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The Mysterious Death of Natalie Wood: Speculation Goes on for Decades
In November 1981, Natalie Wood, 43, drowned while tubing. One of the best-known and most glamorous Hollywood actresses of the past, Wood was trying to reach the resort community of Catalina Island off the coast of Los Angeles. On that Thanksgiving weekend, she and her husband, Robert Wagner, were among the four people who set sail on the 60‑foot yacht Splendour. The other two were Wood’s Brainstorm co-star Christopher Walken and the longtime skipper Dennis Davern. A ruling of “accidental drowning” was made at first. However, the departed’s relatives and the public have consistently challenged that conclusion for decades. In 2011, Davern decided to reveal to the police new details of a fight between Wood and Wagner minutes before the drowning — an altercation he had never previously mentioned to anyone — resulting in a reopening of the case.
Robert Wagner cleared by L.A. Sheriff’s Department in Natalie Wood case
After a time when Robert Wagner was considered “more of a person of interest” in the death of Natalie Wood in 1981, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department in May 2022 decided that he was not involved. “The investigation in the Natalie Wood case is dead-ended in all directions and is therefore an open, unsolved case,” said Lieutenant Hugo Reynaga to Page Six. “If, in the future, there are new leads that have not been touched and vacuums of investigations, then the case will be assigned to a detective to follow up on those new leads.”
So, Natalie Wood passed away due to what? The following are the details of the tragic death of the star and the inquiry into the cause of it.
What caused the death of Natalie Wood?
After Natalie Wood’s death in November 1981, Dr. Thomas Noguchi, the Los Angeles coroner, in his initial report, stated the cause of death as “accidental drowning.”
On the night of her passing, Wood, her husband Robert Wagner and co‑star Christopher Walken went for dinner and drinks onshore and came back to the 60‑foot yacht Splendour at around 10 p.m. as per Wagner’s 2008 memoir, Pieces of My Heart. According to Wagner, an argument broke out later—after a supposed exchange between him and Walken related to Wood’s career—and different stories have been told regarding Wood’s last moments.
Wagner in his memoir mentioned that he saw Wood going to bed before the confrontation. Upon checking their cabin later, Wood was not there, and the yacht’s dinghy was also gone, he wrote. Wagner revealed that he thought at first that she had taken the dinghy to go ashore to get away from the quarrel, although it would have been quite out of her way if she had left so late at night.
Dinghy located; Natalie Wood not on board the yacht
In his memoir, Robert Wagner said that after not finding Natalie he told the skipper Dennis Davern to look for her and then he called for the shore boat to check the island. Davern couldn’t find the dinghy or Wood near the dock and when Wagner didn’t locate Wood or the dinghy near the dock, Davern radioed Baywatch, a private coast patrol, around 1:30 a.m. A couple of hours later Wagner contacted the Coast Guard. At about 5:30 a.m. after a long and thorough search of the area and the vessel, the rescuers found the dinghy in an isolated cove — the boat was in neutral and turned off, and Wood was not on board.
Natalie Wood’s body was found with physical injuries; coroner announces accidental drowning
Her body was found by the searchers about two hours after the dinghy had been located. She was dressed in a red parka over a nightgown. Bruises were found on her arms and legs and an abrasion on her cheek. Her blood alcohol content was measured at 0.14%.
Los Angeles coroner Dr. Thomas Noguchi after examining Wood’s body decided that she probably fell into the water by accident and subsequently tried to get on the dinghy. Noguchi indicated that the evidence for Wood holding on to the inflatable was the scratches on the side of the inflatable made by the fingernails, however, he also stated that her water-soaked parka was what caused her to be weighed down. He came up with the idea that she must have stayed in the water for as long as she could before giving in to tiredness and cold and that is why she drowned.
Natalie Wood was 43 when she died
Natalie Wood was 43 years old when her body was found on the morning of Nov. 29, 1981, in the water of a cove off California’s Catalina Island. The spot was around a mile from the yacht she was on.
Despite being semi-retired in 1981, Wood was still in smaller roles. Most of the time, she worked with her husband, Robert Wagner. In the movies Switch and Hart to Hart, which were the couple’s last works together before her death, they had acted as each other’s partners.
Her death happened while Wood was almost done shooting the sci-fi movie Brainstorm. After her death, the movie changed its ending as well as used her younger sister, Lana Wood, to complete the last scenes in which the actress couldn’t be seen. Two years later, the movie Brainstorm, was made and it was devoted to her.
What happened in Natalie Wood’s last minutes?
Several hours before Natalie Wood’s death, people watching the group said that they had been drinking during dinner on the island. The restaurant manager, concerned about the situation, warned the harbormaster, as it is reported by CBS News. In his memoir, Robert Wagner also tells the story of the time he broke a wine bottle in front of Christopher Walken during an argument. According to the upset Wood, it is reported that she went back to their cabin alone and when Wagner followed her, the two of them had a confrontation.
Marilyn Wayne, in an interview with the police in 2011, mentioned that she and her boyfriend and son were on a boat approximately 50 feet from the Splendour. She told the officers that she heard the fight and a woman screaming for help, as it is reported by The Hollywood Reporter. Wayne said she called harbor patrol but got no response.
Marilyn Wayne said she heard the desperate calls for help “Help me… I’m drowning” many times the night Natalie Wood died
Marilyn Wayne, who claimed she was on a boat about 50 feet from the Splendour that night, informed the police that she heard the cries for help being called out several times just after 11 p.m. — “‘Help me, someone please help me, I’m drowning’ we heard repeatedly,” she remembered — and that she got her son, with whom she lives, and called the harbor patrol. Wayne said she heard later “a man’s voice slurred, and in aggravated tone, say something to the effect of, ‘Oh, hold on, we’re coming to get you.’” She also mentioned that the cries for help were going on for 15 minutes at most before they ceased.
