Hollywood Memorial

Remembered for one of her first roles of Susan Walker the classic Christmas movie ‘Miracle on 34th Street’ that started a string of great roles as she appeared in over 56 movies for the silver screen and television, and was nominated three times for an Oscar (she never won). In 1955, she played in ‘Rebel Without a Cause,’ the famous James Dean movie, with her first Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress. She played opposite John Wayne in ‘The Searchers.’ She appeared in ‘Splendor in the Grass,’ ‘West Side Story’ which earned a second nomination for an academy award as best supporting actress, as Gypsy Rose Lee in ‘Gypsy,’ and then ‘Love with a Proper Stranger’ for which she earned her third academy award nomination. In a book written by her sister, Lana Wood, Natalie was portrayed as insecure and unhappy in life. She was married three times, first to Robert Wagner then to Richard Gregson. After discovering Gregson was having an affair, she divorced him and soon remarried her first husband, Robert Wagner again. While sailing on her yacht off Santa Catalina Island with her husband, Robert Wagner, and their friend, Christopher Walken, she disappeared one night, supposedly while trying to get into a dinghy. Her body washed ashore the next morning and the circumstances of her death have never been fully explained, but the cause of death was determined as drowning at age 43, under young woman who died mysteriously. She is buried near Marilyn Monroe in Westwood Memorial Park.