In an interview with The Guardian, Gregson Wagner and the film’s director Laurent Bouzereau, said they didn’t want to rehash accusations, because they believe them to be 100 percent false. “We’re not operating under the guise of finding out ‘What happened?’, because we know what happened,”
Bouzereau said. But in doing this, certain details were left out, leaving viewers with questions by the film’s end.
How did Natalie Wood die? What are the circumstances of Natalie Wood’s death?
Wood drowned off the coast of Catalina Island in California on November 29, 1981, at age 43. Those present on the night of Wood’s death were Wood’s husband Robert Wagner, Wood’s current co-star Christopher Walken, and the captain of Wood and Wagner’s boat, Dennis Davern.
Wood and Wagner bought their boat The Splendour after they were married, and would often take family trips to Catalina Island, which is about an hour boat ride from Los Angeles. The night of Wood’s death, which was the Sunday after Thanksgiving, the weather was bad. Wood’s body was ,
found early the next morning by authorities, about a mile away from the boat, along with an inflatable “dinghy,” or a lifeboat. The exact circumstances of how Wood ended up in the water have never been determined.
Initially, the coroner’s investigation ruled she had been drinking and may have slipped trying to board the dinghy. Traces of alcohol, painkillers, and motion-sickness pills were found in her blood. In Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind, both Gregson Wagner and Wagner theorize that Wood was trying to adjust the dinghy, and slipped.
“I remember it used to drive her crazy, she would always say, ‘RJ, can you move the dingy?’ because the way the water hit up against the boat, it would bang, and she was so sensitive to noise,” Gregson Wagner said in the film.
Who is Robert Wagner? Is Robert Wagner involved in Natalie Wood’s death?
Robert Wagner is an actor and was Natalie Wood’s husband when she died. The two first married in 1957, then divorced and then re-married in 1972. Wagner is now 90 years old.
While there is no hard evidence to support the claim, Wagner has been accused of killing Wood by Dennis Davern, who was present the night Wood died, as well as by Wood’s sister, Lana Wood. Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind dismisses Lana Wood as untrustworthy and attention-seeking,
but noticeably does not interview Davern. In 2011, Davern told the press that he lied to police during the initial investigation and that a fight between Wood and Wagner had led to her death. He alleged that Wagner had prevented Davern from using the searchlight to look for Wood, and that he prevented Davern from contacting the authorities when Wood went missing. He later said that he believed Wagner had pushed Wood off of the boat. This new information caused authorities to re-open the case.
Shortly after, in 2012, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department changed her cause of death to “drowning and other undetermined factors,” following instructions from the coroner’s office, after an autopsy report said Wood had bruises on her body and arms as well as a facial abrasion on her left cheek.
In 2018, Wagner was officially named a “person of interest” in the ongoing investigation, investigators said in an episode of 48 Hours on CBS. Wagner denies any involvement in Wood’s death. In his 2008 memoir—as well as in the new HBO doc—he admitted that he argued with Walken the night that she died, which he initially also denied. But in Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind, he maintains that the last time he saw Wood alive was when she excused herself for bed.
Here’s what Wagner said in the doc:
I remember I had a few glasses of vino and I was feeling pretty good. We came back to the boat. I opened up another bottle of wine and had a couple more glasses of wine. I sat there with Chris, and we started talking, and he started to mention to me about your mother—how wonderful she was, and what a great actress she was, and how he enjoyed working with her.
He said, ‘You know, I think it’s important that she works.’ I said, ‘I think it’s important you stay out of our lives.’ I was a little tee-off about that—suddenly he’s telling me what she should do and how she should behave. I got angry at that. So your mother went down below to our bedroom to get ready to go to bed and I sat there with Chris. I said, ‘Don’t tell her what to do, and stay out of her life.’ I ,
picked up the bottle and smashed it on the table. I was really angry about it. When I look back at it, unjustifiably so.
He ducked out, and went out on the top of the deck, and I followed him out there. I was still saying to him, ‘Just stay out of it Chris, don’t get involved in it, it’s important, she’s got three children.’ I was also a little high at the time, I might say. But I calmed down, I guess maybe being out in the air… I calmed down.
We went back down below and talked for a while. He went to his cabin which was up in the other part of the boat. Dennis, I had Dennis [Davern, the boat’s captain]—we swept up the glass on the floor and cleaned up the salon a bit. We talked about leaving the next day to go back to the mainland. Then I went below, and when I went below, she wasn’t there. I looked around, I looked in the bathroom, she wasn’t in the bathroom. And the dinghy was gone.
According to Wagner, he called a shore boat to check for Wood at the restaurant where they’d had dinner, and when he didn’t find her, he called the shore patrol and the coast guard, contradicting Davern’s claim that he prevented the authorities from being called.
