American actress Natalie Wood was born with the birth name of Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko, of Russian ??migr?? stock on July 20, 1938.
Wood made her first film appearance, aged four, as an extra in ???Happy Land?? in 1943. She was picked after a production company had come to Santa Rosa, and spotted her for the role of ???crying baby??
Natalie Wood played a succession of contemporary, modish heroines in the 60s in films about social and sexual mores ("Sex and the Single Girl" 1964, "Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice" 1969, the unjustly overlooked "Love with the Proper Stranger" 1964).
Natalie Wood acted steadily until her accidental drowning death in 1981. Wood was nominated for three Oscars, but may be best known for her role as Maria in the film version of West Side Story (1961). She earned her first nomination, as best supporting actress, for her portrayal of Judy in the classic Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and followed that with best actress nominations for her role as Wilma Dean Loomis in Splendor in the Grass (1961) and for her role as Angie Rossini in Love with the Perfect Stranger (1963).
Her next major roles were opposite Warren Beatty in ???Splendor in the Grass?? and in the musical ???West Side Story??, both in 1961. Receiving another Oscar nomination for the former, she followed up with her sterling performance in ???Love With A Proper Stranger??.
She played herself in 1980's "Willie and Phil" but was drowned in a mysterious incident on her own yacht toward the end of the filming of "Brainstorm" (released 1983).
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