Russian Hollywood star: How Natasha Zakharenko turned into scandalous film star Natalie Wood

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Natalie Wood was one of the brightest Hollywood stars of the 1960s, who was nominated for three Oscars. She became famous not only for her talent and beauty, but also for her difficult character, which is why the actress received the nickname "queen of scandals." Her fate could have turned out completely differently if she had been born and raised not in San Francisco, but in Vladivostok - in the homeland of her father Nikolai Zakharenko.

Natasha's father, Nikolai Zakharenko, was from Vladivostok, and his mother, Maria Zudilova, was from Barnaul. During the revolution, her parents fled from Vladivostok to China, and from there left for the United States, settling in San Francisco. There their daughter was born. She got her first film role at the age of 4. Only in the credits was she referred to as Natalya Gurdina - her father decided that Zakharenko's surname was "too plebeian" for an actress. And at the age of 7, the girl had a new pseudonym, which she wore until the end of her days - Natalie Wood.

Her film career was very successful: by the age of 18, she had already starred in 25 films and became a real Hollywood star. After the premiere of the films Rebel Without a Cause and West Side Story, she was called the second Elizabeth Taylor, and offers from directors poured in one after another. Several times she was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress. The film "West Side Story" is still considered one of the finest American film musicals in the history of Hollywood.

She has starred with such Hollywood stars as James Dean, Warren Beatty, Frank Sinatra and Robert Wagner. The latter has been her idol since she was 10 years old. Even then, she swore to herself that she would definitely become his wife. And her dream came true: in 1957, Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner got married. True, this marriage lasted only 4 years and broke up due to the infidelity of both spouses.

After the divorce, Natalie Wood went all out: she twisted novels, changing partners like gloves, began to drink and often made fights. It was then that she earned the nickname "queen of scandals." In Hollywood, they were afraid of her - she brutally dealt with her offenders, many quarrels with her cost a career.

In 1972, a couple of Wagner and Wood reunited - either on the basis of mutual love for each other, or because of the same mutual passion for alcohol. Their remarriage turned into a grandiose binge, which was written about in all the newspapers the next day. Despite the fact that Natalie forgave her husband for all his sins, she could no longer trust him. Her jealousy reached such proportions that she ordered eavesdropping devices to be installed in their house so that they know what her husband was doing during her absence. Scandals in their house did not stop.

In the 1970s. her fame began to fade: perhaps the reason was her drunken antics and constant rumors about treatment for alcohol addiction, because of which the directors preferred not to deal with her. One of the last notable roles Natalie Wood played in the film "From Now and Forever" in 1979, for which she was awarded the "Golden Globe".

In 1981, the news spread around the world: Natalie Wood died under mysterious circumstances. On the morning of November 30, fishermen found the body of a woman near the shore. It became known that on the evening of November 29, after another quarrel, Natalie Wood and her husband recovered to ride on a yacht. Experts came to the conclusion that at night the actress was woken up by a knock on the side of a boat tied to the yacht. She tried to secure the boat, the deck was wet, the woman slipped and fell into the water. And she could die due to the fact that she hit her head on the side and lost consciousness (this was evidenced by the nature of the injuries).

This version was official, although the press put forward other assumptions - the scandalous nature of the actress and the long-standing alcohol addiction could provoke a violent death, which, however, has not been proven. In 2011, the police resumed their investigation into the circumstances of the death of the Hollywood star, and although no new evidence was found, the wording was changed from "accident" to "unexplained circumstances." The secret of her death was never revealed.

At that time, Natalie Wood was 43 years old, but she looked much younger and was in great shape. Her unrealized acting potential was no less regretted than the beauty lost for cinema. And later, in the recordings of the actress, they found a story about the nightmare that haunted her: "I am in black water and I know: my death has come …". Unfortunately, this obsessive dream turned out to be prophetic.

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