Everyday about ten people die from accidental or unintentional drownings and at least two of them are kids under the age of fourteen. Natalie Woods died from a mysterious drowning at the age of forty-three and no one has been able to figure out the circumstances of her death. On that fatal day she went out on a yacht with her husband, Robert Wagner, on the coast of Catalina but never returned to shore. Decades later several conspiracies have emerged:
- Did her husband, Robert Wagner, push her of the yacht?
- Was her death an accidental drowning?
- Did the skipper, Dennis Davern, kill her?
- Was this a planned attack orchestrated by the couple's dear friend and costar, Christopher Walken?
Let’s investigate the mysterious drowning of Natalie Woods and the possibility of Robert Wagner as a murder suspect.
Natalie was lusted after but also loved by many people, she had a personality and aura about her that attracted many people. Throughout the years she has been with many different men, including: Elvis Presley, Warren Beaty, and finally her two husbands Richard Gregson and Robert Wagner (Bio Staff 1). According to Biography.com, “She had numerous affairs with celebrity hotties of the time including Dennis Hopper and hotel magnate Conrad Hilton's son Nicky” (1). Elvis was so smitten with Natalie, from the moment he met her that he invited her to join him at his Memphis home to meet his parents (1). In between her marriage to Robert Wagner she hooked up with Warren Beaty and when they broke up, she married Richard Gregson (1). After that marriage ended, she went right back to Robert not even a few months after her divorce from Richard (1). Natalie was a very lovable person.
Natalie also known as Natasha was afraid of water especially deep water. Her mother had once told her, according to Lana Wood, Natalie's sister “Her fear of open sea was particularly acute because their mother once predicted that Natalie would die by drowning in "dark water", she recalled” (Sherwell 1). Her fear of water grew stronger as she experienced more than one peculiar water-related incidents:
While shooting The Green Promise, young Natalie had to walk over a bridge during a thunderstorm. When she did, the technician flipped a switch prematurely, and the bridge collapsed, throwing Natalie into the treacherous waters and breaking her wrist. When Natalie married Robert Wagner, their honeymoon cruise was cancelled when a violent storm arose. (Ventura 1)
She was said to have been in a fight with her husband right before the boat captain noticed she was missing, “The boat captain said that Miss Wood disappeared after a furious row with Mr. Wagner and that her husband then discouraged him from looking for her in the water” (1). If she was really that afraid of water then how did she end up floating, dead, in the ocean.
Natalie Wood loved to be in the spot light, you could say that she was somewhat of an attention seeker. Her personal life and her career earned her the spot light, “Wood earned a lot of press not just for her acting roles, but for her personal life” (Natalie Wood Biography 1). Magazines loved her because she was open about some of her relationships, but some were kept secret, “Wood had numerous relationships—both public and secret—with her co-stars, colleagues and other stars” (1). Her being so famous and open about her relationships got the attention of many magazines and she enjoyed it, “She enjoyed great popularity, becoming a hit with movie star fan magazines” (1). The fact that she liked being the center of attention and having all her business out in the world is quite surprising because most celebrities are very private with their personal lives and try not to put too much of it out in the world. Natalie didn’t care who knew her business, in fact she wanted people to know what was happening in her life.
Wood was so depressed that she tried to kill herself. She went to therapy, but it still didn’t help, “Even after years of therapy, Wood reached a point of deep despair in 1966. She attempted to kill herself by drug overdose that year” (Natalie Wood Biography 1). Her relationship with her mom may have contributed to her deep seeded issues, “Throughout her life she had a tumultuous relationship with her mother, Maria, and was plagued by doubt over the identity of her father. Once, when asked what her father had died of, Wood answered: "My mother" “(Rainey 1). Having all her business out in the world has contributed to her depressive state, “She found it hard to cope with speculation from the tabloid press about her private life and attended a therapist after suffering an emotional breakdown during filming” (1). If she would have succeeded in her death, then she would have left behind her only daughter, Courtney.
In the mysterious drowning of Natalie Wood there are three conspiracy theories that are talked about and written about. Did her famous husband and co-worker, Robert Wagner, kill her? Or was it a complete and total accident? It also could have been, Dennis Davern, the skipper on the yacht she was on when she disappeared into the ocean and later was found floating next to a dinghy a mile away from the yacht. One more conspiracy theory that has been curiously hidden and it the fact that the couple's friend and costar, Christopher Walken, was on the boat at the time of her disappearance and drowning, and no one seems to think it is a big deal.
