Natalie Wood

by Gavin Lambert

  For Donfeld, there were other disturbing signs. Natalie continued to break her rule and was not only drinking but drinking too much, sometimes during the day. And Walken seemed determined to needle him with complaints about his costumes. “Finally, after he wanted to change the color of his shoelaces, it came to a showdown, and I told him I was fed up. He reached in his pocket, took out a key, placed it on the table, then stared at me. Natalie and I had more or less adjoining suites at the hotel, so I knew her room number. It was the number on that key, and Walken’s way of telling me who was in charge.”

  Michael Childers, a longtime friend of the Wagners, had a special assignment as still photographer on the movie. He soon realized that Walken, usually a light drinker, had begun to keep pace with Natalie, who was drinking vodka as well as white wine. “What do you think of Chris?” she asked, the day after Childers arrived, but he’d already seen the excitement in her eyes when they were together, and knew “she had already made up her mind that he was wonderful.” On a personal level, Childers found Walken “a very strange guy, with a darkness about him.” Professionally, he noted “telltale signs of Natalie’s white-wine-and-vodka routine on her face.” Natalie herself was worried about them, and asked him to “protect” her by checking the lighting for her close-ups: “The cameraman seemed inexperienced in lighting faces, so on occasion I did suggest a few changes, which were grudgingly accepted. And when I took portrait stills of Natalie, I used just about every filter in my collection.”

  Like Donfeld, Childers suspected that Natalie and Walken were having an affair. “From the way she looked at him, I thought she was determined to have one great location romance in her life.” Walken, without being specific, told John Irvin later that “Natalie made all the moves.” Although the affair with the key could have been an example of Walken “prodding” and “teasing,” she had already broken her rule about not drinking; and she gave both Donfeld and Childers the impression that she’d also broken her rule about never being unfaithful to RJ.

  After Natalie’s death, Walken refused to discuss what happened on board Splendour during the last weekend of her life, except in his statements to the police. Later, in three separate media interviews, he made a few brief, noncommittal remarks, then maintained a silence that he refused to break for this book, although he knew that the Wagner family hoped he would. But whatever finally occurred between Natalie and Walken, her emotional involvement with him, and the way he reacted, is not in question. Irvin believes that “she never got as much as she wanted from Chris, because it was part of his ‘teasing’ approach to life to hold back. If he actually made love to her, and maybe he did, I’m sure it didn’t happen more than three or four times.” Again, whether or not she was technically unfaithful to RJ, Natalie knew that she’d made him jealous. As a mother, she appeared to have inherited a few of her own mother’s genes, and in her relationship with Walken she inherited another. But unlike Maria, who chose to live on the edge, Natalie was driven to it in a state of confusion that prepared the way for the final scenes with RJ and Walken on board Splendour.

  THE CHAOTIC SHOOT of Brainstorm mirrored the chaos of Natalie’s personal life. Douglas Trumbull, whom Walken encouraged Natalie to try and get rid of, had experience and skill in handling sci-fi effects, but not in directing actors. He was additionally handicapped by an inept screenplay and a cinematographer whose overlit visuals were unsympathetic to the human face, and even made some of the bleached-out laboratory scenes look as if they were shot on defective stock. And there was soon no producer to take charge, according to Donfeld, as “John Foreman had become infatuated with a young assistant who introduced him to the delights of heroin.” After reports filtered back to MGM, in fact, Jack Grossberg was appointed “executive in charge of production,” and Foreman (who produced only one more movie, Prizzi’s Honor, before dying of AIDS in 1992) is not listed in any capacity on the credits.

  In Natalie’s case, the dual chaos led to a strange, uncharacteristic nonperformance, with no hint of the actress that Burt Brinckerhoff had found “at the top of her game” only two years earlier. She seems to be somewhere else, and it’s hard to decide whether she was more disconnected from her role or from herself, particularly in the reaction shots, when you’re not always sure who or what she’s reacting to. When Jeffery Rochford saw the movie, he had the same impression, although he detected an occasional private moment of “connection” in the looks exchanged between Natalie and Walken.

