Pretty Brown Eyes

Pretty Brown Eyes

The Unsolved Mystery of a Captivating Star

True crime is most heinous, highly publicized with all the gory details when it happens to a Hollywood icon. Natalie Wood had died, tragically drowned. Loved by millions of fans, the disturbing news of her death, shocked the world. How could this tragedy happen to one of America’s favorite actresses? I followed her as a teenager and became a true fan of all her movies from The Miracle on 34th Street, West Side Story, Inside Daisy Clover, Splendor in the Grass to Brainstorm co-starring Christopher Walken.

Walken was on the yacht with Natalie, Robert Wagner and Dennis Davern, the captain. On November 29th1981, during the Thanksgiving weekend, Natalie Wood went missing around 11:00 p.m. Four hours had passed before anyone consulted the Coast Guard to search for her. In fact, ear witnesses had recalled that they heard a woman screaming “Help, help Me,” but they thought it was a prank because they heard a loud party coming from another boat nearby. In the morning at 8:00 a.m., her body was found floating in the Santa Catalina Islands in the waters of the Pacific. Was it an accidental death, suicide, or murder? Natalie Wood Wagner appeared to be the victim of a self-fulfilling prophecy. In researching the specifics of this unexplained tragedy, there are many sources I used in my attempt to uncover the truth. What was the truth? I find that the best answer is to reveal early on that we don’t know who orchestrated this true crime. The truth is we may never know the specifics of Natalie wood’s death. Just a few years ago her case was reopened. The coroners had determined that the accidental death what's changed from an ‘accident’ to an ‘undetermined death.’

When Natalie Wood was still in her mother's womb, a gypsy predicted that her mother was going to give birth to a daughter who was going to be a fabulous star. However, she also predicted that she what suffer and succumb to dark waters. Her mother was very superstitious, and the power of prophecy played out in her constant concern for her daughter's safety around water. She put it in Natalie’s head at a young age that dark waters were dangerous. As a matter of fact, when Natalie was just a young child, she appeared in a movie called Green Promise. There was a scene where Natalie had to walk across a bridge over water. The bridge collapsed but the cameras kept rolling. No one helped her. She struggled to survive in the deep dark waters. She broke her wrist and her mother who had a strong fear of doctors did not see fit to take her to the hospital. She thought that if she took her to the hospital that it would be considered a sign of weakness. And in her last movie Brainstorm, she had the director cut out the swimming scene. Natalie wood's mother had a Svengali swing golly effect on her child Natalie was seen as a meal ticket. A way for her mother and family to achieve wealth through Natalie's stardom. Natalie was a product of old Hollywood... there was much great glitz and glamour. Her mother would encourage Natalie to sit on the laps of men in the hopes of encouraging them to hire her in movies. In the Green Promise, her mother told her to sit on the lap of Orson Welles and sing him a Russian song. She got the part. In a scene in the movie, Natalie had to cry. Her mother grabbed a butterfly from a jar and tore off its wings. She then pushed Natalie to go act the scene with Orson Welles. She stole the show. Up staging the great actor. When Natalie was 15, she decided that she wanted to select her movies all by herself. One the movies she wanted to play in was Rebel without a Cause. She was nominated for an Academy Award for her portrayal of Judy in this movie at the early age of 16. At age 18, her mother arranged a date with her and Robert Wagner six years her senior. A year later, they were married. One evening she searched through the house for her husband an uncovered and unnerving truth. She caught him in the act with another man. The marriage was over for Natalie, and she filed a divorce from Robert Wagner a year later. 14 years later, she remarried Robert Wagner and when questioned by her sister Lana to why she was marrying him again, she answered, “Sometimes it's better to choose the devil you know than the devil you don't know.” In my discovery about Natalie’s life, there was information about her mental health. She suffered an unnatural fear of being alone. she had severe anxiety and insomnia. After she was separated from Robert Wagner the first time, she attempted suicide.

But with all her emotional trauma, I don't believe that Natalie had made an attempt to kill herself that night. As a matter of fact, Natalie was still fearful of dark waters and would never intentionally tread in them. A lot of the research I conducted involved information from the HBO special conducted by her daughter Natasha was magnum hotel HBO special, Natalie Wood: What remains behind. The captain of the Splendour Dennis Davern co-authored a book entitled Goodbye Natalie, Goodbye Splendour. He also was interviewed by Nancy Grace. In the interview, he discussed that a lot of the information that was given on the night of Natalie Wood’s drowning was incomplete. He confessed that he had lied. He was aware of her fear of dark waters, so he knew that the chances of her going out alone in the water was almost impossible. He stated that he heard a fierce argument between Natalie and Robert Wagner the night of her death. Later, that night he stated that Robert Wagner came to him and stated that Natalie was missing. Dennis Davern immediately went to his state room because as her bodyguard and confidant he thought that perhaps she had gone to his room to seek some type of solace after the argument. He looked in Christopher Walken’s room and saw that he was alone and asleep. In 1983, an interview with Christopher Walken was conducted. He was asked what happened. He said that he and Wagner had a heated argument about whether Natalie should continue to work and do movies. He felt that she should. Wagner disagreed. He also stated that ‘Nobody will ever know what happened… the only person who knows is her.” In 2020 after the reopening, he said that he still believed it was an accident. And he remembered that Robert told him that the dingy was gone. After the accident, Dennis Davern was asked by Robert Wagner to come and live with him. He said he was almost prisoner. He couldn't go outside of his room and there was a special lock put on his bedroom door. If he wanted to go anywhere, he would have to get a ride from one of the staff. Robert paid him checks all the time. Later he was able to break away from Robert Wagner and lead his own life. He also stated that Robert Wagner refused to turn on the searchlights and call the restaurant to see if Natalie had returned there. Later they called the restaurant and people from the restaurant came to the boat and called the Coast Guard.

Suzanne Finstad wrote a biography book entitled Natasha rereleased in 2020 and retitled Natalie Wood. In her book, she writes that facts about Natalie Wood’s death was covered up initially. The coroner ruled the death an accident. He never disclosed information about Natalie’s injuries and that she had several bruises on her body. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department officially changed Wood’s cause of death from ‘an accidental drowning’ to ‘drowning and other undetermined factors”. An interview entitled Too Young to Die produced by Filmrise, Lana Wood Natalie’s younger sister reiterated that Natalie had a deadly fear of dark waters and would have never not ventured off the boat alone.

On February 1st 2018, during an interview with CBS News 48 Hours, Lieutenant John Corina disclosed the update that Robert Wagner became a person of interest. Lana would make no argument about her feelings that Robert Wagner maybe more involved in the event leading up to his wife's death then he was disclosing. In the 2020 HBO documentary, Natalie Wood’s daughter confronted Wagner on-camera about speculation that he had something to do with Wood’s death. He denied the accusations and Natasha offered her emphatic support, stressing that she does not believe he was involved in her mother’s death in any way. I watched the documentary and am still not sure. After all, he raised her and her two sisters with his new wife, Jill St. John. Why wouldn’t she support the father she known from age eleven until adulthood?

The tragedy of Natalie wood's true crime story is that the power of the prophecy Natalie Wood had fought against all her life finally claimed her at the end. Whether someone propelled the events of her horrific death to fulfill the prophecy, we may never know.