Natalie Wood Mysteriously Drowned 43 Years Ago Today. Recounting the Star’s Final Moments Aboard the Yacht — and Why One Woman Claimed It Wasn’t an Accident

Natalie Wood’s tragic death at age 43 left many to question the circumstances surrounding her fatal drowning for decades.

Beginning her career in Hollywood at the age of 5, Wood became an iconic figure in film and television after seamlessly transitioning from child star to leading lady. She also made headlines for her personal life and had relationships with Warren Beatty, Richard Gregson and Robert “R.J.” Wagner, whom she was married to at the time of her death. Wood was also a mother — she shared a daughter named Natasha with Gregson and a daughter named Courtney with Wagner.

Wood’s life was cut short less than a decade after the birth of her second daughter when she died during a 1981 boat trip to California’s Catalina Island. On Thanksgiving weekend that year, Wood and Wagner set sail on their 60-foot yacht, the Splendour, alongside Wood’s Brainstorm costar Christopher Walken and their longtime friend and skipper, Dennis Davern.

What transpired over the next few days and how Wood ended up drowning in the dark waters off the coast of the island has been dissected for decades. While the actress’ death was initially ruled an “accidental drowning,” the case would continue to stir controversy.

In 2011, Davern came to authorities with information about an alleged fight between Wood and Wagner moments before her death — details he had previously withheld — and the investigation was officially reopened. Since then, investigators have received more than 100 tips, and at one point Wagner was named “more of a person of interest” in relation to Wood’s death.

In 2022, the actor was cleared of involvement by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. “All leads in the Natalie Wood case have been exhausted, and the case remains an open, unsolved case,” Lieutenant Hugo Reynaga told Page Six. “If additional leads surface in the future, which have not already been investigated, the case will be reassigned to a detective to investigate the new leads.”

So, how did Natalie Wood die? Here are all the details of the star’s death and the investigation into its cause.

How did Natalie Wood die?

Following Wood’s death in 1981, the Los Angeles coroner, Dr. Thomas Noguchi, initially ruled that she died due to an “accidental drowning.” At the time of her death, Wood had been on a break from filming her movie Brainstorm and was spending time aboard her yacht Splendour off the coast of Catalina Island. She was joined by her husband, Wagner, her Brainstorm costar, Walken, and Davern.

On the day of her death, Wood, Wagner and Walken had dinner and drinks on land and returned to the yacht around 10 p.m., per Wagner’s 2008 memoir, Pieces of My Heart. Shortly after, Wagner allegedly had a confrontation with Walken after he made comments about Wood’s career. While there are conflicting reports of Wood’s final moments, Wagner said it was during this time that she disappeared.

In Wagner’s memoir, he wrote that he had seen Wood go to bed prior to the argument, and when he returned to their bedroom later that night, she was nowhere to be found. He wrote that he soon discovered that the yacht’s dinghy was also missing. Although it would have been out of character for Wood to take the dinghy out so late at night, Wagner wrote that he initially figured she had headed to land to get away from the fighting.

In Pieces of My Heart, Wagner wrote that he alerted Davern, his skipper, and then called for the shore boat to take him to the island. Wagner didn’t find Wood near the dinghy near the dock and at around 1:30 a.m. Davern radioed for help from the Baywatch, a private coast patrol. At 3:30 a.m., Wagner called the Coast Guard.

After an extensive search of the boat, the Coast Guard began search and rescue. After hours of searching, the dinghy was found at 5:30 a.m. in an isolated cove. The boat was in neutral and turned off — and Wood was not on board.

Two hours later, Wood’s body was discovered. She was wearing a red parka over a nightgown and had bruising on her arms and legs as well as an abrasion on her cheek. She also had a blood alcohol content of 0.14%.

In a press conference, Dr. Noguchi concluded that after accidentally falling into the water, Wood had attempted to board the dinghy, per Vanity Fair. Based on fingernail scratch marks on the inflatable boat’s side, he believed she had clung onto its side but was weighed down by her waterlogged parka and was unable to pull herself up. She stayed afloat for as long as possible until, as Noguchi theorized, overcome by exhaustion and hypothermia, she drowned.

How old was Natalie Wood when she died?

Wood was 43 years old when her body was discovered on the morning of Nov. 29, 1981, floating in a cove off the coast of California’s Catalina Island, about a mile away from her yacht.

Although the actress was semi-retired in 1981, she continued taking on smaller roles, often collaborating with Wagner. The couple acted alongside each other in Switch and Hart to Hart in the years leading up to her death.

