robert wagner's yacht splendour for sale

The yacht tied to actress Natalie Wood’s mysterious 1981 death is out of Oahu waters

HONOLULU, Hawaii (HawaiiNewsNow) - A boat that was once a crucial piece of evidence in a Hollywood homicide investigation has finally been removed from Honolulu waters.

The yacht “Splendour” is now a sitting scrap heap. On Tuesday, the state hauled the vessel from the Ala Wai Harbor. It’s been sitting there unused for over 20 years as it changed owners.

But it was once owned by actor Robert Wagner who was questioned in 1981 following the death of his wife, actress Natalie Wood.

Wood is said to have fallen from the boat one night, yet conflicting witness statements from Wagner, actor Christopher Walken, and the boat’s captain led to an extensive investigation.

For years, her death was classified as an accident until new witnesses emerged and the case was reopened in 2011. Authorities now consider Wagner a person of interest.

The vessel itself has racked up nearly $12,000 in illegal mooring fees, and it will cost the state almost $14,500 to get rid of the yacht.

The DLNR adds that the boat was in extremely poor condition and was in danger of sinking.

To this day, no one has ever been arrested in connection to Wood’s death.

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Owner of yacht which Natalie Wood died on 28 years ago puts it up for sale claiming it's 'haunted' by West Side Story star

• Natalie Wood 'haunts The Splendour yacht' where she was last seen alive
• Ron Nelson bought it in 1986 but claims spirit is increasingly present
• He said he has experienced 'weird falls' and 'ghost sat on my bed'
• West Side Story actress Wood drowned in 1981 after being aboard 

By Mia De Graaf for MailOnline

Published: 17:22 EDT, 1 November 2014 | Updated: 18:39 EDT, 1 November 2014

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The owner of the yacht where Natalie Wood spent her final moments has put it on the market after claiming the actress still haunts the decks. 

Ron Nelson bought The Splendour in 1986, five years after the West Side Story actress mysteriously drowned off the coast of Catalina Island.

But now, 28 years later, he has revealed the force of Wood's spirit is too strong, forcing him to get rid of it altogether. 

Scroll down for video 

Haunted? The new owner of The Splendour claims Natalie Wood still haunts the yacht 33 years after she died

Mystery: Wood drowned in November 1981 after being on the yacht with her husband Robert Wagner

The numerous 'supernatural' incidents include a number of 'weird falls', he told the National Enquirer .

'It’s just like my feet came out from under me and I fell,' he explained. 

Another time a being sat on his bed: 'Something sat down on the bed and then left.'

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And during the recent Hurricane Ana, The Splendour became suspiciously waterlogged, he said. 

In 2011, Nelson, a former United Airlines flight attendant, admitted to Hawaii's KITV.com that 'there's been a lot of strange things that have happened on the boat.'

He even had the yacht blessed by two Hawaiian kahunas - a kind of shaman - to clean teh boat's spirit.

Incidents? Ron Nelson, who bought the boat in 1986, claims he has had a number of 'weird falls' on board

'Ghost': Nelson said he was lying in bed one night and a spirit came and sat on the bed then left

But despite his efforts, he says, it is unbearable.

He hopes a museum will buy The Splendour to preserve it.

The stateroom contains many of the same tiles, the same blue bed remains in exactly the same spot and the initials WW are still etched into the captain's seat.

Nelson bought the boat from Robert Wagner, Wood's husband.

He carried out small renovations, before taking two friends on a trip to Catalina Island, where the actress died. He said it was a 'last goodbye to Natalie'.

Afterwards, they made the two week trip to Hawaii where he has spent 10 years restoring the boat. He said he was now almost ready to begin chartering voyages.

Hurricane: The boat became waterlogged after the recent Hurricane Ana - the last straw for spooked Nelson

Blessed but still haunted: Nelson got two Hawaiian shaman to cleanse the boat but it is 'still haunted', he says

He said he tried to keep his makeover as close to the original as possible, and has kept the stateroom with the blue bed, dubbed 'Natalie's Room', and most of the tiles.

The initials WW are still etched onto the captain's seat, just as they were when Wagner and Natalie owned the boat.

Nelson said the 60ft boat's history was one of the reasons why he bought it, and told Hawaii's KITV.com said: 'I have read pretty much every article ever written about her death.' 

Share or comment on this article: Yacht where Natalie Wood mysteriously drowned up for sale as new owner claims West Side Story actress 'haunts it' 

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Owner of ‘Splendour’, the Yacht Once Owned by Hollywood Stars Natalie Wood and her husband Robert Wagner, Becomes Instant Celebrity

The Honolulu resident, who has had a mooring permit in the a small boat harbor in Honolulu, is the owner of the Splendour , a yacht once owned by Hollywood stars Natalie Wood and her husband Robert Wagner.

The yacht, which will soon be inspected by Los Angeles investigators, may be a key part of the investigation reopened yesterday into the 1981 drowning death of Wood.

Reached by phone today, his wife said a number of media outlets are asking for interviews.

The Los Angeles Police Department said today in a press conference that using new DNA technology, investigators will examine the boat that Wood, Wagner and their friend Christopher Walken were on the night the actress died 30 years ago. They have not disclosed what they expect to find.

The boat captain Dennis Davern, who was with the trio the night Wood fell off the boat and drown, alleges that Wagner is responsible for Wood’s death and that he lied for Wagner in the past as a part of a cover up.