  But the overall effect is their lack of connection with each other, especially as their only erotic scene ended on the cutting-room floor. Among the memories of past happiness that the sensory device enables Karen and Michael to share is a night of love in a boat on a moonlit lake. For Natalie, torn between her fear of dark water and her excitement at playing the scene with Walken, it was another source of conflict. Michael Childers, who witnessed the scene, described it as “alarming. Natalie wore an almost see-through nightgown, was in a state of suppressed hysteria, and clung passionately to Walken, partly because she was so attracted to him, partly for protection.”

  Stan and Christina Grof, whom Natalie had asked to visit her during the location shoot, found her “in a time of great upheaval.” They encouraged her “to discuss the need to find a way out of her own darkness,” and although it proved to be the same kind of darkness that she’d discussed with Rochford, their final impression was of “someone not at all despairing, but determined to work her way out.” In fact, according to Christina, “she was basically optimistic.”

  During that first visit the Grofs also supervised a session of deep-breathing exercises and meditation. “Walken attended, because she wanted him to, and because we always liked the subject to be accompanied by a friend.” During and after the experience, he appeared noncommittal; but Natalie was very open in her reactions: “grief, anger and finally a kind of transcendence.” Donfeld saw her shortly after the session, and “the look of happiness on her face, the sound of genuine peace in her voice, was something I’ll never forget, partly in itself and partly because it was so different from the way she’d recently looked and sounded.”

  On the Brainstorm location: “Her eyes were not focused, the pupils dilated.” (illustration credit 6.15)

  ON NOVEMBER 5, the Brainstorm unit moved to MGM for four weeks of studio shooting. On November 16, Natalie’s daybook records that she watched Mike Wallace’s TV profile of Jean Seberg, whom she had liked and admired. It might seem to throw light (or more darkness) on the last weeks of Natalie’s life that she watched a program about a deeply troubled actress who had committed suicide two years earlier; but in fact suicide was not on Natalie’s mind, and as the Grofs realized, she was literally fighting for her life.

  Anastasia was due to start rehearsals on January 4, 1982, and she was deeply involved with the choice of a director and leading actors. She had hoped that Laurence Olivier would be available to direct, but he sent apologies by Western Union:

  MY DARLING GIRL PLEASE FORGIVE ME I FIND IMPOSSIBLE TO REFUSE A BIG JOB OVER THE NEW YEAR STOP WAS HALF AFRAID OF THIS FROM OUR PERSONAL POINT OF VIEW BUT ANXIOUS FOR IT TO HAPPEN FROM OTHER POINTS OF VIEW STOP PLEASE FORGIVE ME HAVE RE-READ ANASTASIA AND FIND IT VERY RESPECTABLE STILL AND NOT AS I WAS AFRAID OLDFASHIONED STOP IT STANDS UP VERY WELL STOP I AM SO SAD NOT TO HAVE THIS LOVELY EXCUSE TO SEE YOU BOTH AND HUG YOU LIKE A GREAT BIG BEAR ALWAYS YOUR DEVOTED LARRY

  Although Natalie’s daybook lists three other possible directors, Lindsay Anderson, José Quintero and Andrei Serban, she accepted Robert Fryer’s choice of Arvin Brown, whose recent productions for the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven had been highly praised. Her next concern was to cast the role of the Grand Duchess, Anastasia’s Grand Inquisitor. Viveca Lindfors, who had played Anastasia in the original Broadway production forty years earlier, and Natalie’s stepmother-to-be in No Sad Songs for Me, wrote to propose herself as the Grand Duchess, and hoped that “we could get together and create magic, and do the piece on television t
oo.” She also advised Natalie to get hold of the English translation of the original French play (by Marcelle Maurette), which had provided the basis for the movie with Ingrid Bergman and was far superior to the Broadway version by Guy Bolton.

  Natalie took Lindfors’s advice about the French play, but after considering other candidates (including Eva Le Gallienne and Lila Kedrova) for the Grand Duchess, she asked Olivier to intercede on her behalf with Wendy Hiller, and he was successful.

