"It's raining cats and dogs!"
Gossipy Kate’s
Unscripted Endings
sheds a little light… |
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 Linda Darnell |
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 Natalie Wood |
Nightmares…dreams that leave us awake and trembling in the dark but, thankfully fade away with the warm light of day. But for Linda and Natalie, the nightmares were vivid and recurring, becoming terrifying fears that followed them into the daylight and confronted them when they least expected it. For a time both of them felt the battle was won but tragically, in the end, the nightmares returned and became their reality.
LINDA
Linda’s fear of fire came so early in her life she was never aware of being without it. Back then she was still Monetta Eloyse Darnell of Dallas, Texas, daughter of Calvin and Pearl Brown Darnell and not yet Hollywood’s “Cinderella Girl”. Born October 16, 1923, at 11 she looked 15 and was already modeling for department stores (including Neiman-Marcus) and acting with local theater groups. Her mother Pearl (a frustrated actress wannabe and dedicated stage mother) hauled her off to Hollywood in 1935 but Hollywood sent them both packing because of her tender age. But Pearl dragged her back again, and in 1939, Twentieth Century Fox and Darryl Zanuck saw what Pearl always wanted them to see. They gave the new ‘Linda’ Darnell a $750 a week contract and paired her with matinee idol Tyrone Power. At 16 years old, she became the youngest leading lady in Hollywood history.
 Linda and Ty Power in "Blood and Sand" |
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Life was now on the fast track for the “Girl With the Perfect Face”. She got her own apartment to get away from her controlling mother but then ran off and married the cameraman. She was 19, he was 41 year old cinematographer J. Peverell Marley, twice divorced and a heavy drinker, a habit Linda was soon to pick up. By 1944, Fox decided to cash in on Linda’s new found maturity (she was now 21) and dropped her innocent, virginal roles for more sultry ones.
 Linda as Tuptim at the stake |
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When Peggy Cummins was dropped from the lead in the screen adaptation of Kathleen Winsor’s racy best-seller “Forever Amber” in 1945, Linda got the role. The film was set in England during the restoration and the great London fire. One scene called for Linda to be in the midst of the holocaust. She was so frightened she had to be literally pulled onto the soundstage and, afterwards, helped trembling to her dressing room. The next year Linda was exposed to that paralyzing fear again in a scene for “Anna and the King of Siam”. She was playing Tuptim chained to a huge pile of eucalyptus logs that were set afire. She was assured the fire would not be close enough to hurt her yet when the scene was over, Linda found that her Panung (a sarong-like Siamese dress) was scorched in several places. “I never want to be that close to fire again”, she told everyone around her. But at night the dreams came more often.
 Linda with Leibmann and Lola |
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By 1950 Linda’s career continued on the upswing and the Marleys adopted a little girl they named Charlotte Mildred and called “Lola”. But the marriage ended in 1952. Two more roleS won her critical acclaim….as Daphne de Carter in the Preston Sturges’ comedy “Unfaithfully Yours” with Rex Harrison (1948) and as Lora Mae Hollingsway, one of the wives in “A Letter to Three Wives” (1949). But the next decade saw a decline in her career and trouble in her personal life. She married again in 1954 to brewery heir Philip Leibmann (it lasted less than a year) and, in 1957, to Merle Roy Robertson, a commercial pilot (it ended in divorce six years later). She gained weight and her drinking increased. When screen roles became scarce, Linda returned to the stage. It was stage production that took her to Chicago in April, 1965.
 Darnell-Liebmann wedding 1957 |
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On April 9th, 1965, Linda was visiting her former secretary and personal friend, Mrs. Richard Curtis, and asleep upstairs when fire broke out in the living room. Linda escaped through a downstairs door, but fearing that Mrs. Curtis’ daughter was trapped inside, Linda went back in to save her. The girl had escaped from through a second-floor window but Linda was found in the living room with burns over 80% of her body and died the next day. Her ashes are interred in her son-in-law’s family plot in Union Hill Cemetery, Chester County, Pennsylvania.