This comes as 48 Hour Mysteries and Vanity Fair magazine are about to release a special investigative report on the star’s demise.

48 Hours Presents Vanity Fair: Hollywood Scandal airs Saturday, Nov. 19 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on CBS, the network’s web site said.

Police so far maintain that Wagner is not a target of the investigation.

However, Wood’s sister also claims Wagner is responsible for the beloved star’s death.

She told TMZ  that Wagner  “left her to drown” and told the captain to ‘Leave her there, teach her a lesson.”

The captain said publicly today that he was prevented by Wagner from calling the U.S. Coast Guard for four hours.

Reports are that Wood, Wagner and Walken were drinking heavily that night, and Wood and Wagner had a volatile fight over whether Walken wanted to sleep with her. The captain claims to have turned up his music so he would not have to hear them argue.

The question police have to answer now is whether Wood fell, or slipped trying to get off the boat into a smaller dingy, or was pushed into the water while they were sailing off of Catalina Island.

Marti Rulli, who authored “ Goodbye Natalie, Goodbye Splendour” in September 2009 could not be reached for comment, but her investigation – and the other new publicity surrounding her death – may have contributed to police reopening the case.

Wagner has not made a statement about the LA police department’s decision.

A source close to the Wagner family told Hawaii Reporter that Wagner has been cooperating with the police and they don’t believe the captain’s story is credible.

A statement released from Wagner’s publicist is similar: “We trust they will evaluate whether any new information relating to the death of Natalie Wood Wagner is valid, and that it comes from a credible source or sources other than those simply trying to profit from the 30-year anniversary of her tragic death.”

Wood, who was nominated three times for Oscars for her roles in West Side Story and Rebel with out a Cause , also starred  as a child in such films as the Christmas classic Miracle On 34th Street and The Ghost And Mrs. Muir .

Meanwhile when the Los Angeles police will arrive in Honolulu is part of the mystery – at least for now.

Honolulu Police Department has not been contacted so far by Los Angeles authorities to aid in the investigation, according to Caroline Sluyter, spokesperson for HPD.

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Owner selling tragic Natalie Wood yacht because 'West Side Story star haunts it'

Ron Nelson is selling the yacht where Natalie Wood spent her final moments after claiming the actress still haunts the decks

• 14:45, 2 Nov 2014

The owner of the yacht on which film star Natalie Wood was last seen alive is putting it up for sale claiming that it is haunted by the actress.

Ron Nelson bought The Splendour in 1986 five years after Wood was found mysteriously drowned on the California coast.

But Nelson said that he has experienced an number of "supernatural" incidents including "weird falls" and has now decided to get rid of the boat.

He said: "It’s just like my feet came out from under me and I fell."

Another time he felt a presence : "Something sat down on the bed and then left."

Wood, best known for her part in West Side Story, died off the coast of Catalina Island. She had been on the boat with her husband Robert Wagner but at some point in the night left.

Her body was found a mile away in the sea with a small dinghy beached nearby.

The circumstances surrounding her death on November 29, 1981, have never been established.

Nelson, a former United Airlines flight attendant, has even had the vessel blessed by two Hawaiian kahunas - a kind of shaman - in an attempt to placate the restless spirit.

He bought the boat from Hollywood actor Robert Wagner then took it on a trip to Catalina Island on what he called a 'last goodbye to Natalie'.

Afterwards, he sailed to Hawaii where he has spent 10 years restoring the boat. He is hoping a museum will buy The Splendour to preserve it.

Nelson had earlier told a TV station that "there's been a lot of strange things that have happened on the boat".

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Yacht where natalie wood was last seen alive is haunted, up for sale, owner says.

Kent Nishimura/Getty Images

The 'Splendour' is up for sale, with its owner claiming the ship is haunted.

Actress Natalie Wood was found dead after last being on the ship with her husband Robert Wagner and actor Christopher Walken.

The 'Splendour' is up for sale, with its owner claiming the ship is haunted.

Ron Nelson told Radar Online that the spirit of the Hollywood star is haunting him and he is so spooked he is selling the “Splendour.”

He claims he has had several unexplained accidents on the boat and once felt a strange presence beside him.

“I’ve been hurt twice in the boat mysteriously. Weird falls. It’s just like my feet came out from under me and I fell,” he said.

On a trip to Hawaii, he became even more spooked.

“Something sat down on the bed and then left,” he said.

Nelson even had the boat blessed by two Hawaiian priests — or kahunas — to cleanse the vessel.

But there may be another reason for selling up. The “Splendour” was damaged in a recent hurricane.

Wood was on the boat in November 1981 while on a weekend trip to Santa Catalina Island, Calif., with her husband Robert Wagner and Christopher Walken.

Her body was discovered a mile away from the boat and her death was initially as an accident by drowning and hypothermia.

The “Rebel Without a Cause” and “West Side Story” star was just 43 at the time of her death.

The cause of death was subsequently changed to “drowning and other undetermined factors” two years ago, following claims by the boat’s captain Denis Davern that he had lied during the investigation and that Wood and Wagner had fought in the evening prior to Wood’s death.