What those on board the Splendour think happened to Natalie Wood
It has always been part of Robert Wagner’s story that the death of Natalie was just an unfortunate accident. In his memoir, he even goes as far as to suggest that during the fight with Christopher Walken, Wood could have been irritated by the dinghy making noise against the yacht and went outside to tie it down. According to Wagner, the sequence of events is that she slipped on the swim step, hit her head, knocked herself out, and then in her fall into the water, which I suppose was an attempt to secure the boat, she drowned. He admits that she might have been trying to escape the fight too — “either she was trying to get away from the argument, or she was trying to tie the dinghy” — but points out that it is all speculation and that no one knows for sure.
Walken refers to the death of Natalie Wood as an accident; skipper later changed his account and implicated Wagner
Christopher Walken, who has very seldom mentioned that night, in a 1986 interview with PEOPLE, said he thought Wood’s death was an accident: “I don’t know what happened. She slipped and fell in the water. I was asleep in bed. It was a terrible thing,” he explained. Dennis Davern, long-time skipper of the Splendour, who at first introduced the death as an accident, later changed his story in his book Goodbye Natalie, Goodbye Splendour (2006), stating that he thought Robert Wagner was the one who caused the death of Wood.
Investigation reopened after skipper’s new account leads to amended ruling
Natalie Wood’s death by drowning was initially closed with the death of the actress being ruled an accidental one. However, the case was reopened after the long-time Splendour skipper Dennis Davern revealed newly information. Davern, who claims that he lied once on a police report, told the police in November 2011 that he had not revealed the facts when first questioned and therefore the investigation was reopened by the authorities.
During the next several months, the police inspected the yacht and interviewed the witnesses for the second time. They also went through the evidence and the timeline that had been left aside or were in contradiction with the earlier statements. In August 2012, the Los Angeles coroner changed the description of the cause of Wood’s death from “accidental drowning” to “drowning and other undetermined factors” and stating that the manner in which she went overboard was “not clearly established.” The case is still open despite the renewed scrutiny.
Coroner update and new witness accounts renew scrutiny in Natalie Wood case
The coroner changed the findings in 2013 to suggest that some of Natalie Wood’s injuries could have happened prior to her drowning. In 2018, two individuals decided to speak up and stated that they witnessed Wood and Robert Wagner on the rear of the yacht during the night of the accident, which led to a fresh investigation. L.A. County Sheriff’s Department Lieutenant John Corina informed CBS’ 48 Hours that the investigation into the case was “a suspicious death investigation. This is not a murder investigation.” He also mentioned that detectives had spoken to a lot of new witnesses – people who had been near the island and the boat and also those who knew about the couple’s weekend – as they tried to piece together what had happened.
However, in May 2022, the sheriff’s department announced that it had found no evidence linking Wagner to the incident, and he has always maintained that he was not involved in Wood’s death.
Natalie Wood’s family remains divided over her death
Wood’s daughter Natasha Gregson Wagner once said that she thought her mother’s death was just an accidental one. “They were going to take the boat ride. I was hugging her and telling her I loved her and that she should have a great trip… That is my last memory of her,” she recalled to PEOPLE in 2016.
On the other hand, Wood’s sister Lana and several other relatives have been sceptical of the official version for a long time and have urged the investigation to be deepened. The family has been reacting differently as the authorities have been looking into the case again, and the issue is still at a standstill.
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Natasha Gregson Wagner, a daughter of the late actor, speaks up in his favor and claims that he would have protected Natalie
Natalasha Gregson Wagner, in the 2020 documentary Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind, denied the allegation of Robert Wagner being involved in her mother’s death. “It is an outrageous and totally unacceptable thing that some people have fabricated this story about my dad and the night my mom died,” she explained. “If my mom had been in any kind of trouble, I know that he would have saved her with his life. I know it just as well as I know my own name.”
Courtney Wager, a sister of Natasha, has also supported their father and told PEOPLE that the “terrible things” spoken about their father have been very distressing to the family.
Natalie Wood’s family members continue to be at odds: Natasha supports Wagner, Lana demands the truth
“I was so mad that those accusations were thrown at him, it seemed that it was an incredible lack of respect,” Natasha Gregson Wagner said to PEOPLE in April 2020. “I love him so much and it has been so long that I still can’t believe that they actually write such completely false things.”
In comparison, the sister of Wood, Lana, has always affirmed her stance that the death of Natalie was not due to an accident. Lana elaborated on her probe in the 2021 published book Little Sister: My Investigation into the Mysterious Death of Natalie Wood, and during the interview with Megyn Kelly in July 2018, she said, “What I want is [Wagner] to tell the truth. I want him to be a man, own what has happened and be strong enough to do it.”
Natalie Wood’s legacy: a glorified career mostly drowned by unanswered questions
Her daughter Natasha claims that despite the fact that Natalie Wood had a Hollywood career of great success, a great part of her legacy has been “overshadowed” by the mystery of her death – a void that Natasha wanted to fill with her 2020 documentary Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind.
“My mom’s death day was the day when my whole world was broken. Since that time, there has been so much focus on the manner of her death that it overshadows who she was as a person,” Natasha says in the film. In the film and in her book More Than Love, she depicts her mother as a person who wanted to be beyond a movie star – “She was human, she was an artist who struggled and she was brave and she was happy.”
