In the chaos, they fought. They had been married barely three years. At night my mother couldn’t sleep. She was anxious. Their arguments left her feeling lost. At home the ceiling under the floor that held the giant marble bathtub started to show large and dangerous cracks, dust falling onto the furniture below. My mom told my dad she wanted to go into psychoanalysis. My dad felt they should be able to work out their problems without the help of a stranger.
After finishing work on Splendor, my mom went straight to the set of West Side Story, in which she starred as Maria. She had no time to give to their shaky marriage. The ceiling under the bathtub could be reinforced; the problems in their relationship were not so easily fixed. Not knowing what else to do, they decided to separate. The failure of their relationship shattered them both. My mom later wrote that she jumped straight from childhood into matrimony without ever discovering who she really was and what made her tick. She had never stood alone on her own two feet.
In the months after they split, my mother missed R.J. terribly. She moved out of the half-renovated home they had shared together, renting a house by the beach where she tried to recover. R.J. missed her just as much, escaping to Europe, where he hoped to revive his career. He still loved her but had no idea how to restore what had been broken between them.
Splendor and West Side Story opened in October 1961 and were instantly successful. My mom earned her second Oscar nomination for Splendor. She had become an A-list actress, highly regarded by her peers. By now she had also begun working on a new movie, Gypsy, based on the Broadway musical. Professionally, this was one of the most exciting times in her career. She became totally immersed in the work. She started dating Warren Beatty, but it was not a happy relationship. She later observed that after her divorce she was looking for the “Rock of Gibraltar” and she discovered “Mount Vesuvius” instead.
My mother’s next film was called Love with the Proper Stranger, with Steve McQueen. When she wrapped that movie, she bought herself a home of her own on North Bentley Avenue in Bel-Air. The house was more modest than the one she had shared with R.J., and finally put her on a more stable footing. R.J. had returned from Europe and found success in the movie Harper, alongside Paul Newman. He had also met and married Marion Donen. My mother later wrote that when she learned R.J. had had a baby daughter—Katie—with his new wife, she wept for what might have been and for his newfound happiness.
My mother made two more great movies during the 1960s, Inside Daisy Clover and This Property Is Condemned, both alongside Robert Redford. At the time, Redford was a little-known actor, but my mom saw his promise and told the director of Inside Daisy Clover, Robert Mulligan, “I want him.” Redford was hired, and it helped to launch his career. My mom insisted he be cast in her next film, This Property Is Condemned, as well. (It was while This Property Is Condemned was still in production that she was invited to the dinner party where she met Richard Gregson, the man who became my father.)
I enjoyed hearing stories about my mother’s dating life in those years—after her second divorce, she dated Steve McQueen briefly, among others—but my favorite was the one about how R.J. and my mom reconnected. One day, R.J. asked if he could come and visit my mom and me. I was still only a little older than a year. By now R.J. had divorced his wife Marion. He arrived at the North Bentley Avenue house with his mother, Chattie. Later he told me about the first time we met. “You had a shock of solid black hair—so much so that we could have turned you upside down and swept the floor with you,” he recalled. When it was time for me to take a nap, I didn’t want to go. My mom was singing my lullaby, “Bayushki,” to me, patting my back and walking me around the room, rocking me. I refused to go to sleep. When R.J. turned around, Chattie had slid from her chair. She had fallen asleep to the sound of my mother’s singing.
The next day, R.J. sent my mother flowers. In her datebook at the top of one of the pages, she has an entry that says, “R.J. called!”
It was clear to both of them they had never stopped loving each other. Life had knocked them around, they had each married again and divorced, each had a child. They had matured beyond many of the problems that troubled their first marriage and were ready to try again.
According to a story my parents both told over the years, my mother and R.J. had first run into each other again when they were still married to their other spouses, at a party given by their mutual friends John and Linda Foreman in June 1970. My mom had come to the party without my British dad, as he was in London. At the time, R.J. was separating from his wife Marion and was also at the party alone. My mother was six months pregnant with me. The two of them struck up a friendly conversation. When the party ended, he gave her a ride home. After she was safely inside, he pulled his car over and had a good cry; my mother walked into the front door of our house on North Bentley Avenue and burst into tears. They both realized that the love they had was real, and it was as strong as ever. As my mom was still with my dad, neither one did anything about it.