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With all the recent news about Natalie Wood's death, there have been a few photos of the boat that Wagner owned. Intrigued by its lines I was wondering if anyone had any additional info about it. It appears to be named Splendour, and reportedly a 1960 58' Bristol Boat made by the Allen Quimby Veneer Company out of Bristol, Maine. The boat is currently owned by Ron Nelson and is docked at Ala Wai Yacht harbor in Honolulu. He bought the boat in 1986. The boat was previously called Grateful Lady and Nelson changed the name back to Splendour. He has been restoring her to her original and recreating the Natalie Woods theme on the boat. There are a few shots of the exterior and interior here. Interior: http://photos.tmz.com/galleries/insi...ab=most_recent Exterior: http://photos.tmz.com/galleries/nata...ab=most_recent Any other info on Bristol Boats?

Formally Top Hatt and Tails 1980 53MY

Re: Splendour Yacht - Natalie Wood

Hi All, A bunch more pictures on this site. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...=feeds-newsxml

Gene Former Owner 1974 Hatteras Yachtfish Glittering Image Hull # 50 Total Production 1972-1975 Sixty Four

Strange layout, that so called stateroom opens out to the aft cockpit? and the bed is a hideaway ?

Ok, now the story makes sense. I never could figure out how she got from her cabin to the dingy with the guys sitting in the saloon, which was the story in the press (of course the press doesn't realize how weird the layout of that boat is.... they probably think they're all built like that... But even the Yachtfisherman with the big aft cabin has no direct access to a dinghy, except through an escape hatch, which I knew Natalie would never have attempted. RJ should have bought a Hatteras!

Oooh, oooh. An opportunity to drag out old morbid jokes! Name two kinds of wood that don't float.... Petrified and ??????

--- The poster formerly known as Scrod --- I want to live in Theory, everything works there. 1970 36C375

We were moored next to them a number of times back in the day in a cove called Emerald Bay on Catalina Island off of the coast of California. She was very reclusive, but Bob Wagner was very personable and had two young daughters that he took out dinghy cruising often. He even invited our two kids who were the same age to play with the girls. Really a down to earth guy. She would wave from the boat but never interacted with others in the cove. Looking at the pictures of Splendour now, she never looked that good back then. I never could figure out, with all of their money, why they bought this boat. Anyway, this latest news item brought back some memories....Ross

A post for a new HOF member researching Quimby Boat Company and the Splendour. Please reply to John directly or via this thread (I still find it interesting): I am trying to get contact information for Ron Nelson.* I have quite a bit of historical information about the Bristol boats and would like to exchange information with him.* This boat was one of only two of this length built by the Quimby Company in the late 50's and early 60's. John Freed 651-464-5390 [email protected]

This is maybe a minor correction but the boat actually belonged to the Wood family, at least that's what I have discovered about this boat. I just may be wrong, RW could have bought this boat at any time. I suppose a search on the Title might tell the real truth but I'm pretty sure.... It's STILL for sale as of 3/9/18 for the ridiculously low price of $10,000....says the ghosts haunt the boat and that he had 3 Hawaiian Kahuna's bless the boat...IF you believe in that sort of thing...

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For Sale: Yacht 'Haunted' by Natalie Wood

Ron Nelson is selling the boat where Natalie Wood spent her final hours before drowning in the waters off California's Catalina Island, and he says it's because the yacht is haunted by Wood's ghost. "I've been hurt twice on the boat mysteriously," he tells the National Enquirer of the boat once owned by Wood's husband, Robert Wagner. "Weird falls. It's just like my feet came out from under me and I fell."

And once, while he was sleeping on the Splendour, "something sat down on the bed and then left," he says. He had the boat blessed by two Hawaiian priests, but even that failed to "clear the spirit," he says. He decided to sell the yacht after it was damaged in a recent hurricane and says he's taking offers, though he hasn't publicly revealed the asking price. (Click to read about seven other celebrity ghosts or five stars who say they've been haunted .)

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Wednesday, August 28, 2024 85° Today's Paper

Yacht tied to Natalie Wood’s drowning removed from harbor

By Star-Advertiser staff

Jan. 30, 2020

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BRUCE ASATO / [email protected]

The derelict yacht Splendour, moored at Ala Wai Small Boat Harbor for two decades, was destroyed Tuesday. Actress Natalie Wood was vacationing aboard the yacht at the time of her death in 1981.

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Splendour, a 55-foot yacht connected with the 1981 drowning death of actress Natalie Wood, was demolished Tuesday, ending a more than 20-year run in the Ala Wai Small Boat Harbor.

The vessel has been in the harbor under different ownership for more than 20 years, said Meghan Statts, assistant administrator for the Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation, part of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources. The current owner had illegally moored it in the harbor since June, racking up $12,000 in mooring fees, Statts said.

DOBOR impounded the vessel on Dec. 23, Statts said.

“The owner has not taken responsibility for the vessel, and the State Boating Fund will pay the cost for the disposal,” she said. “The cost is $14,491. The vessel has numerous structural issues and large holes in the hull. The vessel is in extremely poor condition and has been in danger of sinking.”

A large hole could be seen in the boat’s hull on Tuesday. Workers from JS International Inc. salvaged what they could before dismantling and demolishing the boat. Pieces of plywood held the hull of the boat together so it could be moved across the harbor.

The yacht once belonged to Wood’s husband, actor Robert Wagner. Prior to Wood’s drowning, the couple had spent Thanksgiving weekend on the yacht floating off Catalina Island. Their friend, actor Christopher Walken, and the boat’s captain, Dennis Davern, were also aboard.

Wood’s body was found floating off Catalina Island on the morning of Nov. 29, 1981. Her death was ruled accidental, but in 2011 the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department reopened the investigation. Wood’s death certificate was amended in 2012 to list the cause of death as “drowning and other undetermined factors.”

