Natalie Wood was a three-time Oscar nominee for her roles in West Side Story and Rebel Without a Cause. She was 43 when she died off Catalina Island.

Wood was aboard the Splendour with her husband Robert Wagner and ship’s skipper Dennis Davern when she drowned. In 2011, police reopened the case after Davern’s book revealed that he heard the couple argue prior to her death. Keep reading the article below to learn more about Natalie Wood Death.

Hollywood legend Natalie Wood drowned in November 1981 off the coast of Catalina Island in California. Her death remains a mystery even today. The actress, known for her role in movies like West Side Story and Rebel Without a Cause, was 43 when she died. Her body was found floating in the ocean, wearing a red down jacket and flannel nightgown. The circumstances of her death have made it a Hollywood whodunit.

The night of her death was a cold, drizzly evening. Wood was on a boat with husband Robert Wagner and actor Christopher Walken when she went overboard. The official story was that she slipped while trying to secure an inflatable rubber dingy banging against the side of the yacht. The initial investigators speculated that she fell into the water and struggled to get into the dinghy, which had scratch marks on it. However, nail clippings were never taken to determine whether she made the scratches, and the dinghy is no longer available for examination.

Wood’s daughter, Natasha Gregson Wagner, says her mother had a fear of darkness and water that began in childhood. She also had a deep-seated belief that she would die in dark water, which stemmed from a prophecy told to her superstitious Russian mother by a Gypsy.

Throughout her life, Wood struggled to break away from the image of a “wholesome” blonde bombshell. She was a dedicated worker, learning her lines quickly and working hard to develop as an artist. She wanted to be a serious actress and eventually succeeded, winning starring roles in films such as Miracle on 34th Street and Rebel Without a Cause.

But she was also a complex woman who loved her family, including her two daughters. She had a difficult relationship with her stepfather, and was often torn between her career and her private life. She also struggled with substance abuse and suffered from depression. She attempted suicide twice and underwent daily psychoanalysis until her death.

Actor Robert Wagner is not a suspect.

Two homicide detectives assigned to reexamine tips in the Natalie Wood case have determined that actor Robert Wagner did not kill his actress wife. The original investigation of the mysterious death of the actress was closed in 1981, but the case reopened in 2011 after the captain of the yacht she was sailing on at the time revealed that he lied to police when he first spoke to them. The captain, Dennis Davern, says that he feels that Wagner killed her and that he is the only person who knows what really happened.

There are many questions that have never been answered in the Natalie Wood case, such as why did she leave her nightgown on when she went to bed? Why was she so light-hearted on the day of her death? Why did she have socks on in all that water? What were the bruises on her body? The bruises were not noticed at the time of her death, but they were later found by the coroner, who changed the cause of her death to drowning and other undetermined factors.

The original story given by the three men who were on the boat with Wood was that she got up in the middle of the night to retie a dinghy, fell and slipped, then drowned. However, the bruises on her body were a red flag for investigators, and some of them may have been inflicted after her death, rather than before it.

In his book, Goodbye Natalie, Goodbye Splendour, Davern claims that he and Wood had an argument shortly before her death. He also claims that she wanted to go ashore to get some fresh air, but Wagner told her to stay on the yacht because it was safer there. When he went to check on her, she wasn’t there, and he assumed that she had gone ashore in the dinghy. The dinghy was found about a mile away from the yacht, and it was still in the water the morning after she died.

Natasha Gregson Wagner, the daughter of Wood and Wagner, has spoken out in the past to dispel rumors that her father had anything to do with her mother’s death. She and her sister are convinced that Wagner has something to hide, and they are angry at him for refusing to talk about it.

Actor Christopher Walken is not a suspect.

Actor Christopher Walken, who was on a yacht with Wood and Robert Wagner the night she drowned in the waters off Southern California, said he went to sleep and woke up to find out she had died. He is not a suspect, though Wagner is.

In an interview with the radio station ESPN980, Walken said that he was asleep when Wood disappeared off the coast of Catalina Island on Nov. 29, 1981, and awoke to find that she had drowned. He recalled that the group was drinking and that he believed it was an accident.

Walken has spoken very little about the incident over the years, but he did say in an interview with Playboy Magazine that Wood was an “extremely loving” person who was also a great mother to her children.

However, he also said that she had a “bad temper” and was very jealous of Wagner’s relationship on-set with William Holden. He also alleged that she was obsessed with being a good mother and would often argue with Wagner because of it.

For decades, many fingers have been pointed at Wagner for Wood’s death, including her sister and the captain of the boat she was on, Dennis Davern. But Lana Wood tells Insider she does not believe he is responsible for her sister’s tragic death.

According to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, there are now two top secret new witnesses who have come forward with never-before-disclosed evidence about what happened to Natalie Wood on the night of her disappearance. They allege that she was arguing with Wagner at the edge of their boat moments before she fell into the water.

The new information casts doubt on the previous determination that Wood’s death was an accident, as well as the coroner’s decision to rule it a suicide by drowning. Insider has learned that the witnesses’ statements suggest a different cause of death for the actress: she was attacked. And the bruising patterns found on her body support this theory. As a result, the case has been reopened.

The case remains open.

In the decades since her death, fascination with what happened that night has never waned. In November, just before the 30th anniversary of Wood’s death, the Los Angeles sheriff’s department re-opened the investigation. This was largely in response to the publicity surrounding a book by Dennis Davern, the skipper of the yacht, that questioned his earlier account of what occurred. But it was not the only reason.

The new investigation re-examined the evidence and did not provide a big break, although investigators did say they found a few things of interest. For example, they found an empty bottle of a sedative used to calm animals, and some of the same bruising on her body that was previously identified.

However, many observers have viewed the reopening of the case with skepticism. Among them is forensic pathologist Michael Baden, who told THR last year that it was unlikely that any new information would be discovered by examining the Splendour again. “It would be very hard to find anything on a boat that has been repainted and refurbished,” he said.

Some of the controversy stems from a conflicting account of what occurred on the night of Wood’s disappearance. According to the Los Angeles County coroner, she died from drowning and hypothermia after slipping out of her dinghy while trying to leave the boat. Others, including her sister Lana, believe that she did not slip and that she was murdered by Wagner.

Walken has been less active in the public eye than Wagner, and he has not commented on the death of his friend. But in the past, he has denied any involvement in the incident.

In 2010, Lana said that she believes a fight between her sister and Wagner led to her death. She also cited the alleged intoxication of the group aboard the yacht as a possible factor, and emphasized that her sister was unable to swim and was terrified of water. She would not have left her ship on her own, even if she had been sober. She was also wearing a long flannel nightgown and socks, which she would have had to remove in order to enter the dinghy.