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Natalie Wood (née Zacharenko; July 20, 1938 – November 29, 1981) was an American actress who began her career in film as a child and successfully transitioned to young adult roles. Wood started acting at age four and was given a co-starring role at age eight in Miracle on 34th Street (1947). As a teenager, she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), followed by a role in John Ford's The Searchers (1956). Wood starred in the musical films West Side Story (1961) and Gypsy (1962) and received nominations for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performances in Splendor in the Grass (1961) and Love with the Proper Stranger (1963). Her career continued with films such as Sex and the Single Girl (1964), The Great Race (1965), Inside Daisy Clover (1965), and Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969). During the 1970s, Wood began a hiatus from film and had two daughters: one with her second husband Richard Gregson, and one with Robert Wagner, her first husband whom she married again after divorcing Gregson. She acted in only two feature films throughout the decade, but she appeared slightly more often in television productions, including a remake of From Here to Eternity (1979) for which she won a Golden Globe Award. Wood's films represented a "coming of age" for her and for Hollywood films in general. Critics have suggested that her cinematic career represents a portrait of modern American womanhood in transition, as she was one of the few to take both child roles and those of middle-aged characters. On November 29, 1981, at the age of 43, Wood drowned in the Pacific Ocean near Santa Catalina Island during a break from production of her would-be comeback film Brainstorm (1983). She was with her husband Wagner and Brainstorm co-star Christopher Walken. The events surrounding her death have been the subject of conflicting witness statements, prompting the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, under the instruction of the coroner's office, to list her cause of death as "drowning and other undetermined factors" in 2012. In 2018, Wagner was named as a person of interest in the ongoing investigation into her death. Early life Wood was born Natalie Zacharenko in San Francisco on July 20, 1938, to Maria Zudilova (1908–1998) and second husband Nicholas Zacharenko (1912–1980). Her mother (who also used the names Mary, Marie, and Musia) was from Barnaul. Wood's maternal grandfather owned soap and candle factories, as well as an estate outside Barnaul. With the start of the Russian Civil War, his family fled Russia for China, settling as refugees in Harbin. Her mother was previously married to Armenian mechanic Alexander Tatuloff from 1925 to 1936. They had a daughter named Olga (1928–2015) and moved to the U.S. by ship in 1930 before divorcing six years later. Wood's father was a carpenter from Ussuriysk. Her paternal grandfather, a chocolate factory employee who joined the anti-Bolshevik civilian forces during the war, was killed in a street fight between the Red Army and White Russian soldiers in Vladivostok. After that, his widow and three sons fled to Shanghai, subsequently relocating to Vancouver at the time of Wood's paternal grandmother's remarriage in 1927. By 1933, they moved to the US. Her parents met while her mother was still married to Tatuloff. They were married in February 1938, five months before Wood was born. A year after Natalie's birth, her father changed the family's surname to Gurdin. In 1942, they bought a home in Santa Rosa, California, where Wood was noticed by members of a crew during a film shoot downtown. After she started acting as a child, RKO executives David Lewis and William Goetz changed her surname to "Wood" to make it more appealing to English-speaking audiences and as a tribute to filmmaker Sam Wood. Her only full sibling, sister Svetlana, was born in Santa Monica in 1946 and later also became an actress under the name Lana Wood. Child actress Early roles Just a few weeks before her fifth birthday, Wood made her uncredited film debut in a fifteen-second scene in the film Happy Land (1943). Despite the brief part, she attracted the notice of the director, Irving Pichel. He remained in contact with Wood's family for two years, advising them when another role came up. The director telephoned Wood's mother and asked her to bring her daughter to Los Angeles for a screen test. Wood's mother became so excited that she "packed the whole family off to Los Angeles to live," writes Harris. Wood's father opposed the idea, but his wife's "overpowering ambition to make Natalie a star" took priority. According to Wood's younger sister Lana, Pichel "discovered her and wanted to adopt her." Wood, then seven years old, got the part. She played a post-World War II German orphan, opposite Orson Welles as Wood's guardian and Claudette Colbert, in Tomorrow Is Forever (1946). When Wood was unable to cry on cue, her mother tore a butterfly to pieces in front of her to ensure she would sob for a scene. Welles later said that Wood was a born professional, "so good, she was terrifying." He also said "Natalie doesn't act from the script, she acts from the heart." Wood acted in another film directed by Pichel, The Bride Wore Boots, and went on to 20th Century Fox to play Gene Tierney's daughter in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947). Miracle on 34th Street Wood's best-known film as a child was Miracle on 34th Street (1947), starring Maureen O'Hara and John Payne at Fox. She plays a cynical girl who comes to believe a kindly department store holiday-season employee portrayed by Edmund Gwenn is the real Santa Claus. The film has become a Christmas classic; Wood was counted among the top child stars in Hollywood after the film and was so popular that Macy's invited her to appear in the store's annual Thanksgiving Day parade. Film historian John C. Tibbetts wrote that for the next few years following her success in Miracle, Wood played roles as a daughter in a series of family films: Driftwood (1947), at Republic; Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay! (1948); Chicken Every Sunday (1949); The Green Promise (1949); Fred MacMurray's daughter in Father Was a Fullback (1949), with O'Hara; Margaret Sullavan's daughter in No Sad Songs for Me (1950); the youngest sister in Our Very Own (1950); Never a Dull Moment (1950); James Stewart's daughter in The Jackpot (1950); Dear Brat (1951); Joan Blondell's neglected daughter in The Blue Veil (1951); The Rose Bowl Story (1952); and Just for You (1952); the daughter of Bette Davis' character in The Star (1952); . In all, Wood appeared in over twenty films as a child. She also appeared on television in episodes of Kraft Theatre and Chevron Theatre. Because Wood was a minor during her early years as an actress, she received her primary education on the studio lots wherever she was contracted. California law required that until age 18, child actors had to spend at least th.... Discover the Martin Wagner Scott Lambert popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Martin Wagner Scott Lambert books.