In 2018, Los Angeles County homicide detectives named Wagner a “person of interest” in the case.

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Natalie wood death boat -- inside the splendour, natalie wood death boat inside the splendour.

The guy who bought the boat Natalie Wood was on the night she drowned from Robert Wagner has spent the last 10 years restoring it ... as you can see from these photos from inside the boat.

Ron Nelson bought the Splendour in 1986. He tried restoring the boat as close to the original as possible.

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Natalie Wood -- Forget Her Not

Captain Dennis Davern of Natalie Wood Boat -- I Was REALLY Drunk

Natalie Wood Boat Now in Calmer Waters

Old news is old news be first.

Natalie Wood's Death Boat Ready for Open Water Again

Owner of the splendour , the yacht the actress disappeared from in 1981, has finished renovations and is taking cruise reservations.

Robert Wagner ditched the boat where Natalie Wood spent her final hours years ago.

The Splendour has passed through several owners since and now, just as police are reexamining the strange case of the actress' death after 30 years, it is ready to set sail, E! News has exclusively learned.

First of all, where can people book a cruise on the infamous boat?

MORE: Natalie Wood's Mysterious Death: A Who's Who Guide

The Splendour , which Los Angeles Sheriff's homicide detectives say they'll be visiting as part of their investigation, has been docked in Honolulu for the past 25 years, since Ron Nelson bought it at a boat show in Long Beach, Calif.

Nelson's renovations on the pleasure cruiser have been "ongoing" since he brought it to Oahu in 1986 and now folks are calling him "non-stop" about it, he says—especially now that people are wondering once again whether or not the Splendour was the scene of a crime, rather than an accidental drowning.

It was eventually presumed that Wood slipped and fallen from the deck of the boat on the evening of Nov. 28, 1981, after consuming a few too many glasses of wine while docked off of Catalina Island with Wagner and her Brainstorm costar Christopher Walken —neither of whom are now suspects, according to investigators.

READ: Natalie Wood Case: What's the Yacht Captain's Motive?

Dennis Davern , the former skipper of the boat and a longtime friend of Wood's, recently told detectives that he didn't tell the whole truth about what he witnessed that night 30 years ago, and then he said on Today that he felt Wagner was responsible for what happened to his then-wife.

And Nelson most certainly knows all about the lore—"I've read pretty much every article ever written about it," he says—and he tells E! News he never worried or felt superstitious about buying something with such an eerie history attached to it.

He says the boat will be ready to charter within the next two or three weeks and he's taking reservations at [email protected]. "As long as I own it, this is where it will be," he says.

GALLERY: Mysterious Hollywood Deaths

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Natalie Wood: What has Christopher Walken said about Hollywood star's death?

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A documentary about the death of Hollywood star Natalie Wood has aired in the US, reigniting conversation about the mysterious circumstances surrounding her death.

Wood died on 29 November 1981 after disappearing from a yacht she was on with her husband, Robert Wagner , and friend Christopher Walken .

In the documentary, titled Natalie Wood: What Remains , Wood’s daughter, Natasha Gregson Wagner, questions her stepfather about the evening.

Wagner claims that, upon returning to the boat following an off-shore meal with the others, he had an argument with Walken about Wood.

It was here when he says that Wood excused herself. Wagner later found her missing from their room before her body was found in the water.

The death was ruled an accident, but in 2018, Wagner was said to be a “person of interest” relating to the case.

“Nobody heard anything,” an emotional Wagner tells his stepdaughter in the documentary, adding: “That night has gone through my mind so many times.”

What has Walken said about the incident? The actor is absent from the documentary – and has rarely spoken about Wood’s death – but there have been brief mentions made in the past.

Five years after Wood died, Walken 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.”

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He added: “Look, we’re in a conversation I won’t have. It’s a f***ing bore.”

Heavy notes that the next time Walken spoke about the incident was in 1997, in which The Hollywood Reporter said he described Wood’s death as “an accident” in Playboy Magazine .

“What happened that night only she knows, because she was alone,” he said.

“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 [the film they were shooting at the time of Wood’s death]. She was probably half asleep.”

He added: “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.”

Natalie Wood: What Remains is available to stream on HBO Go in the US. A UK release date has yet to be announced.

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Robert Wagner and Natalie Wood’s death: What you need to know about this mystery

Robert Wagner and Natalie Wood at the Pump Room in Chicago. | Courtesy of the Ambassador East Hotel/File photo

Here we go again: Natalie Wood may never rest in peace.

In November, it will be 37 years since Wood, the Hollywood child star-turned-Oscar-nominated actress, died in a mysterious drowning off the coast of Santa Catalina , the popular pleasure island in the Pacific, 49 miles southwest of Los Angeles.

Why is her death in the news again? On Thursday, sheriff’s detectives were back for another try. CBS News reported investigators have told the network’s news magazine, 48 Hours, that Wagner is once again a “person of interest” in the case and they want to speak with him. Again.

The last time investigators said this about Wagner was in November 2011 when they reopened the case citing “substantial new information.” The official cause of death was changed but no charges were ever filed against Wagner or anyone else.

“We have not been able to prove this was a homicide,” Detective Ralph Hernandez told 48 Hours. “And we haven’t been able to prove that this was an accident, either. The ultimate problem is we don’t know how she ended up in the water.”

