On November 29, 1981, Rebel Without a Cause actress Natalie Wood’s body was found floating in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Santa Catalina Island. Wood and her husband, fellow actor Robert Wagner, had sailed there earlier that weekend along with Wood’s Brainstorm co-star, Christopher Walken, and their skipper, Dennis Davern.
After going out for dinner and drinks on November 28, the foursome returned to the Wagners’ 60-foot yacht, the Splendour, at around 10 p.m. What happened from there isn’t entirely clear, but by the next morning, Wood was dead.
While the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner ruled Wood’s death an accidental drowning, many still believe that there’s more to the story. It was initially reported that Wagner and Walken had gotten into “nonviolent” but “heated discussions” that night, which may have caused Wood to leave the room. However, L.A.P.D. homicide detective Roy Hamilton refuted that claim.
Sometime later, Wood stepped out onto the deck, untied a rubber dinghy from the stern, and fell into the water, bruising her left cheek in the process.
Natalie Wood Was Found Dead After a Night on a Yacht. The Full Story Remains a Mystery.
In his 2008 memoir Pieces of My Heart, Wagner revealed that he and Walken did, in fact, get into an argument about Wood’s career, and that it got him angry enough to smash a wine bottle. According to Wagner, when he went below deck, Wood wasn’t there, and in searching for her, he discovered that the dinghy was gone. At first he thought she’d left because of the fight, but quickly recalled that she was terrified of dark water. Wagner radioed the Coast Guard at 3:30 a.m., though Wood’s body wouldn’t be located until closer to dawn; she was covered in bruises, and the dinghy had scratch marks on it from her fingernails.
In 2006, Davern said that he suspected Wagner had something to do with Wood’s death, and pushed for the case to be reopened. Investigators decided to give it another look in 2011 and interviewed a lot of new people. That same year, Marilyn Wayne, who’d previously spoken of hearing Wood’s cries for help, came forward, saying that she’d also overheard an altercation, followed by a man’s voice telling Wood that he was coming to get her. Although Wood’s death certificate was amended to say that she died from “drowning and other undetermined factors,” the case remains “open” and “unsolved.”
Wagner was cleared of any involvement by the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department in 2022.
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