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Name: Natalie Wood
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Date of Birth:
July 20, 1938
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Place of Birth:
Santa Catalina Island, California, USA
Mini-bio:
Born to Russian-immigrant parents, Natalie Wood made her first film appearance at age four as an extra in Happy Land (1943). When she was promoted to supporting roles, the young Wood was well prepared... read more for the artistic discipline expected of her: She'd been taking dancing lessons since infancy. By 1947, she earned up to a thousand dollars per week for such films as Miracle on 34th Street. She made a reasonably smooth transition to grown-up roles, most notably as James Dean's girlfriend in Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and Warren Beatty's steady in Splendor in the Grass (1961). She was also a regular on the 1953 sitcom Pride of the Family, playing the teenaged daughter of Paul Hartman and Fay Wray. Despite being romantically linked with several of her leading men, Wood settled down to marriage relatively early, wedding film star Robert Wagner in 1957. The union didn't last, and she and Wagner were divorced in 1962. Continuing to star in such important films as West Side Story (1961), Gypsy (1963), Inside Daisy Clover (1967), and Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice (1969), Wood always managed to bounce back from her numerous career setbacks, and in 1971, after an interim marriage to screenwriter Richard Gregson, Wood remarried Robert Wagner, this time for keeps. Opinions of her acting ability varied: Her adherents felt that she was one of Hollywood's most versatile stars, while her detractors considered her to be more fortunate than talented. The Oscar people thought enough of Wood to nominate her three times, for Rebel Without a Cause, Splendor in the Grass, and Love With the Proper Stranger (1963). In the midst of filming the 1981 sci-fier Brainstorm, 43-year-old Natalie Wood drowned in a yachting accident just off Catalina Island. Among her survivors was her sister, actress Lana Wood. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
Natalie Wood mini-bio: Natalie Wood (July 20, 1938 – November 29, 1981) was an American film actress. Wood was born Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko in San Francisco, California, to Russian Orthodox immigrants, Nikolai and Maria Zakharenko. Her parents changed their surname to the less cumbersome "Gurdin", and by the age of 4 she was billed as Natasha Gurdin. Her mother tightly managed and controlled the young girl's career and personal life from her start in films at the age of five. She starred in multiple films as a child including Miracle on 34th Street in 1947. Her father is described by Wood's biographers as a passive alcoholic who went along with his wife's demands. Her sister, Lana Wood, is also an actress, notably a Bond girl, and was a Playboy playmate. 
