Natalie Wood’s Daughter Remembers Her 43 Years After Tragic Death (Exclusive)

It’s been 43 years since the death of actress Natalie Wood, and, says her daughter, Natasha Gregson Wagner, “It’s just unbelievable that there’s a relevancy to her all these years later. And that people really feel that they knew her or that they feel this protectiveness toward her.”

“I see it when people come on to talk to me about her at the book tours,” says Natasha, who wrote an intimate memoir, More Than Love, about her mother in 2020. “I’m proud of her that she was able to have that impact on people. Maybe it was all meant to be in some weird way. Maybe her ability to touch people is larger with her not being here on earth.”

Natasha was just 11 years old on Nov. 29, 1981, when her mom, then 43, died by drowning. The loss was so traumatic that it took Natasha, now 54, some three decades or more until she was able to speak more openly about the loss.

Natasha, the daughter of Wood and her second husband Richard Gregson, first launched a fragrance line inspired by her mom’s signature gardenia scent in 2016. After her memoir, she was one of the producers on an HBO documentary Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind, which explored her mother’s life on- and off-screen, and in which she interviewed her stepfather, Robert Wagner, about what happened the night of Wood’s death. 

“If someone had told me that I’d be doing this 10 years ago, I would’ve laughed because I so wanted to forge a path that was separate from my mom,” says Natasha, who also worked as an actress in her 20s and 30s. “But I think I surrendered to whatever the universe had in store for me.”

She marvels at the continued interest in the luminous star of such classics as Rebel Without a Cause, Splendor in the Grass, West Side Story and Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, roles in which she portrayed women both vulnerable and with a certain strength — in a way that was uniquely hers. As Natasha says, “Some of these movies that have changed people’s lives.”

She connects it to the fact that fans saw Wood grow up on screen, beginning from her early films, including Miracle on 34th St., which she made when she was 8 years old. “I think it’s that they knew her since she was a little girl. I think that so many of her characters, she embodied so much humanity,” Natasha says. “So maybe people feel almost like I feel about her, almost parental. I feel maternal about my mom.”

Her emotions around the anniversary of her mom’s tragic death have also evolved over time, especially as Robert Wagner (whom she calls “Daddy Wagner”) has advanced in years. It was Wagner who raised her after her mom’s death, alongside his two daughters, Katie (whose mom was the actor’s second wife Marion Marshall) and Courtney (Wagner’s daughter with Wood), so all three girls could be together.

“Just because I’m more aware that my dad is going to be 95,” she says of the added poignancy, “and he will be my last parent to lose because I lost my Daddy Gregson in 2019.”

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As she reflects, “I think when you live longer than your parent, all of it continually shifts.” 

Becoming a parent herself (her daughter, Clover, with husband Barry Watson is now 12) was also part of the shift. She’s now teaching her more about her “Grandma Natalie.” (Clover is named after one of her grandmother’s most famous films, Inside Daisy Clover.)

Says Natasha, “It’s just really amazing for me to help Clover understand, help myself understand, and to turn my grief into something positive.”