More Than Love: An Intimate Portrait of My Mother, Natalie Wood

by Natasha Gregson Wagner

  “You want him to be happy,” Josh pointed out. “You’re living your own life now. You’re studying. You’ve got me. Let him live his own life.”

  Even so, the morning of the wedding, May 1990, I woke up feeling terrible, my throat sore and my head pounding. Josh held me and talked me through it. I left his place feeling fortified by our growing relationship, and miraculously recovered from my flu symptoms.

  A couple of hours later, as Courtney, Katie, and I stood in the backyard of our house on Old Oak Road to give Daddy and Jill our blessing, we could not control our tears. I loved my dad so much and wanted him to be happy. I knew that life was for the living, and I knew that my mom would want him to be with Jill, a woman who loved him honestly and completely and still does. My brain knew this, but my body was unable to stop the flow of tears. The grief and fear I felt that day were not rational. My tears were for my mother and all that we had lost when we lost her; they were for my dad, onto whom I had projected all my needs, and who was moving on with a new chapter in his life.

  But my boyfriend was right. I was moving on with a new chapter of my life too. Encouraged by Josh and his mom, I worked on my career. Josh had an acting teacher that he loved named Harold Guskin, so I met with Harold and decided to study with him. Harold was warm and dynamic and would hold these renowned five-day intensive Shakespeare and Chekhov workshops. I signed up for as many as I could.

  I remember Josh and I went to a workshop at the Loews Hotel in Santa Monica. The class sat in a semicircle with Harold at the front. I looked around and noticed a few familiar faces, some strangers, and one man who appeared to be around sixty, with shoulder-length, unkempt hair and a scraggly brown beard peppered with gray. His disheveled ensemble was that of a person obviously down on his luck: faded black jeans, an old worn T-shirt with holes in it, dirty black boots. Santa Monica has always been a haven for hippies and beach bums, and because Harold is so open and accepting, I assumed that our teacher had allowed one of the homeless men who hung around the hotel to sit in on his class. How cool of him, I thought. By lunchtime Josh was acting strangely—anxious and self-conscious—and I wondered why.

  “This class is intense,” I prompted.

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “I wish I had known that Kris was taking the class.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  He pointed to the disheveled man.

  “That homeless guy is upsetting you?” I said in total bewilderment.

  “That’s not a homeless guy, Natasha. That’s Kris Kristofferson, and he broke my mom’s heart a few years ago.”

  Josh taught me about a new world of actors and directors. My parents had known an older Hollywood generation, but thanks to his producer father, Josh seemed to know pretty much everyone else.

  After I had been back in Los Angles for about a year, I decided to get a place of my own. My British dad came to town and helped me find a cozy two-bedroom on Doheny Drive. The building was painted my favorite color, pink, and there was a courtyard surrounded by eight apartments. Josh’s mom, Ali, helped me to set up my new home. She was a minimalist, the complete opposite of my mom. With Ali’s help, I covered my sofas in mattress ticking; we found vintage rugs and rattan baskets to put around my apartment. She bought me a beautiful carved Buddha. Ali taught me how to make a fruit bowl look pretty, how to arrange flowers in a vase, and how to make a still life from a stack of books, a little bowl of nuts, a candle. There were so many missing pieces in my mothering; Ali was helping me to replace them.

  Chapter 13

  Natasha on the set of David Lynch’s Lost Highway, 1997.

  One morning in the spring of 1990, Courtney and I headed off together in my black Jeep Wrangler, making our way out of our protected cocoon on the west side and onto the tangled freeways of the 405 and 101. For the first time since our mother died, we were going to visit the storage unit in Glendale where all her belongings were kept. My dad had decided he was ready to revisit the items that had been put in storage and he thought that Courtney and I might also want to take a look and see if there was anything we wanted to keep now that we were older.

  Liz had organized the day. Since my mom’s death, Liz had kept working as my dad’s assistant. I remember feeling a nervous thrill when she called to ask if I wanted to go with her and Courtney to the storage unit. I was excited that my dad thought we were old enough to take care of our mom’s possessions. What treasures might we find?

