Natasha (64 page)

In these original tabloid versions, Davern stated that he and R.J. next searched the boat for Natalie; when they came back to the deck, they noticed the dinghy was gone. R.J. asked Davern not to start up the engine or turn on the floodlights to look for Natalie, and waited two hours before radioing for help, drinking continuously.

Davern leaked out more of the story to tabloids as the years went on, first stating that R.J. was in Natalie’s
cabin
during the half hour Davern said he disappeared below deck; then adding the additional information that Natalie and R.J. were
arguing
while they were in the cabin, which Davern overheard, since the bridge was above their stateroom. Davern took the story a step further for
Vanity Fair
, saying that he could hear R.J. and Natalie “fighting like crazy… I’d never in a million years seen them fight like that before… you know, stuff getting thrown around.” In this most recent, more detailed version, Davern claimed the argument in the cabin between Natalie and R.J. was “so hot and heavy that it got carried out into the cockpit” of the
Splendour
.

The next thing he heard, the skipper said, was “the dinghy being untied—you can hear the ropes, the bowline being tugged on.” After what seemed a long time to Davern, R.J. returned to the bridge about 11:30
P.M
., “tousled, sweating profusely, as if he had been in a terrible fight, an ordeal of some kind.”

In Davern’s previous versions, this was when R.J. informed him that Natalie was missing. In the
Vanity Fair
account, Davern said he and
R.J. continued to drink on the bridge until 1:30, when R.J. said he’d better check on Natalie, returning a few minutes later to say she was gone. In this version, only Davern went to look for Natalie, returning to the deck to notice the dinghy was gone. As in his previous accounts, Davern claimed that R.J. refused to let him turn on the boat’s lights or fire up the engines to look for Natalie, saying, “Let’s think about this. We don’t want to do anything, Dennis, because we don’t want to alert these people.”

Davern suggested to
Vanity Fair
that he was still withholding crucial elements of the story—the mysterious period when R.J.’s “ferocious” argument with Natalie was taken up to the cockpit, when Davern heard the dinghy being untied and R.J. went through “a terrible fight” or “ordeal of some kind.”

Marti Rulli, the skipper’s confidante, confirms that Davern has held back revealing the critical last moments when Natalie went off the
Splendour
, with Rulli hinting that the climax and its aftermath is a “bizarre” story. “He knows every single thing that happened that night… and he used to have nightmares and scream, scream out horrible things about this incident.” According to Rulli, Davern moved in with her and her husband for more than a year when he left R.J.’s house, going through “torture” over what happened to Natalie that night. “He had nightmares. I’ve witnessed these nightmares.”

During one such period in 1992, Lana claims that she got a phone call from what she describes as a deeply intoxicated, clearly haunted Davern, indicating he needed to unburden to her how he claimed her sister really drowned that night off the
Splendour
. During this phone confessional with Lana, and several subsequent calls, Davern confided the climax to the story he has led up to in his interviews, but never revealed.

“I’ve always known what the heck happened,” discloses Lana, who has kept silent about the skipper’s confession all these years, even in documentaries probing how Natalie drowned. “I’ve always felt that, for the better part of valor, I’ve always just said, ‘I don’t know.’ It’s just—it was easier.” After twenty years since her sister’s death, Lana feels “it’s time.” She explains, “As much as some people would like to cover the truth, you just can’t. You can’t after a while… it’s not out of anger or anything else. It’s just out of, ‘It’s time.’”

According to Lana, when she received the call from the skipper, “Dennis was obviously drinking. Dennis was not a close friend, and I
don’t know why he decided to call me, but it took him a really long time to spit everything out.”

Davern’s drunken confessional over the telephone to Lana mirrored the account he subsequently gave
Vanity Fair
of a “fight” he overheard between Natalie and R.J. in their cabin, after Walken and Natalie had gone to their staterooms. According to Lana, the skipper said “they were a lot—very, very drunk, very drunk—and that Natalie had come back up on deck to continue the fight with R.J.”

This is where Davern’s account to
Vanity Fair
ended, short of what Rulli implies is the skipper’s dark secret. Lana states that Davern revealed what happened next: that Natalie was in her nightclothes, on the deck, when Davern heard R.J. in a drunken argument with her. Shortly thereafter Davern first noticed that Natalie had gone overboard, but he did not actually see her tragic slip.

