Hollywood legend Natalie Wood had a dark prophecy hanging over her head long before her death. A movie star since childhood, Wood was in a series of classics before her life was cut short at 43. But despite a brilliant career, the West Side Story star had a troubling private life. Her mysterious 1981 drowning was even predicted by a psychic, creating a fear of water she never let go of.
Natalie Wood’s mother pushed her into show business
On the surface, Wood’s arrival on the 1940s scene was a triumph. Her first credited screen role (Tomorrow is Forever) put her opposite influential movie magnate Orson Welles. She was only seven at the time.
Following the success of Tomorrow is Forever, Wood landed the role that would cement her status as a child star. Miracle on 34th Street was one of the most popular movies of 1947. It remains one of Wood’s most famous roles.
Natalie Wood’s mother pushed her into show business
On the surface, Wood’s arrival on the 1940s scene was a triumph. Her first credited screen role (Tomorrow is Forever) put her opposite influential movie magnate Orson Welles. She was only seven at the time.
Following the success of Tomorrow is Forever, Wood landed the role that would cement her status as a child star. Miracle on 34th Street was one of the most popular movies of 1947. It remains one of Wood’s most famous roles.
- 3/19/2023
- by David James
- Showbiz Cheat Sheet
Actress Natalie Wood grew up, almost literally, onscreen. From her first credited role as little Margaret Ludwig in 1946’s “Tomorrow is Forever,” as the defiant Judy in 1955’s “Rebel Without a Cause,” and to the married Carol in 1969’s “Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice,” Wood embodied all the stages of not just growing up, but growing up as a woman. Much has been written about her, and nearly every year on the anniversary of her death the Lapd brings up her tragic drowning in the water off Catalina Island.
It is these tragic circumstances that immediately color HBO’s new documentary, “Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind.” Natasha Gregson-Wagner, Wood’s daughter, is the narrator and entry into Wood’s inner circle of husbands, friends, and children, hoping to tell more about the actress than just how she died, and it’s a valid crusade. Wood’s life has...
It is these tragic circumstances that immediately color HBO’s new documentary, “Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind.” Natasha Gregson-Wagner, Wood’s daughter, is the narrator and entry into Wood’s inner circle of husbands, friends, and children, hoping to tell more about the actress than just how she died, and it’s a valid crusade. Wood’s life has...
- 5/5/2020
- by Kristen Lopez
- Indiewire
This week HBO takes us on a journey down the star-studded history of Hollywood. No, we’re not talking about the fact and fiction mix of Ryan Murphy’s new streaming miniseries. It’s a look at one particular star, but it’s not a “bio-pic” similar to last year’s big award winners Rocketman and Judy, though it owes a bit to the latter. No mimics or makeup are involved here since it’s a documentary chocked full of feature film clips, archival interviews and little-seen family home movies and photos. She began as a child star, but her career blossomed as she matured, so it’s not the old “rags to riches back to rags” melodrama. But her story ends far too early in tragedy. We don’t see her on lots of merchandise, nor any campy imitators even though she starred in several iconic cinema classics. Unfortunately,...
- 5/5/2020
- by Jim Batts
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
The Hollywood Reporter on the Thanksgiving-weekend drowning death of Natalie Wood. Though only 43, Wood had been acting for nearly four decades. She was 4 when she appeared briefly in 1943's Happy Land and 7 when she made Tomorrow Is Forever with Orson Welles (who said Wood was a natural actress — "so good, she was terrifying"), and at 8 she co-starred in the Christmas classic Miracle on 34th Street.
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- 11/24/2016
- by Bill Higgins
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
What's contemporary Europe got that we ain't got? Powerful, serious filmmaking like that by Christian Petzold, starring the impressive Nina Hoss. Their sixth collaboration is a loaded narrative that takes some pretty wild narrative themes -- plastic surgery, hidden identities -- and spins them in a suspenseful new direction. Phoenix Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 809 2014 / Color / 2:39 widescreen (Super 35) / 98 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date April 26, 2016 / 39.95 Starring Nina Hoss, Ronald Zehrfeld, Nina Kunzendorf, Imogen Kogge. Cinematography Hans Fromm Film Editor Bettina Böhler Original Music Stefan Will Written by Christian Petzold, Haroun Farocki from ideas in the book Le retour des cendres by Hubert Monteilhet Produced by Florian Koerner von Gustorf, Michael Weber Directed by Christian Petzold
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
I had seen only one Christian Petzold feature before this one. 2012's Barbara is an excellent Deutsche-Millennial thriller starring Barbara Hoss as an East German doctor trying to do...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
I had seen only one Christian Petzold feature before this one. 2012's Barbara is an excellent Deutsche-Millennial thriller starring Barbara Hoss as an East German doctor trying to do...
