Natalie kept working. In her third film, released in 1947, she played the daughter of Gene Tierney in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Next she appeared in Miracle on 34th Street, playing Susan Walker, the daughter of Maureen O’Hara. At home Natalie was encouraged by Baba to keep her head in the clouds of fairy-tale fantasy, but that didn’t stop her from throwing herself into the role of Walker, the little girl who doesn’t believe in Santa Claus. In the movie, she’s a sharp and analytical kid, a skeptic with her feet firmly planted in reality. The film was released in July 1947, and it was such a success that Maria was able to negotiate a two-picture contract with Fox, including jobs for my grandfather as a studio carpenter and for herself as the person managing Natalie’s fan mail.
The movies were quickly becoming the Gurdin family’s lifeblood and, increasingly, their main source of income. Maria managed every aspect of my mother’s career, down to the smallest detail. After my mother’s sister Svetlana was born in 1946, Baba was determined this new daughter would have a career in Hollywood as well and so she gave her a Russian name that could be conveniently shortened to match the first name of her favorite screen star, Lana Turner. As soon as Lana Gurdin was old enough, she began auditioning for roles, and in 1956, when she was ten years old, she would make her screen debut playing Natalie’s childhood self in the movie The Searchers, directed by John Ford. Like Natalie, Lana changed her last name to Wood.
When my mother was twelve, my grandpa suffered the first of several heart attacks and couldn’t work. My mom became the sole provider for her family while also attending junior high school. Suddenly, winning acting roles became a source of great worry. Every time a casting director told her no, she felt rejected personally and heartbroken—she knew her family’s financial stability was at risk.
My mother continued to work consistently into her teens, but as she grew into a young woman, she found herself increasingly stifled by my grandmother’s grip. Everywhere she turned, there was Baba: at home, at work, even chaperoning when my mom was old enough to date. Baba and Deda believed they could control not only my mom’s career but her entire life. She began to rebel. When her parents wanted her to stay home, she went out. If they wanted her to dress a certain way, she dressed the way she wanted to dress. She was tired of always being told what to do and where to go.
My grandparents forbade my sixteen-year-old mom to even audition for Rebel Without a Cause because they did not like the way the parents were portrayed in the film as old-fashioned and insensitive, but she insisted on going up for it anyway. The movie was directed by Nicholas Ray and it told the story of three suburban teenagers rebelling against their families. My mother was determined to win the part of Judy, the heroine who bonds with her boyfriend, Jim Stark (played by James Dean), over their shared loneliness and frustration. Until this time, my mother had gone for parts because she had to, or to win her parents’ approval. The part of Judy was different. She wanted it because it was meaningful to her. She auditioned three times and won the role.
My mom had first met Dean in 1954, at a rehearsal for a televised adaptation of Sherwood Anderson’s story “I’m a Fool.” He arrived on his motorcycle, hair in the wind and a safety pin keeping his pants up. During the filming of Rebel Without a Cause, they became close friends, my mom often riding behind him on his Triumph motorcycle. Dean had trained as a Method actor with the legendary teacher Lee Strasberg. Although my mother worked with a voice coach on Rebel Without a Cause, she had never taken an acting class. This was the first time she ever improvised on set, the first time she was asked for her opinion, to think about acting as a craft. She often said that it was the beginning of her ambition to become a serious actress.
James Dean died in a car accident only a few weeks before Rebel Without a Cause was released. His death was the first big tragedy of my mother’s life, the first time someone close to her had died. She never forgot it. She always spoke of her friend with such fondness: about his kindness and vulnerability, as if he needed protection in the world.
