Happy birthday, Natalie Wood
by chuckofish
Doesn’t everyone love Natalie Wood?
Wood was born Natalia Nikolaevna Zacharenko in San Francisco to Russian immigrant parents. She made her film début a few weeks before turning five during a fifteen-second scene in the 1943 film Happy Land. In 1947 she appeared in two favorites of mine, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir and Miracle on 34th Street. A few years later at age 15 she starred with James Dean in the classic Rebel Without a Cause, uttering the immortal line, “I love somebody. All the time I’ve been… I’ve been looking for someone to love me. And now I love somebody. And it’s so easy. Why is it easy now?” Somehow she made you believe it.
And the next year she appeared in John Ford’s The Searchers with John Wayne. Indeed, she had quite a career, despite not really being a very good actress. Frequently the studio powers-that-be had her playing Native Americans, Puerto Ricans, Italians–I suppose because of those big brown eyes–and she was never very good at faking accents. But there was just something about Natalie you had to like.
She died much too young (and tragically) in 1981. Rest in peace, Natalie. May light perpetual shine upon you.
Natalie with Steve McQueen in “Love With the Proper Stranger”–a good Friday movie pic, don’t you think? Steve is better than usual in this movie, and he is always great.
dual personalities 
Is that the movie where he plants the tree still in its pot?? I like Natalie. She pretty. 🙂
I think I’ve only seen “Love with a proper stranger” once a long time ago, but I don’t remember it being good. I love “Rebel without a Cause” though.
It has a dated plot where she gets pregnant and they go to this terrible place to get her an abortion and its all very “dramatic” but Steve is good and they are a pleasure to watch. However, I do not remember planting a tree in a pot, but you know what my memory is like these days…
P.S. I just saw “Rebel” recently and that movie would be laughable without James Dean, who is terrific. It has some good moments but he makes the movie memorable. Imagine if Jim had been played by Vic Morrow or someone like that!
Oh, come on, Vic Morrow was awesome! Nobody overacts quite like Sarge.
Natalie BECAME a very good actress, but some of the parts she chose (or got assigned) were not ones appropriate for her. Burt Reynolds had a point when he said that he could play the particular light-hearted roles he played better than many performers who were more highly thought of. For example, Lawrence Olivier in THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL is proof that he was a wonderful Shakespearean actor but could not excel in any type of role. Natalie had finally gained some confidence about her abilities, and I think she would have been remarkable in the role of Anastasia. What a tragedy that her nightmares came true, even when she was surrounded by three men, including her one who should have been protecting her!
She was the rare example of a child actress who combined the beauty and talent to have a real career as an adult. Her death was, indeed, a tragedy.