Now that they were reunited and so happy, my parents decided to get married again. Their wedding took place at sea, on July 16, 1972, just off the coast of Catalina Island. Their friend Frank Sinatra arranged for them to be married on a boat called the Ramblin’ Rose. His classic song “The Second Time Around” played over the loudspeakers. I don’t remember the wedding, but to commemorate it, they had a series of portraits taken in the summer of 1972. In one they are seated outdoors, Daddy Wagner leaning in close as Mommie holds a stark-naked me in her lap, my tiny toes dangling above the long skirt of her ivory-and-lavender-checked peasant wedding dress. When I look at it, I’m floored by the sheer joy that they radiate, the Southern California sun bathing their faces. How many people get a second chance at love? My parents did and they seized it.
* * *
It’s no coincidence that my parents were married at sea. During their first marriage, my dad had a boat called My Lady and my parents spent many happy times together on it. My dad taught my mom how to fish on that boat: how to use the radio and the mooring, how to work the radar and drive the dinghy. She enjoyed becoming one of the crew. After their second marriage, around the same time they bought the Canon Drive house, my parents purchased a sixty-foot yacht my mother christened the Splendour, after the line “splendour in the grass,” from the William Wordsworth poem that had inspired the title of her film. On weekends we’d take trips to Catalina, an island about twenty-five miles off the California coast.
My parents were different on the boat—more peaceful. We all were. Even Courtney and I got along better on those weekends away. Our deckhand was a sandy-haired man from Florida named Dennis Davern who had worked on the boat even before we owned it, and took care of it year-round. Weekends on the boat, my dad and Courtney and I would be out on the deck, fishing, or my mom would be sitting next to my dad as he steered the ship. Other times, all of us would hang out together inside, playing cards or reading, or talking with the many friends that joined us on those weekends. When we docked, we would go to the arcade, where we kids could play games, then go out to a casual dinner on the island. For Courtney and me, Catalina was like an unspoiled island in a storybook, with its bright blue sea and lush, tropical foliage. From our boat, we could see the wild bison roaming on the hillsides, and dolphins and giant fish swimming around us in the waves.
Other times Daddy took us out in the motorized dinghy, and we’d spin through the craggy reefs and caves along the coast looking for garibaldi, a bright orange fish native to Southern California. Once, I remember my dad diving for abalone, and showing Courtney and me how to pound the mollusks flat with a special hammer so that we could flash fry them and eat them hot from the pan. My dad was an excellent fisherman. He taught Courtney and me how to hook the bait on the fishing line, cast our rod with a flick of our wrist, and patiently wait for the hoped-for tug. He explained how to reel the catch in slowly, using what strength we had, speeding it up as the hooked fish got closer to the top of the water. I held the recor
d for catching the largest fish on board the Splendour: a forty-two-pound halibut, almost as big as I was at the age of ten. Reeling that salty sucker in required the manpower of all the grown-ups on the boat that day. Another favorite pastime of Courtney’s and mine was watching our guests find their sea legs. Most of them were not used to being out on the water, and soon they’d be throwing up over the side of the boat. For some reason, Courtney and I found their seasickness deliriously entertaining.
Our swimming spot of choice was Emerald Bay, off the northeast tip of Catalina, where the water is shallow, turquoise, and clear. Although my mom loved being out on the water and swimming in the heated pool at home, in general, she didn’t enjoy the colder temperatures of the ocean or “when I can’t see the bottom.” Emerald Bay was the only place where she felt comfortable swimming because she could see the sand on the ocean floor below.
Sometimes I wonder if life was ever really this sweet.
Chapter 3
Natasha with her grandmother Baba (center) and Natalie on Christmas Day, 1974.