  On the drive over I was filled with anticipation, but as soon as we walked into the storage facility I felt the back of my neck stiffen. It was a sort of gripping tension, a burning. There was Liz waiting for Courtney and me. Everything about Liz felt safe to me, her English-accented “Hello, lovey,” her complete confidence in organizing our lives. I trusted her. Why does my body feel like this?

  I followed closely behind Liz as we walked toward the back of the building and entered the storage unit. Long tables had been set up along the walls, covered with what seemed like hundreds of objects. All my mom’s possessions, waiting to be rediscovered by Courtney and me. To be held, touched, looked at, and listened to. The flotsam and jetsam of a well-lived life. These artifacts from the past had been loved by my parents and they were waiting to be loved by us. Maybe if we loved them hard enough, if we made space for them in our own lives, they could tell our mom’s story.

  There were the silver goblets that Spencer Tracy had given my mom and dad for their first wedding. “Bob and Nat, all my love, Spence.” I remember they had sat in our wooden bookshelves in the living room. When Jessica and I played “ladies” in that room, often we would pretend the goblets were tall wineglasses. We would take ladylike sips and try to imitate our mothers’ voices. “Now, Natooshie, tonight will not work for a sleepover with Jessie.…”

  In the middle of one of the long tables was a cluster of Limoges boxes that had rested on my mom’s night table. There was an oblong box with the words “You are witty and pretty,” a reference to the lyrics from a West Side Story song, with pale blue forget-me-nots circling the top and bottom. A box in the shape of a heart had been given to my mother for her birthday by Howard Jeffrey the July before she died. Pink and green flowers wound tightly together in friendship.

  Then there was the sloppy rabbit I made out of clay for her in fourth grade. Painted dark mauve and molded with immature hands. She loved that rabbit and kept it next to her on her bedside table.

  Novels that had once been piled on the floor next to her bed were now piled on the tables in the storage unit. I remember one called High Anxiety. Was that what I was feeling now?

  Liz was the lightness in the room that day.

  “Natooshie, look at Mommie’s little shoes! Your grandma had them bronzed. Do you remember these sat on the mantel in their bedroom? And here are your little ballet slippers and Courtney’s sweet little shoes. Look, Mummy did the same thing to your shoes. Take them with you today, lovey. They are beautiful!”

  Courtney and I, discovering and rediscovering, what? Our childhood, our mom, our younger selves when life was safe and sweet?

  A silver box with my parents’ wedding invitation engraved on top, “the second time around.”

  Another plain rectangular silver box. I opened it and it read, “For Lady Wood, with continuing affection, Redford.”

  “Look, Toosh,” Courtney called to me. “Remember Mommie’s music box? I wonder if it still works?”

  The box was large and square, made of dark, inlaid wood. Courtney opened up the lid, turning the old crank handle. Suddenly the bells started ringing, playing their familiar tune. Inside, there was a little drum and butterflies and flowers that hit the brass bells, chiming and chirping. The sound of our mother filled the room. I ended up taking the box home with me, to the magical delight of any small child that happens upon it.

  That morning I lost track of time. I don’t know how many hours went by before I remembered I had an appointment with my therapist, Mrs. Malin. I was still seeing her once a week. It was time to go,
but where were my keys?

  The three of us looked on every table and around every object, to no avail. What had I done with them? I felt foolish and insecure. This was a grown-up thing, to be invited to the storage unit. Now I was back to being an irresponsible child. I had lost my keys and I would miss my therapy session, dammit.

  I can’t remember who found my keys or how but they were finally retrieved after we turned that room upside down. I had missed my appointment.

  When I finally made it to my therapy session the following week, Mrs. Malin asked what I had been doing when I lost my keys. I casually mentioned that Courtney and I had gone to the storage unit. Then I kept talking about some inconsequential argument I’d had with Josh.

  Mrs. Malin stopped me. “Natasha, was that the first time you had seen the contents of Canon Drive since you moved out?”

  I remember her gaze so clearly. Steady and deeply focused on me.

  “Yes,” I answered.

  “Well, no wonder you lost your keys. That must have been an incredibly emotional experience. Let’s talk about it.”

  I shifted in her noisy leather chair.

