Natalie Wood

Drowning at Catalina Island
In 1981, at the age of forty-three, Wood drowned while their yacht The Splendor was anchored at Catalina Island. An investigation by Los Angeles coroner Thomas Noguchi resulted in an official verdict of accidental drowning, although speculation about the circumstances continued.

Wood was on board the yacht with Wagner and actor Christopher Walken. There were reports Wagner and Walken had a loud argument about Walken's behavior towards Natalie, and Wood apparently tried to either leave the yacht or to secure a dinghy that was banging against the hull when she accidentally slipped and fell overboard[citation needed]. A woman on shore said she heard cries for help from the water that night, along with voices replying "we're coming."[citation needed] Wagner, Walken, and the pilot of the Splendor said they heard nothing{citation}. Noguchi revealed that Wood was legally intoxicated when she died and there were marks and bruises on her body, which could have been received as a result of her fall[citation needed]. In Noguchi's memoir, Coroner, he stated that had Natalie not been intoxicated, she would likely have realized that her heavy down-filled coat and wool sweater was pulling her underwater, and would have removed it. Noguchi said he found Natalie's fingernails still embedded in the rubber boat's side.

At the time of her death Wood was filming Brainstorm and preparing to make her stage debut in a Los Angeles production of Anastasia, opposite Dame Wendy Hiller.

She is buried in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery. She was survived by her husband, Robert Wagner, and two daughters, lookalike Natasha Gregson Wagner (from her marriage to Richard Gregson), and Courtney Wagner, her daughter with Robert Wagner. Other survivors included her stepdaughter Katie Wagner (from Robert Wagner's previous marriage to Marion Marshall), her sister, Lana Wood, and her mother. Lana Wood later published a biography of Natalie.