Natalie Wood

Natalie Wood (July 20, 1938 - November 29, 1981) was an American actress.

She was born Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko in San Francisco, California, but shortly thereafter her family changed their surname to Gurdin, and at the age of four she was billed as Natasha Gurdin. A well-known child star[?], she was one of the relatively few who made the transition to adult stardom. Though she could hardly be called a "great" actress in the classic sense, within her own range she was a highly effective one (winning Academy Award nominations for Rebel Without a Cause, Splendor in the Grass and Love With the Proper Stranger[?]).

Her marriage to actor Robert Wagner[?] was a stormy one, conducted in the public eye; but they were reconciled at the time of her death. She was preparing to make her stage debut in a Los Angeles production of Anastasia, opposite Dame Wendy Hiller, when she drowned in 1981. She was interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Westwood, California.

Filmography

• Miracle on 34th Street, 1947
• The Ghost and Mrs. Muir[?], 1947
• The Searchers, 1956
• Rebel Without a Cause, 1955
• West Side Story, 1961
• Gypsy, 1962
• Love With a Proper Stranger[?], 1963