  “Why?” I asked. “It’s all fine now. I picked out things I wanted and I found my keys.”

  I did not want to talk about it.

  Mrs. Malin looked at me again, her eyes filled with kindness.

  “Okay,” she said. “Maybe another time.”

  Not long after the visit to the storage unit, my mom’s datebooks arrived at my home in narrow black boxes. Looking back, I can’t precisely remember how they ended up there. Maybe I had asked Liz to send them to me? What I do remember is staring at them in the entry hall of my apartment. Each box had a year printed on top: the first year was 1964 and the last was 1981, when the boxes ended. I found the box that said 1970 and took it into my bedroom. I sat down on my bed and I opened up the box. Inside were twelve tiny, black, spiral-bound notebooks. One for each month. I remembered these datebooks. My mother kept them within reach on her table, her desk, her bed, usually opened to the current day of the week, so she could easily jot something down: a reminder, an appointment, a number, an address, a moment she didn’t want to forget.

  I picked out the book for September 1970, the month of my birth. My mom’s loopy, happy, Natalie Wood handwriting was on every page, slanting upward and to the right. Sometimes she used black ink, sometimes blue, sometimes pencil. Sometimes she wrote in block letters, sometimes script. In the front of the book were the names and numbers of all her doctors, emergency numbers, numbers of her friends and her family and all her favorite restaurants. Some of them were the numbers I had memorized by heart as a child. I flipped through the pages to find September 29, 1970, the day of my birth. At the top of the page, in pencil, she had written, “cleaning crew.” Then “1:45 Bentley’s chop house Lana—Wilshire.” After that the words: “At 2:30 hospital.” Then, at the bottom of the page in big purple letters, she wrote: “Natasha born 9:11 p.m. 6lb. 8 ounces.” My mom drew the N of my name exactly the way she drew the N of her name. Tall and proud but ladylike. A brick dollhouse.

  Sitting in my room that day, I read the words over and over: “Natasha born.” I am born. I am here. If I am born, then how could it be that she is gone now? These were the confusing strands of thought tangling in my mind. I know my mom wanted me so, so, so much. I know she was over the moon to become a mother. I remember how much she loved and adored and cherished Courtney and me. How much fun she’d had planning our parties, buying us velvet holiday dresses, curling our hair with her big hot rollers.

  I pulled out the book for 1971. August. On the first page of the beginning of the month, my mom had written in turquoise cursive, “Sat 7:45 Dinner Langes.” Beneath that in large, black, cursive letters, “End of Marriage,” with a black line down the page. Okay, so this is the day my parents’ marriage ended. I knew a couple of weeks later my mom, my aunt Olga, Mart, and I boarded the SS Raffaello for Europe. A disastrous trip but a journey that my mom somehow needed to take.

  On the back of the datebook she had made a list: “Richard did not want me to continue breastfeeding after three months.” “Wanted me to go back to work when Natasha was just a baby.” “Did not understand why I needed to call home and check on her when we were out to dinner.” “When she became of age wanted to send her to an English boarding school.” So here are my mom’s reasons for leaving my dad right in front of me? If she were still alive and I asked her, “Why did you and my Daddy Gregson break up?” these would be her answers? Or would they?

  Discovering this vulnerable time during her breakup from my father was too much for me. Sitting there with the datebooks, I realized I had been without my mother for nearly nine years. Her love no longer felt sturdy or solid. It felt far away, like cotton candy clouds in a dream that I could reach for but that disappeared in my hands. I was supposed to be a grown-up or very near a grown-up, but I still felt so much like a little girl. I might live by myself, have a boyfriend, drive my own car, and work as an actor, but I felt as if a big gust of wind might blow me away. I was looking for guidance in the datebooks. I needed to lean on my mother’s trusty strength. If she had periods when she felt scared and insecure, then that meant I would have periods when I felt scared and insecure—and what would the outcome be for me?

  I closed up the datebooks and sent them back to storage. Around this same time, Mart told me about my mom’s suicide attempt. The year was 1964. She was divorced from R.J., filming The Great Race with Tony Curtis, and feeling particularly lost and alone. One night, Mart heard a banging on his door, and when he opened it, Natalie fell into his arms. She told him she had taken too many pills. Mart immediately called her doctor, who came to the house and said she needed to go to the hospital. My mother stayed in the hospital for the weekend, getting her stomach pumped, and was back to work on Monday, always the professional.

