There are few Hollywood mysteries more enduring—or more heartbreaking—than the one surrounding Natalie Wood's tragic death.
The actress—known for starring roles in films like West Side Story, Rebel Without a Cause, and Splendor in the Grass—drowned in 1981, when she was just 43 years old; but the circumstances surrounding the fatality are barely any clearer today than they were when the news first broke. Now, in HBO's new documentary, Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind, Wood's oldest daughter, Natasha Gregson Wagner, is digging into her mother's life and death with brand new interviews with those closest to her. This includes a very direct conversation with Wood's husband, actor Robert Wagner, whom many believe to be a prime suspect in any foul play that may have played a role in her untimely end.
Below, a timeline of the known events of Wood's passing, which remains cloaked in mystery to this day.
Late November 1981
After Thanksgiving 1981, Wood and Wagner began planning one of their frequent boat trips to Catalina Island, off the coast of California. According to several interviews in Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind, the actress invited multiple friends to join them on the trip, but most of the invitees declined, citing the less-than-ideal sailing weather that weekend. Wood's Brainstorm costar, Christopher Walken, who was in town for the film, but not from Los Angeles, was the only person to accepted, joining Wood, Wagner, and Dennis Davern, the captain of the couple's yacht, Splendour.
November 28, 1981
Wood, Wagner, Walken, and Davern enjoyed a champagne-filled dinner at the restaurant Doug's Harbor Reef in Catalina before re-boarding the yacht for the evening. Don Whiting, the night manager of the restaurant, later said he was worried that all four were too intoxicated to make it back to the boat safely in their dinghy after the meal and even went so far as to ask Kurt Craig of the Harbor Patrol to make sure the group made it safely back to their yacht when they left the restaurant at 10:30 p.m. The toxicology report released after Wood's death revealed that the actress had a blood alcohol content of 0.14 percent at the time of her death.
In the HBO documentary, Wagner describes having a heated conversation with Walken after dinner, during which Wood was not present, but believed to be safe elsewhere onboard.
At around 11:05 p.m. that evening, other passengers realized that Wood had gone missing and began looking for her. Around this time, they realized that the boat's dinghy was also gone.
November 29, 1981
At 1:30 a.m., a ship-to-shore call was made and two hours later, at 3:30 a.m., the Coast Guard was finally called. This part of the timeline has become of particular interest to investigators.
"There are many, many things that should be examined, but mainly the four-hour wait to call for the Coast Guard," Marti Rulli, co-author of the book, Goodbye Natalie, Goodbye Splendour previously told CNN.
At around 8 a.m., Wood's body was found about a mile south of the couple's yacht, off an isolated cove known as Blue Cavern Point.
November 30, 1981
Dr. Joseph Choi, a deputy medical examiner at the Los Angeles Medical Examiner’s Office performed an autopsy on Wood. Noting Wood's blood alcohol levels and several bruises on her arms, legs, and face, believed to be consistent with a fall overboard while she was trying to board the dinghy, the office ruled the death an accident, according to Huffington Post.
September 1, 1997
Walken broke his silence on the night of Wood's death, offering a theory as to how she died. The actor's account of the evening, given during an interview with Playboy Magazine, was consistent with investigators' initial findings.
In the interview, Walken said, per The Hollywood Reporter:
"Anybody there saw the logistics—of the boat, the night, where we were, that it was raining—and would know exactly what happened. You hear about things happening to people—they slip in the bathtub, fall down the stairs, step off the curb in London because they think that the cars come the other way—and they die. You feel you want to die making an effort at something; you don’t want to die in some unnecessary way.
"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. There was a ski ramp that was partially in the water. It was slippery—I had walked on it myself. She had told me she couldn’t swim; in fact, they had to cut a swimming scene from [Brainstorm]. She was probably half asleep, and she was wearing a coat."
November 17, 2011
Thirty years after her death, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department reopened their investigation after receiving "additional information" from unidentified sources who contacted the authorities.
November 18, 2011
In an interview with NBC's Today, Davern said he lied about Wood's death when he was originally questioned by police. He also claimed that Wagner was actually responsible for the tragedy.
January 14, 2013
The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department officially changed Wood's cause of death from an accidental drowning to "drowning and other undetermined factors." The change came after investigators determined that some of the bruises found on Wood's body during her initial autopsy may have been sustained before she drowned. However, coroners said they couldn't definitely confirm when exactly the bruises were inflicted.
February 1, 2018
Wagner was officially named as a person of interest in Wood's death for the first time. Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Lieutenant John Corina disclosed the update during an interview with CBS News' 48 Hours.
2020
In Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind, her daughter, Natasha Gregson Wagner, confronts Wagner on-camera about speculation that he had something to do with Wood's death. He denied the accusations and Gregson Wagner offered her emphatic support, stressing that she does not believe he was involved in her mother's death in anyway.