So why have they decided Wagner is again a person of interest? They’re not saying.

This Nov. 29, 1981 file photo, the 55-foot yacht “Splendour,” belonging to actor Robert Wagner and his wife, actress Natalie Wood, sits in the waters at Avalon, Calif., on Santa Catalina Island, near where rescuers found the body of Wood, an apparent drowning victim. | AP Photo/Paul J. Harrington, File

Wood was on a yacht with Wagner, actor Christopher Walken and the boat captain on Thanksgiving weekend of 1981. After a night of drinking, her body was found floating in the water off California’s Catalina Island. She was 43.

Investigators initially ruled it an accident but reopened the case in 2011 to see whether Wagner or anyone else played a role after the boat’s captain said he heard the couple arguing the night of her disappearance. The coroner’s office amended Wood’s death certificate the next year to include “drowning and other undetermined factors.”

Investigators have said Wagner has not been interviewed since the probe was reopened. They said in 2013 that they had tried at least 10 times to interview him but he refused. Wagner has denied any involvement in his wife’s death and no charges have been filed. His publicist, Alan Nierob, declined to comment Thursday.

Two generations have been born since the peak of Wood’s fame so unless these newcomers are fans of her classic movies (“Rebel Without a Cause,” “Splendor in the Grass,” “West Side Story”), a primer on the case might be in order.

In this April 23, 1972 file photo, actor Robert Wagner and Natalie Wood, pose at the Dorchester Hotel in London, England. | AP File Photo

What happened?

Wood was 43, a mother of two, and married to her two-time husband, handsome TV actor Robert Wagner, then 51. Like scores of other rich Angelenos with yachts, they were anchored off Catalina after a day of sailing on their 60-footer, The Splendour.

Then, on Nov. 29, 1981, she disappeared from the boat under circumstances that remain murky at best. Hours later, her body was found, clad in a flannel nightgown, red down jacket and blue socks, floating in the Pacific about a mile away from the yacht and off the island’s Blue Cavern Point.

What happened after that?

Her death was ruled an accidental drowning at the time. But the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department reopened the case in 2011; the following year, the cause of death on her death certificate was changed to “drowning and other undetermined factors.”

What was the reaction to her death?

Everyone at the time agreed Wood’s death at the height of her beauty, fame and movie-star career was shocking and tragic. But that was the only point on which there was widespread agreement.

Her death set off feverish speculation in Hollywood, especially in the media: Was it an accident or was it murder? If so, who did it? Surely not her husband, R.J., as the beloved star was known in Tinsel Town. Did they have a fight before she disappeared and what was it about?

And how come the LACSD — suspicious of Wagner from the beginning — has spent nearly four decades trying to pin something on him, and so far failed?

Who was on the yacht that night?

Natalie Wood | File Photo

Wood: Born Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko, Wood began acting in films before the age of 5, shooting to stardom in the 1947 Christmas film, Miracle on 34th Street. She earned her first Oscar nomination for best-supporting actress as a teen in Rebel and added nominations for best actress in Splendor and Love with the Proper Stranger in the 1960s.

She was married to Wagner twice; the second time, she gave birth to their daughter Courtney. In between, she was married to producer Richard Gregson, father of her elder daughter, Natasha Gregson Wagner. (Now 47, she’s an actress and is close enough to Wagner to adopt his name.)

One of the most famous facts about Wood: Since childhood, she had been deathly afraid of drowning in dark water.

Wagner: Now 87 and a recurring guest star on CBS’ NCIS, he was a charming man-about-Hollywood when he married Wood in 1957 when she was in her late teens and he was in his mid-20s. Like a lot of other women in town, she had long harbored a crush on him. Their first marriage lasted only five years; they remarried in 1972 and were still married, seemingly happily, until that night on their yacht.

Christopher Walken: Now 74, the Oscar-winning character actor (The Deer Hunter, 1978) was co-starring with Wood in a film and was a guest of the Wagners on the yacht that night. Known as a quirky character at best, Walken has said almost nothing in public about what happened.

But in 1997, he offered a plausible theory in an interview with Playboy: Half asleep, Wood, who Walken says couldn’t swim, went to move a dinghy bouncing against the side of the boat and slipped on a ski ramp partially in the water. She hit her head, fell into the water and floated away.

Dennis Davern: The boat captain, now 55 and living in Florida, has said different things about what happened that night, at first telling police it was an accident and later implying that something sinister had happened.

In 2011, in an interview with the Today show, Davern said he lied to police at first. “I made mistakes by not telling the honest truth in the (initial) police report,” Davern said then. When asked if Wagner had more of a responsibility in the case, Davern said, “Yes, I would say so, yes.” But he refused to elaborate.

Even earlier, in a 1992 interview with Geraldo Rivera’s Now It Can Be Told, he implied that he knew how Wood got into the water. And in a long Vanity Fair piece in 2000, Davern is quoted as saying that Wood and Wagner fought in their cabin before the actress disappeared.

But Davern’s credibility has not been helped by the fact that over the years he has been paid to offer parts of his story to the tabloids.

Maria Puente, USA TODAY; Contributing: Associated Press

Actress Natalie Wood photographed in December 1981. | | AP Photo/File

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What Really Happened to Natalie Wood?

The Hollywood star's death was declared accidental decades ago—but now, investigators aren't so sure.

We originally published the following investigation of Wood's death in 2018.