From Lana’s account of the skipper’s confessional, Natalie was in the ocean alongside the boat, yelling, while R.J., who was still furious, and desperately drunk, continued the argument from on board the boat. “Dennis was very panicky. He was sitting, and would say, ‘Come on, let’s get her.’ And he said R.J. was in such a foul mood, at that point that Dennis then shut up.” Time slipped away, Davern told Lana, “until all the sound stopped.”

When he and R.J., “beyond drunk,” went back to look for Natalie, she was missing, the skipper told Lana, “and that’s when everybody panicked.”

What happened next remains a closely held secret of Davern’s, still leaving as an enigma part of those lost hours on the boat before R.J. radioed for help to find Natalie. “That’s all Dennis would ever say to me,” relates Lana. “I never got anything else out of him about that. There was a lot more times when he would call me and say how miserable he was, and he didn’t know if he could live with this, and on and on and on and on and on. And then later on I heard all about the book stuff that never went.”

The day Davern was trying to reach Lana, he blurted out the same confession to Cheryl Quarmyne, a receptionist at the office where Lana worked in 1992. Quarmyne recalls taking a message from an apparently intoxicated Davern, who was desperate to speak to Lana from what sounded like a bar. When Quarmyne told him to phone Lana at home, Davern said, “‘Look, look, look. Let me just tell you what she needs to
know’… and then he just started talking.” The skipper’s account to Quarmyne was virtually identical to what he told Lana when he phoned her a few minutes later. “I think his conscience was just bothering him,” observes Quarmyne, “and he just decided to call, just to get it off his chest.”

According to Rulli, Davern did confess to Lana in 1992: “not the specifics, but in general.” Rulli claims there is still more to that night than Davern revealed even to Lana, describing it as “an incredible, unbelievable story, and people with sense immediately know it’s the only story that makes sense.”

Davern’s scenario to Lana might tie together the argument between the Wagners that Warren Archer said he heard around eleven
P.M
., R.J. telling Paul Wintler he had a “fight” with Natalie before she disappeared, the woman heard crying for help and a drunken man “mocking” or arguing with her, the long passage of time before R.J. radioed for help, his odd explanations for her disappearance from the boat.

In Rulli’s opinion, the police “overlooked everything… it was a really botched investigation.”

Lana believes Davern’s confession to her. “It makes sense to me. It’s the only thing that makes sense… because otherwise, what the heck was R.J. waiting for?”

Davern’s tale is clouded by his secretive behavior, tainted by his profit motive and riddled with his own inconsistencies and piecemeal revelations. Nevertheless, Davern is the only witness who has spoken at length, and his media accounts of the evening have never been publicly denied by Wagner.

Rulli claims she encouraged Davern to tell authorities, “and it’s just something, for his reasons, he would never do. Maybe [out of] fear, loyalty, your whole lifestyle. Your whole life is turned upside down within a few hours, and you’re as drunk as you ever were in your entire life while this is all happening, you’re looking for a leader. And as close as he was to Robert Wagner, he chose Robert Wagner as that leader.”

Davern’s and Rulli’s credibility is further compromised by a joint appearance they made on a Geraldo Rivera special in 1992 called
Now It Can Be Told
. Davern balked at telling Rivera how Natalie went overboard, asking to consult with Rulli privately, unaware they were being filmed. As they were being recorded on a hidden camera, Rulli said to
Davern, “This needs to be cleared up. We have to say how she got in the water, Den.” Then Rulli changed her mind, telling the skipper, “We put that in the book and we’ll make billions from it.”

Rulli claims her statement has been misconstrued.

What really happened on that awful, aberrant night may never be known. In the end, one is left with a sense of overwhelming loss, of tragedy, and of mystery; a feeling that Natalie should not have drowned during that strange, alcoholic, incoherent night on the
Splendour
, made even more heartbreaking and harrowing by her recurring dream she would die in water that was dark, her deepest fear.

The second tragedy is that Natalie, who lived to please, who always wanted things to turn out well in the end—a “good soul,” as her friend Redford said in simple eloquence—has been shadowed by the irresolution of the events from a night that was so unlike her.

As Christopher Walken would say of the movie they had not quite completed together, “Things that are left hanging are difficult.” Natalie’s older sister, Olga, would view her disappearance from the
Splendour
as a mystery, which it remains. “The guys were all up there getting loaded… who knows what happened?”