My maternal grandparents, Baba and Deda, were fixtures of my childhood. When I watch old home movies from that time, they are almost always there, either in the background or part of the action itself. I loved being around them. They spoke with funny accents, and they were always kissing and hugging me and talking to me in their make-believe-sounding language: “Natashinka, moya princessa, lyu blu.”
My grandmother had raven-black hair cut in bangs and dark blue eyes, like a grown-up Snow White. She always wore long ornate gowns of crushed velvet in shades of deep emerald or purple often embellished with shimmering metallic appliqués or gold brocade. When I visited my grandparents at their home, my grandmother would be chattering away, standing over the stove making strange brews. My grandpa was much quieter, more docile, and altogether less dramatic than my grandmother. He had dark hair and an impish smile, eyes that looked straight into the depths of yours. He played with me, carrying me on his shoulders, pushing me in my swing, letting me bury him under my stuffed animals. He played an instrument that looked like a guitar but had a silly name—balalaika—and sang to me in Russian. According to my parents, Deda wanted to go back to Russia, his homeland, but felt it was no longer his, and so he drank too much.
To visit my grandparents was to follow the White Rabbit down the rabbit hole. Wherever we lived, whether it was in Palm Springs or Los Angeles, they always had a house close by. Any and all childlike possibilities existed at their place. My grandma let me have sugary treats whenever my heart desired, something that was closely monitored in my mother’s house. Their home smelled of sautéed onions and garlic, and the warm, lumpy stew that Baba brought to me in small bowls always tasted delicious. Whenever I visited, there was a new toy for me, a little handmade doll or a stuffed animal. The dolls were so different from the ones you could buy from the toy store. They wore makeup and jewelry and had colorful ribbons tied in their hair. Even when Baba gave me a store-bought doll, she made sure to enhance her by adding fancy clothes, rhinestones, and a tiara or crown. An ordinary doll wouldn’t have been special enough.
Like the dolls she made for me, Baba was always bejeweled. For special occasions, she wore real jewelry of gold and precious or semiprecious stones. On an average day at home, she adorned herself with costume necklaces, bracelets, and earrings. She loved to wear her birthstone, amethyst—purple, the color of royalty. If we were going out for dinner, Baba made up her face, and when she did, her lipstick and eyeliner were usually painted a little askew, as if she had applied them in a bathroom by candlelight. When I snuggled in my grandmother’s arms, I remember the heavy fabrics she wore emitting a musty odor, mingling with the powdery notes of her White Shoulders perfume. After she sat on the sofa in our home, the pillows smelled like her for days. Baba’s birthday was February 8 (the same day as James Dean’s). I remember my parents buying her birthday jewelry sparkling with little purple amethysts and taking her to dinner at a restaurant she loved, the Hawaiian-themed Luau in Beverly Hills, where she was treated to her favorite dessert, lychee nuts on ice.
But the thing that defined Baba most of all was the intensity of her love for me and my mom. Her passionate affection for us was fierce, unwavering, even overwhelming. When I was with her, she didn’t leave my side, just as she had never left my mom’s side when she was a little girl. Baba hovered, she exclaimed excitedly at my every word, she was my biggest and most adoring fan.
When I was about six, my hair was light golden brown, much lighter than my mom’s, and was cut in a feathered pageboy. I remember one afternoon, Baba coming to visit. She had been to the beauty salon, where she had instructed the hairdresser to lighten, cut, and style her hair exactly like mine.
“Look, Natashinka,” she said, grinning broadly, “we have the same hair now!”
Baba had gone from having black hair like Snow White to having light brown hair like mine. As a child, I didn’t think Baba’s new hairdo seemed strange. I considered Baba my grown-up child friend, and so in some way, her matching haircut just made sense. Looking back, however, it seems quite bizarre that an adult woman would want to look like a little girl. But that was Baba. For her, love meant fusing with the object of your adoration so completely that you even looked exactly the same.