The following year, at the age of seventeen, my mother was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role as Judy. The more successful Natalie Wood became, the harder Maria tried to control her life. Professionally, my grandmother still negotiated the deals with the studios. At home she would sneak into her daughter’s bedroom and rifle through her belongings while Nick barged in, looking for photos of friends he didn’t approve of and ripping them to shreds. Natalie’s name and face began to appear all over the gossip columns and fan magazines, romantically linked to all kinds of young men, even (briefly) Elvis Presley. Some of these dates were arranged by the studio for publicity purposes, but nevertheless, they sent Baba into a frenzy of suspicion. When my mother returned home from evenings out, my grandmother held her dress up to the light to see if there were wrinkles or creases in unfamiliar places. My grandparents had devoted their lives to Natalie. It seems what they wanted in return was complete domination. But now that she was older, my mother knew more about the business than they did and started making her own decisions. No longer totally in control, Baba became more willful, neurotic, upset. It was an exhausting tug-of-war.
In the end, Natalie held the position of power in the Gurdin household and everyone knew it. My dad, Robert Wagner, remembers that when the family lived on Valley Vista Boulevard in Sherman Oaks in the mid-1950s, my mother occupied the master bedroom and bathroom suite, Lana had the smaller bedroom, and Maria and Nick slept on a roll-away bed in the living room. By now Olga had left home and was married, but my teenage mom supported every other member of her family financially. If she wanted to stay out late or date a man they didn’t approve of, Maria could forbid it, Nick could put his foot down and threaten punishment, but ultimately, what could they do? Natalie was in charge.
One of the reasons my mother married my dad at nineteen was to escape her controlling parents. For a time, Maria shifted her attention to Lana, hoping her younger daughter could fill the gap Natalie had left behind her. But Lana seemed to be the kind of actress who directors and studio heads could imagine only in supporting roles. My grandmother would become furious with my mother for not doing more to help Lana’s career. But it wasn’t her fault. Lana was a good enough actress but she simply didn’t become a star.
* * *
In my grandparents’ Brentwood apartment, my grandmother had a painting hanging on the wall in the living room right next to the sofa. The painting was of my mother in her twenties, posed with her arms crossed, wearing a black dress with thin black straps over her bare shoulders, her neck and arms elongated, her eyes wider than in real life. The painting was by Margaret Keane, wife of Walter Keane, who later became famous as the authentic artist behind her husband’s signature portraits of children and women, their eyes dramatically large.
The Keane painting of my mother is from 1961, the same year that West Side Story came out. After it was completed, Baba claimed the painting. Although my grandmother coveted the portrait because it was of her beloved daughter, she wasn’t completely satisfied with it. Keane hadn’t included the bracelet my mother always wore on her left wrist. Baba considered herself to be the expert on all things Natalie Wood and so she decided to paint a bracelet herself, using oil paints to add on a golden cuff. My grandmother was very proud of this addition, even though she had essentially desecrated a renowned artist’s work without anyone’s consent.
No wonder that as a grown woman my mother tried to establish some boundaries. It didn’t always work. Once, when I was very young, my parents took a trip, and while they were away, Baba decided to change the locks on their house without telling them. When my parents returned home from the airport, they couldn’t get inside their own home. “I didn’t want strangers getting near Natashinka!” Baba explained. My parents were furious. Another rift followed. Eventually, my mom softened up and let Baba back into our lives. This push-and-pull pattern with Mud and Fahd would continue for the rest of my mother’s li
fe.
My mother didn’t want Baba controlling me the way Baba had tried to control her. She had spent years on the therapist’s couch trying to untangle fantasy from reality. That’s why, as I grew older, she began limiting my time with Baba, in an attempt to save me from a similar fate. But it was too late. I was already adopting Baba’s rituals and beliefs as my own.
As a child, I used the locket around my neck filled with holy flowers like a talisman. When panicky feelings would creep in and I became terrified that something bad was going to happen to my mother—my whole world—I closed my eyes, touched the locket, and said a silent prayer that everything would be okay.
Chapter 4
Natasha, Natalie, and Courtney at the house on North Canon Drive, 1977.
My mother was a great actress, but she would have been an amazing producer. Looking at her datebooks from the 1970s, I can see how seamlessly she arranged our lives: the pages are a swirl of plans and organization—everything from my dad’s shooting schedules to our after-school activities. Dates and times of ballet and piano lessons, gym classes, math tutoring, class trips, doctors’ appointments, as well as social events she wanted to attend, black-tie affairs, galas, film premieres. They read like notes for a movie: Life, produced by Natalie Wood.