  I heard what Mart was telling me, but I barely processed his words. I was nowhere near strong enough to come into contact with my mother’s fragility. I didn’t want to read her datebooks. I wasn’t ready to revisit her intimate possessions from Canon Drive. I could only feel the anxiety gripping the back of my neck, mislay my keys, and cry in the shower when nobody could hear me.

  * * *

  While I was studying acting as a sophomore at USC, Josh was working with the producer Nick Wechsler. Nick invited me to audition for Fathers & Sons, an indie drama starring Jeff Goldblum and one of my teenage idols, Rosanna Arquette. I got the part of Lisa, a lost waif of a girl searching for love.

  By now Daddy Gregson had started speaking to me again. One day, out of the blue, he called me up, and we were back to our old relationship. I think he realized I was serious about my acting career and he had better go along with it. He warned me that I would never be able to focus on acting and finish college. “You need to pick one,” he said. The choice was obvious. I wanted to be an actor. Instead of going back to college for my junior year, I headed to Belmar, New Jersey, to start shooting my first movie. I had never acted professionally before, and I had no idea what I was doing. But I felt lucky to be among such an exceptional ensemble cast: Jeff and Rosanna, as well as Joie Lee, Samuel L. Jackson, Ellen Greene, and Famke Janssen. And I wasn’t the only newcomer. The director, Paul Mones, had hired Rory Cochrane, also a first-time actor on a film set.

  I had been on many sets as a child and I quickly felt at ease. The camaraderie was familiar to me. After all, most of my mother’s dearest friendships had been forged on movie sets. I bonded with many of my castmates, the director, makeup artists, hairstylists, the first assistant director. I was especially drawn to people who could teach me, guide me, mother me. I was still looking for that kind of connection. The freshly printed scripts, collated and clean, reminded me of my parents and their scripts. When the paper changed colors from blue to yellow to pink, I knew what that meant. Rewrites!

  What was not familiar to me were the inevitable discomforts of filming: the 4:30 a.m. wake-up calls, being so c
old all the time, the way they called the next meal “lunch” even though it was clearly dinnertime. Night shoots… My very first day I had a love scene on the beach in New Jersey with Rory. It was January but we had to pretend it was summer, which meant we were freezing and sandy and all-around uncomfortable. Even so, I found I could easily relate to Lisa’s search for love and connection.

  I remember calling Gadge to give him an update on my career. He, of course, wanted to know all about the director and if I liked the way he talked to me about the character. I did.

  Next I landed a small part in the film of the moment, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. One day on the Buffy set, I was waiting inside my trailer, only a little bigger than a bathroom on an airplane. I had my vampire teeth poking out of my mouth when I noticed another brunette actress wandering the parking lot with her own vampire teeth poking out of her mouth, waiting to be called to set. Despite the fangs, I recognized her from Bar One, the nightclub we both frequented. She reminded me her name was Amanda and we had met on the dance floor a couple weeks earlier. I invited her to share my space. Amanda’s dad was the singer Paul Anka. Her mother was English like my dad. She had four sisters to my five (including those from my dads’ other marriages). We had both traveled a lot as kids and were both trying to be actors. That day in my tiny trailer we began a lifelong friendship.

  After that I landed roles in TV series and some other smaller films, including the indie thriller The Phony Perfector, later known as Dead Beat. In the film, I played Kristen Biedermeir, and I treasured the part. Kristen was a spoiled, neglected rich kid who took up with Kit, an Elvis impersonator turned murderer in a desolate valley in New Mexico. I wore a polka-dot bikini for many scenes and bleached my hair blond. We hunkered down in Tucson, Arizona, for the shoot. The cast included Balthazar Getty, Meredith Salenger, and Sara Gilbert. The movie was loosely based on a true story. The dialogue was snappy, the director, Adam Dubov, was playful—like a grown-up kid—the costumes were fabulous. I found it easy to understand the ride-or-die love connection that Kristen and Kit shared.