What is important, finally, is to remember Natalie’s
life
, and the characters she created on-screen—the poignant Austrian waif in
Tomorrow Is Forever…
precocious Susan in
Miracle on 34th Street…
tender, luminous Maria in
West Side Story…
Judy, the sensitive teenager in
Rebel Without a Cause…
brave, plucky Angie in
Love with the Proper Stranger…
vulnerable Deanie in
Splendor in the Grass
—the gifts Natalie gave her fans at the expense of her own identity.

“Natalie Wood,” her actress alter ego, lives on in the movies. What has been lost is Natasha.

“Ootra Vechereem Moodreunaya
,” as Natalie said at the end of her eulogy for her Fahd. “Now we feel so sad about losing you, as one sometimes feels sad at nightfall. But we will have our morning when our spirits will lift, our sadness will lighten and we will realize we haven’t really lost you, because your uniqueness to us all will always live in our hearts.”

Spakoynee noch
, Natasha.

1944

Happy Land
(Twentieth Century Fox). Director: Irving Pichel; Producer: Kenneth MacGowan; Screenwriters: Julian Josephson & Kathryn Scola; Novel: MacKinlay Kantor

1946

Tomorrow Is Forever
(RKO). Director: Irving Pichel; Producer: David Lewis; Screenwriters: Gwen Bristow & Lenore J. Coffee

The Bride Wore Boots
(Paramount). Director: Irving Pichel; Producer: Seton I. Miller; Screenwriter: Dwight Mitchell Wiley

1947

Miracle on 34th Street
(Twentieth Century Fox). Director: George Seaton; Producer: William Perlberg; Screenwriter: George Seaton

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
(Twentieth Century Fox). Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz; Producer: Fred Kohlmar; Screenwriter: Philip Dunne

Driftwood
(Republic). Director: Allan Dwan; Producer: Allan Dwan; Screenwriters: Mary Loos & Richard Sale

1948

Scudda Hoo Scudda Hay
(Twentieth Century Fox). Director: F. Hugh Herbert; Producer: Walter Morosco; Screenwriter: F. Hugh Herbert

1949

Chicken Every Sunday
(Twentieth Century Fox). Director: George Seaton; Producer: William Perlberg; Screenwriters: George Seaton & Valentine Davies

The Green Promise
(RKO). Director: William D. Russell; Producers: Glenn McCarthy, Robert Paige; Screenwriter: Monty Collins

Father Was a Fullback
(Twentieth Century Fox). Director: John M. Stahl; Producer: Fred Kohlmar; Screenwriters: Aleen Leslie, Casey Robinson, Mary Loos, Richard Sale

1950

No Sad Songs for Me
(Columbia). Director: Rudolph Mate; Producer: Buddy Adler; Screenwriter: Howard Koch

Our Very Own
(Goldwyn). Director: David Miller; Producer: Sam Goldwyn; Screenwriter: F. Hugh Herbert

Jackpot
(Twentieth Century Fox). Director: Walter Lang; Producer: Samuel G. Engel; Screenwriters: Phoebe & Henry Ephron

1951

Never a Dull Moment
(RKO). Director: George Marshall; Producer: Harriet Parsons; Screenwriters: Lou Breslow & Doris Anderson; Novel: Kay Swift

Dear Brat
(Paramount). Director: William Seiter; Producer: Mel Epstein; Screenwriter: Devery Freeman

The Blue Veil
(RKO). Director: Curtis Bernhardt; Producers: Jerry Wald & Norman Krasna; Screenwriter: Norman Corwin

1952

Just for You
(Paramount). Director: Elliott Nugent; Producer: Pat Duggan; Screenwriter: Robert Carson

The Rose Bowl Story
(Monogram/Republic). Director: William Beaudine; Producers: Richard Heermance & Walter Mirisch; Screenwriter: Charles R. Marion

The Star
(Twentieth Century Fox). Director: Stuart Heisler; Producer: Bert E. Friedlob; Screenwriters: Katherine Albert & Dale Eunson

1954

The Silver Chalice
(Warner Brothers). Director/Producer: Victor Saville; Screenwriter: Lesser Samuels; Novel: Thomas Costain

1955

One Desire
(Universal/International). Director: Jerry Hopper; Producer: Ross Hunter; Screenwriters: Lawrence Roman & Robert Blees; Novel: Conrad Richter

Rebel Without a Cause
(Warner Brothers). Director: Nicholas Ray; Producer: David Weisbart; Screenwriter: Stewart Stern, Adapted by Irving Schulman, Story by Nicholas Ray