My mother had grown up on movie sets, always surrounded by a cast of characters and crew, with a mother who followed her everywhere. Even now that she was a grown woman, she wasn’t comfortable being alone. She was someone who needed to be surrounded by people and a bustling household most of the time.
When we first lived all together on Canon Drive in the mid-1970s, my dad was working on a TV series called Switch, an action-adventure detective show. As the lead, he had to work twelve- to fourteen-hour days, but he called regularly from whatever set he was on, and the two of them were always making plans.
“R.J.,” my mom would say, cradling the receiver, “we’re having dinner with the Pecks tonight. What time do you think you’ll be wrapped?”
Then she would nod and say, “Okay… amazing… incredible… I love it!”
She’d laugh her musical laugh and hang up.
A constant stream of lunch and dinner dates, parties, phone calls, visitors, and house guests vied with me for my mom’s attention. Oftentimes it felt like I had to share her not just with my dad and my extended family, but also with the world.
Although I wasn’t happy when my parents went out to parties or for dinners, I loved it when they stayed home to entertain. I always knew when my parents’ friends were coming over because my mom did her eyes. I’d watch as she got ready, sitting with her at the vanity in the dressing room area that led to her white-and-green bathroom. My mother had a large three-way mirror that was the kind you’d find in a movie star’s dressing room. The story goes that she pinched it from an MGM soundstage while she was filming her 1966 movie Penelope. I can still picture my mother in front of that mirror with five or six hot rollers framing her face, doing her eyes.
To start, she dipped a long, thin brush in water, then into the palette of black pressed powder to form a liquid eyeliner, which she used to paint a fine outline around each eye. With a smaller brush, she coated her eyelid in brown eye shadow and blended it with an upward motion. Next she curled her lashes with a mysterious metal contraption before stroking a wand of mascara over them. Once the eyes were done, pale pink lipstick and a swab of gloss were the finishing touches. She could talk to me or Daddy Wagner or a friend on the phone throughout her makeup routine and never make a mistake.
As my mom got ready, she’d often walk around in a nude bra and undies, curlers in her hair, one eye painted, buzzing the kitchen to ask Kilky what time the guests were arriving, how long the wine had been chilling, what Courtney and I were having for dinner. Or she would waltz into my dad’s office next door to their bedroom and carry on a conversation in various stages of undress. Then she’d pick up something to wear from her enormous walk-in closet shimmering with dresses, blouses, pantsuits, hats, shoes, and fur coats. A spritz of her gardenia perfume, the same kind given to her by Barbara Stanwyck when she was a little girl, and she was ready to be the hostess.
For the most part, when we had company, everyone gathered downstairs in the den. There was a large, hand-carved walnut bar on one side of the room; my dad would stand behind it, serving drinks, and my mom would perch on a bar stool opposite him. Silver bowls filled with nuts, usually cashews, sat on the bar next to matching silver cups that held dark brown More cigarettes. Most of the guests who came over smoked in those days, until an interior designer friend accidentally burned my eyelid with his cigarette, and my mom laid down a no-smoking rule in the house.
Though bedtimes were strictly enforced, Courtney and I were allowed to join the parties early in the evening. Mommie and Daddy wanted us there to meet and greet their guests, to talk, and to enjoy the festivities. We’d wander in, fresh from bath time, wearing our nighties, our hair still wet. I would scoop a handful of cashews from one of the silver bowls and eat them while my parents and their friends drank wine and told each other funny stories, clouds of cigarette smoke wafting to the ceiling. This is what it’s like to be a grown-up, I thought. You make each other laugh, you wear makeup and look pretty, and you can have as many nuts and cigarettes as you want.