- 5/3/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Claudette Colbert movies on Turner Classic Movies: From ‘The Smiling Lieutenant’ to TCM premiere ‘Skylark’ (photo: Claudette Colbert and Maurice Chevalier in ‘The Smiling Lieutenant’) Claudette Colbert, the studio era’s perky, independent-minded — and French-born — "all-American" girlfriend (and later all-American wife and mother), is Turner Classic Movies’ star of the day today, August 18, 2014, as TCM continues with its "Summer Under the Stars" film series. Colbert, a surprise Best Actress Academy Award winner for Frank Capra’s 1934 comedy It Happened One Night, was one Paramount’s biggest box office draws for more than decade and Hollywood’s top-paid female star of 1938, with reported earnings of $426,944 — or about $7.21 million in 2014 dollars. (See also: TCM’s Claudette Colbert day in 2011.) Right now, TCM is showing Ernst Lubitsch’s light (but ultimately bittersweet) romantic comedy-musical The Smiling Lieutenant (1931), a Best Picture Academy Award nominee starring Maurice Chevalier as a French-accented Central European lieutenant in...
- 8/19/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Hi all, it’s Tim. With Natalie Wood Week upon us, there will be much talk of the actress’s run of films as a beautifully virginal ingénue, or her transition into roles as troubled adults and young women. But I want to pause on the threshold of all those Splendor in the Grasses and West Side Stories to pay tribute to the an earlier era in the Life of Natalie, when she became one of the best-loved child actors of the 1940s (and a good time it was for child actors, too).
The film that put her on the map was Miracle on 34th Street, of course, released when the actress was a mere eight years old in 1947. It wasn’t her first credited role (that would be the Claudette Colbert/Orson Welles vehicle Tomorrow Is Forever, from 1946), nor even the first movie to showcase her to good effect; earlier that same year,...
The film that put her on the map was Miracle on 34th Street, of course, released when the actress was a mere eight years old in 1947. It wasn’t her first credited role (that would be the Claudette Colbert/Orson Welles vehicle Tomorrow Is Forever, from 1946), nor even the first movie to showcase her to good effect; earlier that same year,...
- 7/19/2013
- by Tim Brayton
- FilmExperience
Orson Welles, Ruth Warrick, Citizen Kane Orson Welles on TCM: The Third Man, The Lady From Shanghai Schedule (Et) and synopses from the TCM website: 6:00 Am The Tartars (1961) A barbarian army attacks Viking settlements along the Russian steppes. Dir: Richard Thorpe. Cast: Victor Mature, Orson Welles, Folco Lulli. C-83 mins, Letterbox Format 7:30 Am Tomorrow Is Forever (1946) A scarred veteran presumed dead returns home to find his wife remarried. Dir: Irving Pichel. Cast: Claudette Colbert, Orson Welles, George Brent. Bw-104 mins. 9:30 Am Moby Dick (1956) Epic adaptation of Herman Melville's classic about a vengeful sea captain out to catch the whale that maimed him. Dir: John Huston. Cast: Gregory Peck, Richard Basehart, Leo Genn. C-115 mins, Letterbox Format 11:30 Am The V.I.P.S (1963) Wealthy passengers fogged in at London's Heathrow Airport fight to survive a variety of personal trials. Dir: Anthony Asquith. Cast: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Louis Jourdan.
- 8/8/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Orson Welles, Rita Hayworth, The Lady from Shanghai Orson Welles' career as an actor was both fruitful and frustrating. From Citizen Kane (1941) to Someone to Love (1987), Welles appeared — mostly in supporting roles — in about 70 features made in various parts of the world. There was one brilliant performance in one brilliant film, Charles Foster Kane in Citizen Kane, but the rest of what I've seen has been either forgettable or memorable for the wrong reasons. Subtlety is a quality with which Welles the Actor was totally unfamiliar. Whether or not you admire Orson Welles' work in front of the camera, Welles fans are being treated to 13 films featuring Welles as both leading man and supporting player, all day Monday, August 8, on Turner Classic Movies. The only TCM premiere in this "Summer Under the Stars" Orson Welles Day is the 1952 British-made crime drama Trent's Last Case, directed by veteran Herbert Wilcox,...
- 8/8/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
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