  The daybook also contains a reading list for background information: Thirteen Years at the Russian Court by Pierre Gilliard, The Woman Who Rose Again, by Gleb Botkin, Anastasia by Harriet von Rathlef-Keilman, and The Murder of the Romanovs by Paul Bulygin and Alexander Kerensky. Another note refers to forthcoming sessions with Michael Childers, to photograph her in costume for the theater poster, and with Donfeld, to discuss his designs for her gown at the opening-night reception. She also agreed to another photo session, for a feature in Life magazine. The date was set for November 26, the day after Thanksgiving, and the magazine accepted Natalie’s conditions: Childers as photographer, Donfeld as adviser during the session, and a case of Dom Perignon.

  John Irvin: The last week was very ominous.

  On November 20, Natalie arrived for dinner at Roddy McDowall’s house. Naturally he’d invited RJ as well, but although she explained that he was away on location, she brought Christopher Walken instead, without letting Roddy know in advance. “Don’t tell RJ,” she said, taking Roddy aside, and he was shocked because “it seemed so out of character for Natalie to do a thing like that.”

  On November 21, Natalie postponed the Life photo session until the following week, and told Childers and Donfeld that “RJ had set his heart on a weekend of sailing.”

  By November 23, Brainstorm was four days behind schedule, and when Natalie received the new shooting schedule for her remaining scenes, she found that MGM had deleted four of them. She immediately dictated a businesslike memorandum to her new agent, Stan Kamen at the William Morris office. (By then Guy McElwaine had become a production executive at Columbia.) After itemizing every preproduction meeting, costume fitting, makeup test and rehearsal she had attended, Natalie offered to waive all payments due if MGM agreed to reinstate the deleted scenes.

  The next day, November 24, Stanislav and Christina Grof paid Natalie a second visit at MGM and found her more relaxed than before. RJ, who had just returned from location in Hawaii for an episode of Hart to Hart, was also visiting the set that day, and when he joined the Grofs for a while in Natalie’s trailer, Christina noticed two photographs of Splendour on the wall behind him. In retrospect, the conversation that followed seemed deeply ironic. “We talked about how much they enjoyed the boat. RJ said that he and Natalie had become such expert sailors that they could almost handle it without a crew.”

  Christopher Walken and Natalie on the set of Brainstorm (illustration credit 6.16)

  And while they sat talking, Christina recalled, “a vote was being taken from the crew of the movie, because it was behind schedule, whether or not to work overtime through the holiday. By a majority of one, they voted to observe the holiday.” Like the “eerie presence” of Christopher Walken, who came by the trailer a few minutes before Natalie was called to the set, it struck her in retrospect as “a shadow across the movie.”

  Another shadow: At Edith Head’s wish, reports of her illness had been withheld from the media, and with RJ’s consent, Donfeld kept the news from Natalie. But he arranged for his assistant, Sally Edwards, to get a regular account of Edith’s condition from her supervising nurses at Good Samaritan. Edwards also regularly left messages and sent flowers “from Natalie” and sometimes “from Natalie and RJ” to Edith’s room. The day before Brainstorm stopped production for the holidays, Edith died, and Donfeld broke the news to Natalie in her trailer. “She was deeply upset that she hadn’t been in contact with Edith in hospital. I assured her that she had, and explained how. Then she wished she’d sent flowers, and I assured her that she did. And the nurses had told me, I added, that Edith was particularly pleased when the message on the card was ‘from Natalie.’ ”

  Natalie had once described Edith as “kind of a surrogate mother.” Now, on the verge of tears, she thanked Don, then said quietly: “I’d begun to suspect that Family Hollywood was gone forever”—as if recalling the years, as Robert Mulligan commented, “when a movie lot was a second home.”

  NATALIE HAD dinner alone with Delphine Mann on the evening of November 22, and suddenly confided as they said goodnight outside the restaurant: “I’ve never been happier or unhappier in my life.” Then she drove off in her Mercedes. But to Josh Donen, who kept her company and stayed at 603 North Canon Drive for the week that RJ was away on location, “Natalie seemed terribly lost and conflicted. Once she pointed to the security iron grillwork in front of the door of the house and said, ‘I feel like I’m living in a cage.’ And she was taking three separate sleeping pills every night.”