Like my mother, I had an instinct for performance from a young age. I was keen to shine in social settings as long as I felt surrounded by people I trusted. I loved making my parents and their friends laugh. I could do an impersonation of a monkey that my mom had taught me, just like the one she’d done in Miracle on 34th Street. Or I would tell a knock-knock joke. If I didn’t have a joke to tell, I’d scoop up one of our dogs or cats and wander around with them. I passed through wafts of perfume mixed with cigarette smoke, the sounds of laughter and storytelling in my ears, the beautiful ladies saying hello, asking for a hug, the silks and satins of their clothing smooth against my freshly washed arms.
* * *
My parents’ circle of friends was wide, but at the nucleus were my mom’s best friends Mart Crowley and Howard Jeffrey. My parents called Mart “The Little Prince” or “Martino” and Howard was “Aitchey,” for the initial of his first name. For a long time, Mart lived in the pool house out back on Canon Drive and Howard lived in the guest house above our garage with his two cats.
Mart was tiny and lithe. Always dressed impeccably in purple shirts and yellow cashmere sweaters, he would stride into our house with a story. “Oh, Natalie, you just aren’t going to believe who I ran into today. Just you wait till I tell you this!”
My mom and Mart had first met when he was hired as a set production assistant on Splendor in the Grass. He was assigned to pick my mother up in the mornings and drive her home in the evenings. She began confiding in Mart about the troubles in her first marriage to R.J., and by the time the movie wrapped, they had become inseparable. A few years later Mart wrote his iconic play, Boys in the Band, which went on to become the very first major American theater production to feature male characters who were openly gay. My mother supported and encouraged Mart in his writing, hiring him to be her assistant on her next movie, West Side Story, so he would have enough money to write. It was on this set that they met Howard, who was a choreographer on the film under Jerome Robbins.
Howard was tiny too with a halo of brown curls and a nasal laugh. Silk shirt unbuttoned to reveal little chest hair tendrils and a gold chain with a gleaming Fabergé-style egg hanging from it that was a gift from my parents. Not only did Mart and Howard live with us at various times, they also traveled with us, drove Courtney and me to meet my parents at the airport when they had been away on a long trip, and always, always celebrated the holidays with us.
Mart and Howard had been with my mother during the rocky periods after her first marriage to R.J. and her breakup with my British father. They bonded over the painful things in life, difficult parents, relationship troubles, career setbacks. They all possessed that wonderful ability to laugh at t
hemselves and their own neuroses. Mart and Howard were my uncles, my friends, my godfathers, my parents’ most trusted cohorts. In my parents’ will, if my mom and dad died at the same time, we were to be raised by Howard and Mart, who were not a couple but were bound by so much more than many couples are.
When it came to their wider circle of friends, my parents had a talent for picking people they loved and respected who loved and respected them too. Tom Mankiewicz was a good friend of both my parents, as well as being the son of Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who had directed my mother at age eight in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. We called him “Mank” and he called me “Beano.” Roddy McDowall was another. He too had been a child actor who had successfully transitioned to an adult career. The actress Mia Farrow sometimes came over with her children. The director Gil Cates was always around, as was the director John Irvin and his wife, Sophie, British friends from my mother’s second marriage. Delphine Mann was also an import from the UK. With cropped blond hair and a crisp English accent, Del had no idea who my mom was when they met. Instead, they bonded over having children the same age.
Then there were my parents’ “team,” the people who looked after them in their careers, who came to the parties and were trusted friends: the entertainment lawyer Paul Ziffren and his wife, Mickey, who were like surrogate parents to my parents and guided their business and work lives; George Kirvay, their publicist and dear friend, who came to all the parties and on all our trips; and then later Alan Nierob, who took over from George after he passed away.
Both my parents had grown up in the studio system, and their careers spanned many generations of actors and filmmakers. As a result, guest lists for my parents’ parties included a mix of the not famous at all, the so-so famous, and the very famous. Celebrities I remember seeing at our house were Bette Davis, George Segal, Gene Kelly—who lived down the street—and Gregory Peck and his wife Veronique. I was too young to appreciate that these people were legends. I just knew I enjoyed it if they were nice and paid attention to me.
More Than Love: An Intimate Portrait of My Mother, Natalie Wood Page 7