In 1981, big screen legend Natalie Wood went missing from the yacht she shared with her husband, Robert Wagner—only to be found approximately six hours later, floating facedown in the Pacific Ocean. In 2000, Sam Kashner revisited the tragedy for Vanity Fair, detailing the ambiguities that have prompted decades of speculation about whether Wood’s drowning was really an accident. The next year Suzanne Finstad released Natasha, the definitive biography of Wood, which shed even more light on the night Wood died. In 2011, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department officially reopened its investigation into Wood’s death.
Now, nearly 20 years later, Finstad is rereleasing her book as Natalie Wood: The Complete Biography, an even more comprehensive volume that includes new details Finstad has learned about Wood’s death since her book’s first edition—details that, according to the author, show even more conclusively that Wood didn’t drown by chance. Below, the author reveals her most explosive findings—and explains why now, more than ever, she believes Wagner played a role in the fall that killed Natalie Wood.