  To Josh it seemed clear that “in spite of her love for RJ and her daughters, Natalie had been fired by Walken’s talk of freedom and dedication to art.” Although only five years younger than Natalie, “in her eyes he represented a new, independent generation, like Robert de Niro and Al Pacino.” And she desperately wanted to be part of it. “She was looking for a way to bust out, although she knew it wouldn’t be right, and her restlessness encouraged her to flirt openly with Chris Walken in RJ’s presence. It made him terribly jealous, and jealousy made RJ drink too much. A very kind and thoughtful man, but his demons came out when he was drunk.”

  To Guy McElwaine, the situation with Natalie and RJ seemed “very bad” and reminded him of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? John Irvin remembered Natalie arguing with RJ about the superiority of New York theater to Hollywood, and “her desire to get out of Los Angeles led to an ugly scene. She told RJ, ‘You’ve only got five expressions as an actor,’ and forced him to a ‘commercial’ defense that wasn’t his true position. ‘But they paid for this house,’ he came back at her, ‘and your jewelry.’ ”

  Another irony: As RJ recalled, “Originally there was no real conflict” about leaving Los Angeles. “When Natalie first planned to do Anastasia, and before she met Walken, we’d talked of buying a farm in upstate New York, and it had nothing to do with what we argued about later. We’d become very disturbed that Natasha couldn’t go outside the house to mail a letter, or whatever, without a crowd of autograph seekers waiting. And we wanted to get away from all that.”

  But now that both of them had begun to drink heavily, their demons came out to fight each other, and cast the longest shadows of all. RJ never confronted Natalie with his jealousy of Walken until Thanksgiving weekend, when all three, literally and metaphorically at sea, had been drinking for several hours; and it struck all three with the force of a delayed explosion. In retrospect, he explained his reluctance to face the situation earlier: “By that time I’d got to to know the signs of Natalie ‘possessed.’ The switch from her career to her marriage, then back again, and a few years later, the switch to her children. Perhaps I didn’t pay enough attention, and wasn’t giving her enough, too busy working when Natalie, as Howard Jeffrey used to say, stamped her foot. And there were always people around telling her, ‘You’re so talented, you mustn’t give it up.’ ”

  But although it wasn’t only Walken who encouraged Natalie’s career drive, his talk of “freedom and dedication to art” encouraged her to undervalue her role as wife and mother; and Walken’s voice was obviously the most persuasive for someone disturbed, overmedicated and attracted to him. The prospect of a long weekend on stormy waters discouraged almost everyone that the Wagners invited to join them on Splendour—Michael Childers, Mart Crowley, Donfeld, Josh Donen, Peggy Griffin, Delphine Mann. Although some had a genuine excuse to decline the invitation, like a family commitment, others invented one. The only person to accept was Christopher Walken.

  On the cold, rainy Thursday evening of November 26, Th
anksgiving dinner at 603 North Canon Drive was a very muted celebration. Natalie’s daybook listed the guests: Mud, Mrs. Wagner (RJ’s mother), Mart Crowley, Josh Donen, Delphine Mann and Kate Wagner. RJ went to bed early, shortly after Natasha and Courtney. The other guests left early, except for Delphine. Natalie needed company until she went to sleep, and Delphine recalled that it took her until three a.m. on November 27.

  “11.0. Splendour. Chris Walken,” Natalie wrote in her daybook for November 27; and on that cold, drizzly and windy Friday the Wagners met him at Marina del Rey, where the boat was docked. During the twenty-two-mile voyage to Catalina, Walken was mildly seasick and spent most of the time in his stateroom until Splendour dropped anchor four hours later, offshore from Avalon, the island’s tourist center. Although the Wagners were experienced sailors, Natalie had once told Sophie Irvin that she was always unnerved by the ocean when “it was turbulent, and never still”—and at this stage in her life, the last thing she needed was additional turbulence.

  In 1975 Dennis Davern had brought the boat from Florida to Long Beach, where the owner had instructed him to sell it; and when RJ bought it, he retained Davern as skipper. The Wagners were his first experience of movie people, but their weekend cruises had introduced him to many others—Elia Kazan, Roddy McDowall, David Niven, Laurence Olivier. The thirty-four-year-old skipper remained starstruck, and although totally unprepared for what happened that weekend, he had been around long enough to realize it was ripe for exploitation.