* * *
Deeply religious, my grandmother filled each of her apartments with golden, glimmering icons, placed reverently in the corners of each room. Almost every time Baba came to our house, she brought a tiny bag of Russian holy flowers and a vial of holy water. I knew the drill. After hugging me, Baba opened the golden oval-shaped locket with a cross on it that I always wore around my neck. My mother had given the locket to me when I was a baby. Inside were the dried flowers Baba had put in there last time. She would switch them out for new ones, before flicking holy water on my face and saying a prayer over my head. The flowers and the water were meant to ward off evil spirits. As long as I had the locket with holy flowers around my neck, Baba told me, nothing bad could happen to me.
My mom grew especially exasperated with my grandmother when she performed her rituals on me. “Mud,” she’d say—or “Mother,” if she was really annoyed—“please don’t fill Natasha’s head with Russian nonsense.”
Baba knew my parents didn’t approve of her superstitions, but instead of stopping, she chanted her prayers in a low whisper. When my parents weren’t watching, she and I hid in the linen closet, switched off the lights, and sat down on the floor cross-legged. Then Baba sang a Russian prayer and flicked more holy water in my face. Of course, Baba approached these secret ceremonies like a child would—a little too loudly, a little too brazenly—and my parents usually found out what we had been up to and got irritated with her.
It was from Baba that I learned to worry about the world. Whenever we were together, she warned me of things I should be fearful of. People I should watch out for. Doorways I should avoid. Rituals to keep me safe.
She had all kinds of superstitions. She knocked on wood, spit over her shoulder three times, and threw salt here and there. Every time my parents left on a trip, Baba wouldn’t let anyone put away anything they had used before they left—a bottle of juice left out of the fridge, a plate on the counter—until my mother called to say that they had arrived at their destination. If you even put so much as a knife or fork away, that was considered bad luck. Once Baba knew my parents were there safely, she’d spend the next hour or so frantically tidying up the house.
Baba never got mad at me, but she was often in a bad mood with other people. If she was mad at someone—her daughter Lana, my grandfather, Daddy Gregson, someone who didn’t smile at her when she smiled at them—she sewed a voodoo doll out of fabric, stuffing it with cotton balls, using sequins for eyes, and drawing red lips on with a marker. Then she’d stick needles in it or submerge it in water or put it in a dark closet. The little dolls fascinated me and confused me at the same time, but I was never worried Baba would make a doll of me—I knew she loved me too
much for that. Other times if someone made her angry, she wrote the person’s name on a piece of paper and put it in cold water in a coffee cup in the freezer. I could tell if she was mad at someone because when she walked by the fridge, she made a face. At the time, I think I knew her behavior was unusual, but I loved her completely and so accepted her quirks.
When I was very little, I remember being in the backyard with Baba and pointing to a spider a few feet away.
“Look at the spider!” I said innocently.
Baba leaped to my rescue. She positioned her body between me and the dangerous insect.
“Oh! Did it bite you, Natashinka?”
She knelt down in front of me, examining my arms and legs for any signs of attack. “Are you all right?”
The spider was minding its own business and had come nowhere near me. I was fine. Her reaction frightened me more than any insect.
Baba was also extremely wary of people she didn’t know, especially men. Throughout my childhood, she was convinced that intruders were about to enter our house to take me away. Once, when I was woozy with jet lag after a trip to England with my mom and Daddy Wagner, my grandma accused my parents of drugging me. My parents were furious. But she couldn’t help it. She saw danger everywhere.
* * *
My parents were in a near-constant state of exasperation about Baba. Whenever she came to visit, I could see Daddy Wagner barely concealing his sighs and frowns. He tried to be nice, but I knew he felt resentful of my grandparents. He felt they tried to control their daughter. It annoyed him that my mother continued to support them financially, as she had done since she became a star at six years old. My mom still felt responsible for her parents, she loved them and was loyal to them, but they were exhausting. My mom joined my dad in forming a silent, invisible barrier between my grandmother and me. Baba was always close by, but as I got older, my mother tried to keep her at arm’s length—inviting her for holidays and festivities but no longer asking her to babysit when they went out or away on a trip.
More Than Love: An Intimate Portrait of My Mother, Natalie Wood Page 5