On a cool November day 37 years ago, four adults went for a cruise off the southwest coast of Los Angeles aboard Splendour , a 55-foot yacht. Three of those adults would come safely back to shore. The fourth would never see home again. She’d never work again or see her children reach adulthood. She was discovered floating in the water in a flannel nightgown, socks, and a down jacket the next morning.

In this story, the unlucky adult was also the most famous adult, movie star Natalie Wood , who was 43 at the time. She had been a beloved child actress, first capturing national attention in the 1947 Christmas classic Miracle on 34th Street— she played the skeptical, precocious Susan Walker—and then as a beautiful ingenue in such films as the 1961 musical West Side Story , in which she played a graceful Maria. By the age of 25, she had been nominated for three Academy Awards for Best Actress, for her leading roles in Rebel Without a Cause, Splendor in the Grass , and Love With a Proper Stranger.

But perhaps because of her tragic end, when you hear the name “Natalie Wood” today, you don’t think first of her storied career. To wit: There are 38 million Google results for the search term “Natalie Wood death.” While the circumstances surrounding her death remain murky and controversial, we can agree that in dying so young, and so mysteriously, Wood’s talent was denied a proper legacy.

In 1981, Natalie’s death was classified as an accident and “probable drowning in ocean.” Prominent Los Angeles coroner Thomas Noguchi cited in his report “numerous bruises to arms and legs” that were “superficial and probably sustained at the time of drowning” and wrote, “No other trauma noted and foul play is not suspected at this time.”

The investigator’s report attached to Noguchi’s document said that Wood and a small party that included her husband, Robert Wagner, had left the Splendour for a restaurant dinner on Catalina Island. At about 10 p.m., the “intoxicated” group returned to the yacht, using its dinghy, Valiant . Robert Wagner told the investigators that Natalie retired for the night in the couple’s cabin at about 10:45, but after talking for a while longer with their guest, Natalie’s co-star at the time Christopher Walken, Wagner went to join her in the cabin, only to find her missing.

Wagner and the others soon discovered the dinghy was also missing, and they “immediately” radioed for help. Harbor Patrol, private searchers, and eventually the Coast Guard all combed the water and island coastline, and a Sheriff’s Department helicopter eventually spotted Natalie’s floating body. She was pronounced dead at 7:44 a.m. on November 29th.

Wood’s funeral, held on December 3rd, showed a devastated, weeping Wagner, surrounded by friends, family, and the cream of the entertainment world: Laurence Olivier, Frank Sinatra, Gregory Peck, and Rock Hudson.

Instead of finality, Wood’s death only seemed to provoke questions , and three decades later, in 2011, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department reopened the investigation . And at a press conference in February of 2018, Captain Christopher Bergner of the homicide department said “new witnesses” and those with relevant information had been identified and a different timeline had emerged of Natalie Wood’s last hours on the boat and when help was requested.

At that February press conference , John Corina, a lieutenant in the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department Homicide Bureau, said that Robert Wagner, 88, was “a person of interest” in her death and they would like to speak with him again and hear his version of events. The new witnesses, he said, were people in boats moored near the Wagner yacht who heard a couple loudly arguing as well as a woman calling for help.

“[Wagner] is a person of interest, because he was the last one with Natalie Wood. And somehow she ends up in the water and drowns," said Corina.

Natasha: The Biography of Natalie Wood

“The case is still open,” says Suzanne Finstad, author of Natasha: The Biography of Natalie Wood . (Natasha was the name her Russian family called her.) When Finstad’s book was published in 2009, it contained startling claims about arguments between Wood and Wagner shortly before she was declared missing from their yacht. The source was the fourth person on the boat, its captain, Dennis Davern, who is now 70. In the February press conference, Corina said the witness statements from those who heard a couple fighting matched up with what Davern has said in recent police interviews.

Corina added that his department have also talked to witnesses who saw the group on Catalina Island that weekend as well as people who knew Wagner and Wood. Some of the details that have emerged about the last hours of the yacht are ugly, with whispers of drunkenness, rage, and accused infidelity.

The life of Natalie Wood is like a Russian matryonshka doll, a set of wooden dolls nesting in one another. When you pick up one doll, you find another inside, over and over. Even those who thought themselves familiar with the life story of the sparkling Wood would be taken aback by the reality of her childhood.

Born Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko, Wood was the daughter of Russian immigrants. (Studio executives changed Natalia’s name to Natalie Wood when she first started acting as a child.) Her father, Nikolai Zakharenko, was a laborer given to violent alcoholic rages, and her mother, Maria, was a fantasist and abusive taskmaster who drove her tiny daughter to become the family breadwinner, according to Finstad’s biography and other books, documentaries, and articles about Wood.

Maria’s family fled to China after the Russian Revolution, and when she was a child, she said she had her fortune read by a gypsy in Harbin. The fortune teller told her that her second child “would be a great beauty, known throughout the world.” But she also said that Maria must “beware of dark water.” Maria passed on that fear to her second daughter, while pushing her to fulfill that first prophecy.

There are harrowing stories of Maria’s career as a stage mother. She was determined that her daughter, after receiving small parts, would be cast in the 1946 film Tomorrow Is Forever alongside Orson Welles. The character was that of an emotionally fragile girl orphaned by the Nazis. To win the part, Wood would have to be able to cry on cue. Her mother wasn’t sure she could do it. At the studio, clutching her seven-year-old daughter before her screen test, Maria whispered to her to think of the death of the family dog.

