The death of actress Natalie Wood is one of the more famous unsolved mysteries in Hollywood. Short story: she was out on a boat with Christopher Walken and her husband, Robert Wagner, she fell overboard, and she drowned. Longer story: all that plus fishy circumstances. Longest story: this new book that includes previously unheard information about that night from the ship’s captain (a scant 30 years after it took place — timely!). From TMZ:
In the book — “Goodbye Natalie, Goodbye Splendour” — [author Marti] Rulli and Splendour Captain Dennis Davern write about the night Natalie drowned. They say before Natalie disappeared from the boat, she was drinking and taking Quaaludes with her husband, Robert Wagner and actor Christopher Walken.
According to the book, Wagner became enraged when he saw Wood and Walken speaking, and smashed a wine bottle, yelling at Walken, “What do you want to do, f**k my wife? Is that what you want?”
At that point, Walken returned to his cabin and Natalie and Robert went to their state room. According to the Captain, he heard a loud argument between the couple and thumping sounds, and eventually silence.
A short time later, the Captain went to the deck and was told by Wagner, “Natalie is missing.”
The book claims Wagner refused to let the Captain call the Coast Guard.
Based on this new information, some of which conflicts with original accounts of the night of Wood’s death, the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department has reopened the case as a murder investigation. They haven’t spoken to any of the parties involved yet, but as Uproxx’s Chief Legal and Space Jam Correspondent, my official analysis of the situation is that the police officers that eventually question Christopher Walken about the events of that night will do a horrible impression of him while telling people about it at cocktail parties years later.
WOMAN AT PARTY: Ooo, you worked on the Natalie Wood case? You can tell me… what really happened?
COP: Well, I’m not supposed to say anything, but [Walken voice], she fell off the BOAT after taking QUAA-ludes. [impression slowly starts turning into Borat] It was a real love tri-AN-gle. I was going to make her MAH WIIIIFE.