The first conspiracy theory about Robert Wagner is one of the most intriguing of all. He and Natalie were married at the time of her death, but it was not the first time they had been married (Langley 1). They married once before in 1957 when Natalie was only nineteen years old and Wagner was twenty-seven but, this marriage only lasted five years and then they divorced (1). After they divorced, Natalie got remarried to Warren Beatty another actor that she has costarred with before. Wagner blamed his failed marriage on Beatty, “He, too, was improbably infatuated with her, and had never fully recovered from the break-up of their first marriage, which he blamed on a campaign of seduction by Hollywood's foremost lothario, Warren Beatty” (1). He was so jealous and enraged that he wanted to kill Beatty:
“In his book, Wagner writes that his desire to kill Beatty advanced to the point where he would sit outside his rival's home nursing a gun. "I was pretty young, and I don't think I could have gone through with it," he writes, "but I was pretty frustrated and upset. Beatty was the man."(Langley 1)
The fact that Wagner has admitted to everyone that he had an urge to kill someone is intriguing. This validates the theory that he may have killed his wife, Natalie Wood, and gives him a motive. He never stopped loving Natalie and it hurt him to see her with another man, so who's to say that he wasn’t also mad at her. Wagners emotions led him to be protective of his wife, “Despite the eventual reconciliation and remarriage to Natalie, he remained exceptionally possessive of her, and suspicious of other men's attentions” (1). If he never forgave her and released his anger for Beatty, he may have taken it out on her. He may have had too much and finally snapped from all the pent-up emotions. He has no alibi and he has been accused of having an argument with Natalie just before she died, “The boat captain said that Miss Wood disappeared after a furious row with Mr. Wagner and that her husband then discouraged him from looking for her in the water” (Sherwell 1). In a survey conducted at Dickinson High School over half of the participants believe that Wagner is the one that killed the beloved Natalie Wood.
The next conspiracy is that her death was a complete and total accident. Natalie was seen drinking heavily while dining with her husband and her costar, “Some of the restaurant’s staff thought the Wagner party was drinking rather heavily and later remembered volatile behavior on Wood’s part” (Kashner). The police were led to believe that Natalie was trying to sleep when the dinghy kept hitting the side of the yacht and making a ruckus (Langley 1). She then went to untie the dinghy and accidentally fell into the water due to the steps being slippery (1). She must have hit her head and gone unconscious because if she was awake, she would have called for help and grabbed on to the railing of the stairs. No one heard cries for help or a splash suggesting that something or someone had fallen into the water so the theory that she accidentally fell is quite possibly true.
Dennis Davern was the skipper on the yacht that Natalie was on when she disappeared. Davern had been the skipper for quite some time and he knew the Wagners very well. He could have become infatuated with Natalie after being around her for so long and not being able to live out his desires. That night he might have went to talk to her after she went to her room because she was finally by herself and he had got enough never to tell her how he really felt. If she did not feel the same way and rejected him, he could have gotten angry and thought if I can’t have her then no one can and knocked her out and threw her into the ocean, so no one could find her and save her. Though this theory sounds plausible there is no evidence of Davern having anything to with Natalie’s death.
The last theory but not the least is that her costar, Christopher Walken, is responsible for her death. Natalie and Walken were rumored to be having an affair, “Around this tragedy has grown an enduring culture of rumor, much of it based on the suggestion that Walken and Natalie – who had been filming the movie Brainstorm together – were having an affair” (Langley). If this were true, then it could explain the fight that Natalie and her husband had gotten into just before she went to her room to sleep. Walken may have gone to check and see if she was alright and set her off. Since she was rumored to be drunk, she could have been so out of it that she started a fight with him about stopping their affair. Being rejected could have sent him into a jealous rage and made him push her off the side of the boat and then try and throw everyone off by untying the dinghy so it looked like an accident. However, just like the Dennis Davern theory there is no evidence to support it and there are no witnesses to corroborate this theory.
Natalie Woods died from a mysterious drowning at the age of forty-three and no one has been able to figure out the circumstances of her death. After investigating the mysterious drowning of Natalie Woods, there are still four interesting conspiracy theories that have yet to be proven:
- Did her husband, Robert Wagner, push her off the yacht?
- Was her death an accidental drowning?
- Did the skipper, Dennis Davern, kill her?
- Was this a planned attack orchestrated by the couple's dear friend and costar, Christopher Walken?
After almost three decades of the case being closed and marked as an accidental drowning, the police department reopened the case due to some new evidence. Although they have reopened it, they are still baffled. The key to solving this intriguing case may just be the illusive husband, Robert Wagner.
Works Cited
S Kashner, Sam. “Natalie Wood's Death, Still Shrouded in Mystery-and the Clues That Remain.” Vanities, Vanity Fair, 15 Sept. 2017, www.vanityfair.com/news/2000/03/natalie-wood-s-fatal-voyage.
S Langley, William. “Robert Wagner Recounts the Tragic Death of His Wife, Natalie Wood, in His Autobiography.” The Telegraph, Telegraph Media Group, 27 Sept. 2008, www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/profiles/3093346/Robert-Wagner-recounts-the-tragic-death-of-his-wife-Natalie-Wood-in-his-autobiography.html.
S Rainey, Sarah. “Natalie Wood: The Life and Times of the Troubled Star.” The Telegraph, Telegraph Media Group, 18 Nov. 2011, www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/8898476/Natalie-Wood-the-life-and-times-of-the-troubled-star.html.
S Sherwell, Philip. “Natalie Wood was too 'terrified' of water to try to leave Robert Wagner on yacht by dinghy.” The Telegraph, 19 Nov. 2011, www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/8901179/Natalie-Wood-was-too-terrified-of-water-to-try-to-leave-Robert-Wagner-on-yacht-by-dinghy.html.
T Ventura, Varla. “Natalie Wood’s Dark Waters.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 8 Sept. 2013, www.huffingtonpost.com/varla-ventura/natalie-woods-dark-waters_b_3567946.html.
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