Posted on 09/25/2008 11:43:33 AM PDT by SilvieWaldorfMD
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Actor Robert Wagner says he was so distraught over the break-up of his first marriage to actress Natalie Wood that he pondered suicide and would sit with a gun outside the home of her lover, Warren Beatty, intent on killing him.
"Pieces of My Heart," Wagner's autobiography released this week, reveals details of his career and life, including the split with Wood, their decision to remarry a decade later and her drowning death in 1981.
"I was pretty young, and I don't think I could have ever gone through with that act, but I was pretty frustrated and upset," Wagner, 78, told Reuters in an interview.
Beatty, who met Wood on the set of "Splendor in the Grass," in 1961 "was pretty smooth, very attractive. He was the man," Wagner said.
Wagner's family moved to Los Angeles in the late 1930s and he ran in Hollywood circles as a child. Fred Astaire would pick him up at school because Wagner was friendly with the legendary dancer's stepson. He caddied for Clark Gable and dated the daughter of actress Gloria Swanson.
Over time, Wagner was put under contract at 20th Century Fox. When Barbara Stanwyck, then 45, and Wagner, 22, met on the set of "Titanic," they began a discreet, four-year relationship. Wagner said she was his first love.
"The greatest thing that she gave me was a sense of self esteem. That she thought the way she did about me and took the time with me meant everything in the world," Wagner said.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
No jury on earth would convict you.
No, the movie was the first ‘Titanic’. I have the tape. As for what happened the night of Natalie’s death-I think it is obvious they were all drunk and there was a heated argument between Wagner and Walken over the adultery and I think it is obvious Natalie tried to leave in the dinghy and fell in the water in that state. Tragedy.
He shoulda did it.
I thought Wagner killed her.
Didn’t Andy Williams kill Natalie Wood with a ski pole?
All the evidence points to another adulterous affair of Natalie’s with Walken on the set of ‘Brainstorm’. The castmembers in the books I’ve read show clear evidence of it and Walken was invited on the boat to try to bring down suspicion on Wagner’s part, but it turned into a night of drinking and Wagner confronting Walken on the boat and Natalie being in the middle and trying to run away from it. The homosexual encounter is rather far-fetched considering what was going on.
Only the 70’s could have produced such a film.
Everyone complains about Warren Beatty, but nobody ever does anything about it.
And I'll raise you "Speed 2".
"Gigli"
Shoot me.
ACtually, I liked Snakes on a Plane. It was so over the top it was funny
ping
I'll bet you believed Rock Hudson, Tab Hunter and Tony Perkins were all straight, too.
Which is disturbing in itself, given how weird and strange Chris Walken looks. However, I don't rule out suicide, either. Natalie seems to have had many adulterous affairs (on Wagner, and on her second husband - I believe his last name was Gregson) throughout her life. I find it completely wrong that she hooked up with Wagner again (after her divorce from Gregson), married him a second time, had another daughter with him -- and then decides to have an adulterous affair with a man on a movie set.
I mean, she puts herself again on 'square one', because that's exactly what she did with Beatty as she cheated on Wagner the first time. But, the difference between the early 60's and the early 80's, when she died) is that she was a heavy drinker and carried a lot of emotional baggage in the 1980's.
I'm no Dr. Phil, but I don't think that Nat was at all too happy with herself during the period in 1981 when she passed away.
SilvieWaldorfMD,
I’m also a chic of the 80’s (big hair), but I do wear my hair sometimes like the Natalie “doo”, “love with a proper stranger and gypsy”, and yes I do have high gloves and wear them on special occasions.
Why didn't Natalie Wood take a shower that night onboard the boat?
Because she knew she'd wash up on shore the next day.
There had been a couple in the vicinity of the Splendour who woke up hearing screams for help from a drowning woman. In response, they heard a drunken man's voice taunting her and mocking her from the boat. They called the Coast Guard, who assured them that they would dispatch a rescue immediately. Whoever took the call hung up and did nothing.
That’s awful! Who could that man have been?
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