Crush of the Week - Natalie Wood

Not just of the week but my whole life, because I cannot remember when I didn't have a huge crush on the lovely Miss Wood. I guess I first fell for her charms when I was about nine or ten years old. My sister and I  stayed up late one saturday night  [ as we seemed to do a lot, back in the day ] and  watched Sex & the Single Girl on KABC channel 7  broadcast out of L.A. The movie is one of those harmless sex farces from the mid-60's that seemed extremely racy to my adolescent mind but, in retrospect, was quite innocent and harmless. Based on a self-help book by Dr Helen Gurley Brown, it was a precursor to all the self help books that have come after it: He Just Not That Into You, Women Who Run With The Wolves, Excuse Me, Your Soul Mate Is Waiting , etc,etc,etc. You know the drill. But this book, being published in 1962, was a gamechanger. These kinds of books weren't published every week like they are today. Anyway, I digress. Natalie was the total woman for me: Beautiful face, dark brown eyes, great sense of humor, wicked legs, wonderful smile and intelligent.  I still watch her movies and have several on disc, some faves being: Splendor in the Grass, Gypsy, Rebel Without a Cause, The Great Race, West Side Story and This Property is Condemned. In fact, I saw a few of her 70's stinkeroos in the theater: Last Married Couple in America, Meteor, Peeper. None very good and I don't think I've seen any of those 70's epics since.
                              

                                                       
She died tragically in 1981 and I remember that day and the disbelief I felt. She was still young, only 43. Her best movie days were seemingly behind her, she hadn't been in a hit since 1969's adult spouse swapping comedy Bob, Carol, Ted & Alice, but she had made some successful television productions  such as Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with Laurence Olivier and hubby RJ Wagner and a mini-series of From Here To Eternity in the part Deborah Kerr immortalized in the 1953  film version. She was going to appear in Anastasia in Los Angeles in 1982, but that weekend in Catalina ended what would have been her stage debut.

The top picture is from Sex and the Single Girl the other lower in on the set of Gypsy. Check out Natalie Wood's films. I especially endorse Splendor in the Grass [  Her character Deanie may be my fave of hers ] This Property is Condemned and Rebel Without a Cause. Check back next week to see another in my long line of crushes.