Library Journal
12/10/2021
In this book that blends true crime and memoir, actress Lana Wood explores the mysterious death of her older sister Natalie, who in 1981 drowned off the coast of Catalina. Lana makes it clear that she and Natalie's husband, Robert Wagner had never been fond of one another and that she was summarily iced out in the aftermath of her sister's death. Wood's motivation for writing this book seems to be as much about score settling as it is about resolving the case. She claims Natalie Wood and Wagner divorced in the early '60s because Natalie had discovered him in the arms of their butler. She also alleges that Natalie was raped by Kirk Douglas in 1955. While the book also traffics in plenty of gossip and petty grievance, Wood's questions and concerns about Natalie's death are valid. There were gaps in the initial investigation, one of which included a total lack of forensic evidence in the police report. Wood also asserts that Natalie was terrified of dark water and would never have elected to exit the yacht at night. VERDICT This is well-trod ground. An optional purchase for fans of true crime and Hollywood stories.—Barrie Olmstead, Lewiston P.L., ID
Kirkus Reviews
2021-11-08
Natalie Wood’s younger sister demands not closure but hard answers in the matter of the star’s death 40 years ago.
As the author recounts, a “Gypsy fortune-teller” once foretold that Natalie would die in dark water. Ever after, she stayed away from water, even the swimming pools to which actor friends like Dennis Hopper, Tab Hunter, and Sal Mineo would flock during their teen-heartthrob years, “especially when there happened to be a teen magazine photograph around.” Yet, in 1981, Natalie drowned, her body washing ashore on Catalina Island, having drifted there from a yacht in open, stormy water. Wood loses no time in asserting that Natalie’s husband, Robert Wagner, was behind the death. In the manner of a who-killed-JFK exercise, the author assembles all the bits of evidence that don’t add up, throwing in Hollywood dish along the way: Kirk Douglas raped Natalie in an encounter arranged by Natalie’s mother; Wagner and Natalie divorced—but later remarried—after she caught him with another man. Much of the case hangs on the “dinghy theory,” regarding a Zodiac boat tied to the back of the yacht that was found adrift after Natalie disappeared. Wagner asserted in a short police interview that Natalie must have heard it banging against the yacht in heavy seas and “got out of bed to secure it and slipped on the swim step.” Given Natalie’s morbid fear of water, writes the author, especially dark water, that’s nonsense. By her account, Wagner later spun other, divergent stories about how Natalie wound up dead in the water. Gossipy and sometimes clunky, Wood’s account nonetheless raises questions that should have been answered 40 years ago. However, since celebrity coroner Thomas Noguchi ruled the case an accidental drowning and, argues the author, disposed of most of the evidence, we are now left to rely on the conjecture and hearsay assembled here.
A thin sheet in the crammed Hollywood Babylon file cabinet but of interest to celebrity murder buffs.