But she went much further than that, according to Finstad’s book. “Her mother pulled her to the side, where no one else could see, ‘took a live butterfly out of a jar and tore the wings off it.’ Tenderhearted Natasha went into hysterics as her mother called out, ‘She’s ready!’ grabbing her by the hand and pushing her in front of the camera.”

Wood was so moving in the film that she won a long-term studio contract. She was famously hard-working, learning not just her lines but everyone else’s, and earning the nickname “One Take Natalie.” She performed in a dizzying number of movies, including The Ghost and Mrs. Muir , and, as she reached her teen years, wore braids and frilly dresses so she could play younger roles.

But, unsurprisingly, Wood rebelled from her mother’s tight control and her ultra-wholesome image by the time she was 16. She wanted to be a “real” actress, an artist, and with some difficulty won a part in Rebel Without a Cause , co-starring James Dean and Sal Mineo.

This period also launched her sexual rebelliousness. Wood, 16, had an affair with the 44-year-old director, Nicholas Ray, and also slept with her co-star Dennis Hopper, according to Finstad’s book. In the next few years she would date entertainers like Elvis Presley and heartthrob Tab Hunter. In Hunter’s case she was playing the part of beard, since the gay actor was then in the closet.

Wagner was different. She had long had a crush on the handsome actor, and they went on their first date on her 18th birthday. They married one year later, in 1957, becoming Hollywood’s golden couple. But the marriage did not last. Following their divorce in 1962, Wood dated Warren Beatty before marrying British producer Richard Gregson in 1969. It was with Gregson that she had her first daughter, Natasha .

To the delight of her fans, after she divorced Gregson in 1972, Wood got back in touch with Wagner. They remarried that same year, one decade after their divorce. This time, the marriage flourished, and they had a daughter, Courtney. Wagner’s career took off when he found a hit TV series in Hart to Hart . During that time, Wood made fewer films. Some say she wanted to devote more time to her family, but she was also finding it hard to get good parts after 40.

Wood’s last movie was Brainstorm , in which she played a scientist married to a fellow scientist portrayed by Christopher Walken. The New York-based actor had just won an Academy Award for The Deer Hunter . Wood told friends she was worried that she looked older than Walken onscreen (she was five years his senior), but they struck up a friendship, and rumors swirled about their connection.

The film’s first assistant director, David McGiffert told Wood’s biographer, “It wasn’t like they were lovey-dovey on the set or anything like that, but they just had a current about them, and an electricity.”

.css-4rnr1w:before{margin:0 auto 1.875rem;width:60%;height:0.125rem;content:'';display:block;background-color:#9a0500;color:#fff;} .css-1x12re0{margin:0rem;font-size:1.625rem;line-height:1.2;font-family:NewParis,NewParis-fallback,NewParis-roboto,NewParis-local,Georgia,Times,serif;color:#030929;}@media(max-width: 64rem){.css-1x12re0{font-size:2.25rem;line-height:1.1;}}@media(min-width: 48rem){.css-1x12re0{font-size:2.625rem;line-height:1.1;}}@media(min-width: 64rem){.css-1x12re0{font-size:2.8125rem;line-height:1.1;}}.css-1x12re0 em,.css-1x12re0 i{font-style:italic;font-family:inherit;}.css-1x12re0 b,.css-1x12re0 strong{font-family:inherit;font-weight:bold;} "It wasn’t like they were lovey-dovey on the set or anything like that, but they just had a current about them, and an electricity."

For the Thanksgiving weekend of 1981, Wood and Wagner invited Walken to join them as they sailed around Catalina Island, a rocky getaway about 22 miles off the shores of Los Angeles. Wagner loved his yacht Splendour and the family spent as much time on it as they could; in a 1979 TV interview, Wood talked about how it allowed the family to escape the public eye. “It’s easy with the boat,” she said with a smile.

Davern, a family friend as well as Navy vet, was the captain that fateful weekend. He has said in multiple interviews—and in a book that he co-wrote with Marti Rulli , titled Goodbye Natalie, Goodbye Splendour— that after Natalie Wood’s body was found, Wagner him and Walken to stick to the original story. That was the timeline that showed up in the 1981 coroner’s report : Natalie went to bed first; when Wagner after chatting with Walken went to join her, he saw she was missing and so was the dinghy.

However, Davern now says, that wasn’t the whole truth.

“The argument started the day before,” Davern told Nancy Grace in a televised interview years later. “The tension was going through the whole weekend. Robert Wagner was jealous of Christopher Walken.”

According to Davern, Wood and Walken spent hours at a bar on Catalina Island, laughing and seemingly flirting. When her husband showed up, he was fuming. The four proceeded to have dinner at Doug’s Harbor Reef Restaurant, drinking champagne, two bottles of wine, and cocktails. At one point, Wood or Walken threw a glass at the wall, employees of the restaurant told Finstad.

The restaurant manager saw how drunk the members of the group were becoming, and worried they would not be able to reach their yacht safely when they staggered out just after 10 p.m. Using their inflatable dinghy, Valiant , the group did reach Splendour that night, but Wood was dead hours before sunrise.

The story of what happened when the four of them returned to the yacht has changed several times. According to Finstad’s book, Walken early on told the investigators that he and Wagner got into a “small beef” about a parent being away from young children for an extended time shooting a movie, as Natalie was doing. Apologies were made, and the spat died down.

