Natalie Wood’s daughter rejects ‘outrageous’ claims Robert Wagner was involved in her mother’s death

Wagner was named a ‘person of interest’ in Wood’s 1981 death when the case was reopened

Natalie Wood’s daughter, the actor Natasha Gregson Wagner, has condemned the “outrageous” suggestion that her stepfather, actor Robert Wagner, was involved in her mother’s death.

Wood died by drowning in 1981, after a weekend spent on a yacht with Wagner and their mutual friend Christopher Walken. In 2011, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department reopened its investigation into Wood’s death, amid claims from the yacht’s captain that he had heard Wood and Wagner arguing on the night of her death.

Wood’s cause of death was later changed to “drowning and other undetermined factors”, while Wagner was named a “person of interest” in the case by the Sheriff’s Department in 2018.

While promoting a new documentary film about Wood, Gregson Wagner defended her father.

“It’s outrageous and completely unacceptable that others have created this narrative about my dad and the night my mom died,” she told People Magazine. “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.”

The documentary, titled Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind, sees Wagner recalling the events that led up to the death of his wife. He says that he, Wood and Walken had spent the night discussing whether Wood should leave acting behind to take care of their family.

Wagner claims that Walken had urged Wood to keep acting, and that he had reacted angrily as a result – “smashing a wine bottle” and arguing with Walken about minding his own business.

Walken has always refused to publicly discuss the circumstances of Wood’s death, telling an interviewer in 1986 that “she slipped and fell in the water” while he was in bed.

Gregson Wagner, an actor who appeared in films including Lost Highway, High Fidelity and the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer, also writes in a new book about her mother that her stepfather “loved Natalie ‘more than love’”, adding: “No one in my world questioned my dad’s love for my mom or his utter despair at her loss.”