1956

The Searchers
(Warner Brothers). Director: John Ford; Executive Producer: Merian C. Cooper; Associate Producer: Patrick Ford; Screenwriter: Frank S. Nugent; Novel: Alan LeMay

A Cry in the Night
(Warner Brothers). Director: Frank Tuttle; Producer: Alan Ladd; Screenwriter: David Dortort

The Burning Hills
(Warner Brothers). Director: Stuart Heisler; Producer: Richard Whorf; Screenplay: Irving Wallace

The Girl He Left Behind
(Warner Brothers). Director: David Butler; Producer: Frank Rosenberg; Screenwriter: Guy Trosper

1957

Bombers B-52
(Warner Brothers). Director: Gordon Douglas; Producer: Richard Whorf; Screenwriter: Irving Wallace; Story: Sam Rolfe

1958

Marjorie Morningstar
(Warner Brothers). Director: Irving Rapper; Producer: Milton Sperling; Screenwriter: Everett Freeman; Novel: Herman Wouk

Kings Go Forth
(United Artists). Director: Delmer Daves; Producer: Frank Ross; Screenwriter: Merle Miller

1960

Cash McCall
(Warner Brothers). Director: Joseph Pevney; Producer: Henry Blanke; Screenwriters: Lenore Coffee & Marion Hargrove

All the Fine Young Cannibals
(MGM). Director: Michael Anderson; Producer: Pandro S. Berman; Screenwriter: Robert Thom; Story: Rosamond Marshall

1961

Splendor in the Grass
(Warner Brothers). Director: Elia Kazan; Producer: Elia Kazan; Screenwriter: William Inge

West Side Story
(United Artists). Codirectors: Robert Wise & Jerome Robbins; Producer: Robert Wise; Associate Producer: Saul Chaplin; Screenwriter: Ernest Lehman; Book: Arthur Laurents

1962

Gypsy
(Warner Brothers). Director: Mervyn LeRoy; Producer: Mervyn LeRoy; Screenwriter: Leonard Spigelgass

1963

Love with the Proper Stranger
(Paramount). Director: Robert Mulligan; Producer: Alan J. Pakula; Screenwriter: Arnold Schulman

1964

Sex and the Single Girl
(Warner Brothers). Director: Richard Quine; Producer: William T. Orr; Screenwriters: Joseph Heller & David R. Schwartz; Story: Joseph Hoffman; Book: Helen Gurley Brown

1965

The Great Race
(Warner Brothers). Director: Blake Edwards; Producer: Martin Jurow; Screenwriter: Arthur Ross

1966

Inside Daisy Clover
(Warner Brothers). Director: Robert Mulligan; Producer: Alan J. Pakula; Screenwriter: Gavin Lambert

This Property Is Condemned
(Paramount). Director: Sydney Pollack; Producers: Ray Stark, John Houseman; Screenwriters: Francis Ford Coppola, Fred Coe & Edith Sommer; Play: Tennessee Williams

Penelope
(MGM). Director: Arthur Hiller; Producer: Arthur Loew, Jr.; Screenwriter: George Wells; Novel: E. V. Cunningham

1969

Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice
(Columbia). Director: Paul Mazursky; Executive Producer: Michael J. Frankovich; Producer: Larry Tucker; Screenwriters: Paul Mazursky & Larry Tucker

1972

The Candidate
(Warner Brothers)-cameo as Natalie Wood. Director: Michael Ritchie; Producer: Walter Coblenz; Screenwriter: Jeremy Larner

1975

Peeper
(Twentieth Century Fox). Director: Peter Hyams; Producers: Robert Chartoff & Irwin Winkler; Screenwriter: W. D. Richter; Novel: Keith Laumer

1979

Meteor
(Universal/International). Director: Ronald Neame; Producers: Arnold Orgolini & Theodore Parvin; Screenwriters: Stanley Mann & Edmund H. North; Story: Edmund H. North

1980

The Last Married Couple in America
(Universal). Director: Gilbert Cates; Producers: Edward S. Feldman & John Herman Shaner; Screenwriter: John Herman Shaner

1982

Brainstorm
(MGM). Director/Producer: Douglas Trumbull; Executive Producer: Joel L. Freeman; Producer: John Foreman; Screenwriters: Robert Stitzel & Philip Frank Messina