Hollywood star Natalie Wood is smiling at the camera.
Her husband Robert Wagner is leaning towards her as he beams at the photographer. In the background, someone can be seen at the helm of the yacht Splendour.
Five years after this photo was taken, and in the decades that followed, it would hold even more significance after Wood was tragically found dead the day after she boarded the yacht.
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More than 40 years after Wood’s death at the age of 43,
mystery continues to surround the case.
Wood was an American actress who began her career in film as a child before successfully transitioning to young adult roles.
At eight, she starred in the 1947 film Miracle on 34th Street.
She was still a teen when she starred opposite James Dean in the 1955 movie Rebel Without a Cause, which earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She appeared in the musical West Side Story, before receiving Best Actress Oscar nominations for films Splendour in the Grass and Love with the Proper Stranger.
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Wood and Wagner had a long and tumultuous relationship. They first married in December 1957 when Wood was just 19 and he was 27 but separated less than four years later and divorced in 1962.
She went on to date a string of stars, including Warren Beatty, Michael Caine and David Niven Jr before marrying British producer Richard Gregson. They had a daughter, Natasha, in 1970, but split a year later.
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She and Wagner reconnected in January 1972 and married just six months later on board a boat anchored off Malibu. Their daughter, Courtney, was born in March 1974.
Wood and Wagner boarded their 18-metre motor yacht on November 28, 1981, for a weekend trip to Santa Catalina Island off the coast of California.
Also on board was actor Christopher Walken, her co-star in a movie they were filming at the time, Brainstorm, and Splendour’s captain Dennis Davern.
At 8am the following day, authorities recovered Wood’s lifeless body floating in the water 1.6km from the boat. A small inflatable dinghy was found beached nearby.
An autopsy found Wood had bruises on her body and arms, and an abrasion on her left cheek. She had a blood alcohol reading of 0.14 and there were traces of motion-sickness medication and painkillers in her bloodstream.
Wagner told authorities he had gone to bed alone the previous night. He later admitted in his memoir Pieces of My Heart, they had argued before she disappeared.
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The Los Angeles County coroner Thomas Noguchi ruled that Wood died of accidental drowning and hypothermia. He hypothesised that Wood was drinking and might have slipped while trying to board the dinghy.
But her sister Lana said Wood was unable to swim and was so terrified of water she would not have left the yacht on her own.
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Witnesses on a nearby boat said they heard a woman screaming for help during the night.
The case was reopened in November 2011 after Davern claimed Wood had been flirting with Walken on the night of her disappearance, causing a jealous Wagner to allegedly become enraged.
He alleged they argued, and when Wood subsequently was found to be missing that night he prevented Davern from turning on the search lights or notifying authorities.
Wood’s death certificate was amended in 2012 to show the cause of death as “drowning and other undetermined factors”.
A 10-page update to Wood’s autopsy in 2013 stated that while she might have sustained some of the bruises on her body before she went into the water, this could not be definitively determined.
In 2018, Wagner was named a “person of interest” by police who reopened the investigation. A 2013 Los Angeles Times story cited the 2013 coroner’s report which said her injuries pointed to the possibility she was assaulted before she drowned.
A medical examiner who was originally involved in the case said in 2020 that her bruises were ‘substantial’ and could have been caused by being thrown out of the boat.
Walken, who hired legal representation when the case was reopened, has always maintained Wood’s death was an accident.
Five years after her death he told People: “I don’t know what happened. She slipped and fell in the water. I was in bed then. It was a terrible thing.”
He reportedly told Playboy Magazine years later, “What happened that night only she knows, because she was alone.
“She had gone to bed before us, and her room was at the back. A dinghy was bouncing against the side of the boat, and I think she went out to move it. She was probably half asleep.
“The people who are convinced that there was something more to it than what came out in the investigation will never be satisfied with the truth. Because the truth is, there is nothing more to it.”
Wagner himself commented on his wife’s death in the 2020 documentary, Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind.
In the film, Wood’s daughter, Natasha Gregson Wagner questioned her stepfather about the night.
He said they went ashore for a meal and when they returned he and Walken got in an argument about Wood.
He said Wood then excused herself and he only discovered later that she was missing.
“Nobody heard anything,” an emotional Wagner said in the documentary. “That night has gone through my mind so many times.”
Two years ago, police said they had “exhausted” their investigation. No one was charged but the case remains open.
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