Note: Her birth year on the grave stone is 1924 instead of 1923.
NATALIE
 At age 8 in "The Miracle on 34th Street" |
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Natalie began her film career even earlier than Linda…she was only 4 years old when her mother took her to a film shooting on location in downtown Santa Rosa, California where they both were extras. The film was “happy landing” and the year was 1943. Maria Gurdin immediately relocated the family to Los Angeles to further the tot’s chances. Natalie was born Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko in San Francisco on July 20, 1938 to Russian immigrant parents but Nikolai changed the family name to Gurdin. When they got to L.A. Maria changed her daughter’s name to Natalie Wood. Within a year, Natalie had landed the role of the little German orphan in “Tomorrow is Forever” with Orson Welles and Claudette Colbert. Welles commented “she was so good, she was terrifying”.
 at age 10 |
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But Natalie was unhappy and withdrawn growing up. She was earning more money than many adult actors but rarely had the company of children her own age off the set. Natalie also had an abiding fear of deep, dark water and often had nightmares of drowning. While she learned to swim she never went into water over her head. She was 14 when the water terror occurred on the set of “The Star”. The script called for her to dive into the water but the director, Stuart Heisler promised a double would be used. When he changed his mind, Natalie became hysterical. It was only the intervention of the film’s star. Bette Davis that convinced Heisler to let the double take the dive.
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Natalie’s film career went up and down but she was Oscar-nominated 3 times…for “Rebel Without a cause” (1955), “Splendor in the Grass” (1961) and “Love With a Proper Stranger” (1963). She had several real love affairs and a few publicity romances before she married her true love Robert Wagner in 1958. Unfortunately her entanglement with her family caused a rift and they divorced and married others. Natalie married Richard Gregson in 1969 and they had a daughter, Natasha, before divorcing in 1971. She remarried Wagner in 1972 and they also had a daughter, Courtney.
 The bride, her mother, Robert's mother and sister Lana at the first Wood-Wagner wedding. |
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On Thanksgiving weekend, 1981 Natalie and Robert invited three guests to to an informal party aboard their cabin cruiser “Splendor”. One of them was Christopher Walken currently working with Natalie in “Brainstorm” still in post-production. When the weather turned ugly, the other guests declined and only Walken sailed with them at noon that Friday. The seas continued to be rough and Chris was suffering from a slight case of mal de mer. Even Natalie had to take seasickness pills. On Saturday, they all went ashore for dinner and drinks near Isthmus Cove. There was apparently more drinks than dinner (wine and champagne, two bottles each between the four of them) and when they left for the yacht they were all fairly drunk.
 Isthmus Cove |
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Robert and Natalie got into an argument about how much she had to drink and that developed into a more heated one over how much time she was spending on the set and how little time she had left for their children. When Chris sided with Natalie over the film’s heavy schedule it became a three-for all until he left the fray and went to bed. Natalie soon followed suit and Wagner, still agitated, went up to the bridge to drink some more with the captain. It wasn’t until 1:30 a.m. when Robert went down to the cabin that he realized Natalie was missing and they could find her nowhere on the yacht. After searching the area themselves for several hours, Wagner called the harbor patrol.
 Wood and Walken in "Brainstorm" 1983 |
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They found Natalie’s body floating face down a mile and a half from the yacht and the dinghy with 3 lifejackets aboard only 200 yards away. She was dressed in a flannel nightgown, down jacket and wool socks. According to the police report, Natalie had apparently decided to go ashore and untied the dinghy. But while she was trying to board she slipped and hit her cheek, and fell into the icy water. Still trying to get aboard the dinghy she clung to the side but eventually the heavy coat dragged her down. So it was that the little girl we all watched growing up died when no one was watching.
Natalie Wood Wagner was buried in a gardenia-draped coffin wearing the present Robert had yet to give her….a fox fur coat. Her grave is in Westwood Memorial Park. In her will Natalie asked that her daughter, Natasha Gregson be left in the custody of Robert Wagner so her three children could be raised together. Natasha now goes under the name of Natasha Gregson Wagner.
By Moonmaiden