When Wood died, she was near the end of filming the sci-fi movie Brainstorm. After her death, the ending of the film was re-written and Wood’s younger sister Lana, with whom she had an at-times troubled relationship, stood in for some of her last scenes. Brainstorm came out two years after Wood’s death and was dedicated to her memory.

What happened in Natalie Wood’s final moments?

Hours before her death, witnesses said the group was intoxicated during dinner on the island, so the restaurant manager warned the harbormaster, per CBS News. Late in the evening, Wagner wrote in his book that he smashed a wine bottle in front of Walken during a fight.

Upset, Wood allegedly retreated to their room, and Wagner followed, beginning a fight between the couple. Marilyn Wayne, a woman who came forward in 2011, said she heard the alleged fight occurring aboard Wagner and Wood’s yacht.

Wayne was on a boat with her boyfriend and son 50 feet away from the Splendour. She told detectives that she had heard the altercation — and a woman screaming for help, per The Hollywood Reporter. Wayne said she called harbor patrol and no one answered.

“‘Help me, someone please help me, I’m drowning’ we heard repeatedly. Alarmed, I called out to my son, who also heard the cries, and looked at his new digital watch: it was just minutes after 11:00 p.m.,” Wayne shared, adding that she later heard a “man’s voice slurred, and in aggravated tone, say something to the effect of, ‘Oh, hold on, we’re coming to get you,’ and not long after, the cries for help subsided, but we heard the cries for up to 15 minutes.”

What do those on board the Splendour believe happened to Natalie Wood?

In his memoir, Wagner wrote that he had thought about the final moments of Wood’s life for decades. He believes that her death was an accident and she slipped off the boat while attempting to get on or to tie up the dinghy.

Wagner explained that while he was hashing out his argument with Walken, Wood may have heard the dinghy banging against the boat outside of her window. He believes she went outside in the hopes of tying it tighter to stop the noise but accidentally slipped on the swim step, hitting her head and falling unconscious before ending up in the water.

“But it’s all conjecture. Nobody knows. There are only two possibilities: either she was trying to get away from the argument, or she was trying to tie the dinghy. But the bottom line is that nobody knows exactly what happened,” Wagner wrote.

While Walken has not often spoken out about that night, he told PEOPLE in 1986 that he believed Wood’s death was an accident. “I don’t know what happened. She slipped and fell in the water. I was in bed then. It was a terrible thing,” he said.

Meanwhile, despite Davern’s prior statements that Wood’s death was an accident, he later claimed in his 2006 book Goodbye Natalie, Goodbye Splendour that he believed Wagner was involved in Wood’s death.

What happened during the investigation surrounding Natalie Wood’s death?

Wood’s daughter Natasha, who was raised by her stepfather Wagner, believes that her mother’s death was an accident and remembers telling her mother “Don’t go” before she boarded the Splendour.

“They were getting ready to go on the boat. I was hugging her and telling her I loved her and to have a great trip. She had an angora sweater on and it was very soft. That’s my last memory of her,” Natasha told PEOPLE in 2016.

While his children maintain Wagner’s innocence, Wood’s younger sister Lana has long believed that her death was not an accident. She published her book Little Sister: My Investigation into the Mysterious Death of Natalie Wood in 2021.

Natasha’s 2020 documentary Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind includes her reasoning why she believes Wagner had nothing to do with her mother’s death.

“It’s outrageous and completely unacceptable that others have created this narrative about my dad and the night my mom died,” Natasha said. “I know that if my mom had been in any kind of distress he would have given his life for her. I know that as well as I know my name.”

In a rare interview in 2020, Wagner agreed that his daughter knows he “never would have done anything to hurt her mother.” He also told PEOPLE in 2016, “I tried to keep her mom’s memory alive for her. We were all so shattered by the loss.”

Wood and Wagner’s younger daughter Courtney has expressed similar sentiments about her father, telling PEOPLE that the “terrible things” said about Wagner are very upsetting.

“I was furious at the accusations being said about him, it felt incredibly disrespectful,” she told PEOPLE in 2020. “I love him so deeply so and it has gone on for so long that I still can’t believe they actually write such untrue things.”

What is Natalie Wood’s legacy?

While Wood had a prolific career in Hollywood, much of her legacy has been “overshadowed” by the mystery surrounding her death. Her daughter Natasha said this was the reason she produced Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind, hoping to honor her mother’s life — and allowing her “mom’s memory to live in the light.”

“The day my mom died my entire world was shattered. Since then, there’s been so much focus on how she died that it’s overshadowed who she was as a person,” Natasha said in the film.

In both the documentary and her memoir More Than Love, Natasha characterized her mother as someone who wanted to be more than a movie star, saying, “She was human, she was an artist who struggled and she was brave and she was happy.”