However, in his most recent version , Davern says they resumed drinking wine and that a very heated argument exploded, during which Wagner broke a bottle of wine on a table and shouted at Walken, “Are you trying to f—-k my wife?”

Goodbye Natalie, Goodbye Splendour

Davern said Walken left to go to his own room “and that was the last I saw of him.” Wood also left for her state room, with Wagner following, and Davern heard the ensuing loud quarrel. While Davern did not see them at this point, he said he heard the argument continue on the deck of the boat, before “everything went silent.” After a time, he decided to check on the situation, and found Wagner alone on deck, saying, “Natalie is missing.” He asked Davern to start looking for her.

When his search was unsuccessful, Davern said he rejoined Wagner, who then told him, “The dinghy is missing too.” With Natalie Wood being “deathly afraid of water,” Davern says he doubted she would have taken out the small boat herself. He has said in multiple interviews that Wagner, saying he didn’t want to attract bad publicity, refused to turn on the boat’s flood lights and delayed calling for help.

Sheriff’s investigators have referred to a key witness statement from Marilyn Wayne , who happened to be in a boat moored 80 feet away at the time. Wayne said that around 11 p.m., she heard a woman calling out, saying, “Somebody please help me, I’m drowning.” The cries went on until almost 11:30 pm. When Wayne’s boyfriend tried to call the harbormaster, no one answered. Also, there might have been a party on another boat moored off the island, so they wondered if it was all a joke.

Most troubling, it seems there was a critical gap before anyone learned Wood was missing. Far from notifying authorities “immediately,” according to Finstad’s reporting in her book as well as Davern in his many television and print interviews, Wagner did not make the first call to shore until 1:30 a.m.

Lana Wood , Natalie’s younger sister, has often called for Wagner to say more about what happened that night. “She would never have left the boat like that, undressed, in just a nightgown,” said Wood in one TV interview.

In 2013, Wagner released a statement through his attorney, Blair Berk, as reported by E! News : "Mr. Wagner has fully cooperated over the last 30 years in the investigation of the accidental drowning of his wife in 1981. Mr. Wagner has been interviewed on multiple occasions by the Los Angeles sheriff’s department and answered every single question asked of him by detectives during those interviews.”

The sheriff’s department said in February that the team is still working to see if more witnesses can still remember the night and may help fill in the timeline and provide more clues about when exactly Wood went into the water. “We’re doing our last shot here to see if anyone else will come forward,” said Corina at the press conference .

Finstad said that something could still advance the investigation: “In the past several months I’ve sent the lead detective two new incriminating eyewitnesses to Natalie’s injuries. After my book was published I found a key witness Davern called in a panic hours after Natalie drowned to confide how she went overboard,” the biographer told Town & Country.

Wagner has never been charged with any crime in connection to the death of his wife, meaning that if he chose to give further statements to the police, it would be purely voluntary. According to the Associated Press , “Investigators made at least 10 attempts to interview Wagner again after reopening the investigation in 2011, including tracking him down in Colorado. But either Wagner or his lawyer refused.”

“We would love to talk to Robert Wagner,” said Corina. “He’s refused to talk to us….We can never force him to talk to us. He has rights and he can not talk to us if he doesn’t want to.”

The Sheriff’s Department’s public acknowledgement that Wagner was a person of interest only deepens the tragedy for Finstad. “The L.A. Coroner, remarkably, officially changed her cause of death 30 years later—which means that Wood’s suspicious and gruesome death was never investigated and she was wrongly and publicly blamed and shamed as the drunken cause of her own death,” says Finstad.

Wagner, called “R.J.” by those who know him, appeared to have been shattered by the loss of his wife. He wrote in his memoir , “There are only two possibilities—either she was trying to get away from the argument or she was trying to tie the dinghy. But the bottom line is that nobody knows exactly what happened.”

Natalie and R.J.’s daughter, Courtney, was seven years old when she lost her mother. Courtney has continually expressed her love and support for her father, praising his efforts to protect his children, and told one interviewer , “There are certain people in our lives that continue to drudge up all this speculation and stories every year for no other reason than to indulge themselves.”

Like Wagner, Walken has said very little in public about Wood’s death. In one of his few statements, he suggested that people couldn’t handle the strangeness, the randomness, of Wood’s drowning.

“Anybody there saw the logistics—of the boat, the night, where we were, that it was raining—and would know exactly what happened,” Walken said in a Playboy interview in 1997 , his fullest public response to the tragedy. “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.”

For those who knew Wood, it is the ugliness of her death that is so deeply painful, for she was a kind, warm woman who took pride in looking her best. And up to that last fateful weekend, she seemed to have been deeply in love with her husband.

“I guess we do belong together,” she said in an interview with Hollywood columnist Shirley Eder , talking about her compatibility with Robert Wagner. “Yeah, I think we do.”

Or as adorable Susan Walker said in A Miracle on 34th Street, “I believe, I believe. It’s silly, but I believe.”

Nancy Bilyeau, a former staff editor at InStyle, Rolling Stone and Entertainment Weekly, has written a thriller set in the 18th century art and porcelain world titled 'The Blue.' For more information, see www.nancybilyeau.com.

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Moscow and Chinese Communists. Second Edition Paperback – January 1, 1953

• Language English
• Publisher Stanford Univ. c1953, 1963
• Publication date January 1, 1953
• See all details

Product details

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B003TORDWW
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Stanford Univ. c1953, 1963; 1973rd edition (January 1, 1953)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English

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