The sister of late actress Natalie Wood has revealed that her first marriage to Robert ‘RJ’ Wagner ended after she caught him cheating on her with a man.
Lana Wood, 72, offered the bombshell revelation in chapter three of Fatal Voyage: The Mysterious Death of Natalie Wood, saying that her starlet sister caught Wagner in the arms of another man in June of 1961.
The 12-part audio documentary provides a detailed look into Natalie’s life via exclusive interviews with Hollywood insiders who watched her blossom as a child star, rocket to full-fledged fame and ultimately meet an untimely death while on a yacht with Wagner and Christopher Walken.
Natalie herself described the end of her first marriage in veiled language in a never-before-seen memoir, obtained by the makers of the podcast.
Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner are seen together in 1960. Natalie’s sister claims that their first marriage ended the following year after she caught Wagner in the arms of another man
‘My marriage collapsed that weekend. It’s too painful for me to recall in print the incidents that led to the final breakup,’ Natalie wrote.
‘It was more than the final straw. It was reality crushing the fragile web of romantic fantasies with sledgehammer force.’
Lana, in an interview for Fatal Voyage, offered her recollections of the events, which occurred when she was around 15 years old.
‘She walked in, holding her hand, having some kind of cloth,’ Lana recalled.
‘I don’t know if it was a napkin from a restaurant or what it was, bleeding and absolutely hysterically crying. A mess! A complete mess that I had not seen.’
‘I had never seen her that bad. I was asked to leave the room and that something bad happened and that Natalie was leaving R.J.’
Actress Lana Wood is seen left in February and right with her sister Natalie in 1968
Natalie is seen in a still from the 1962 film gypsy. She died on her husband’s yacht in 1981 under circumstances that have remained mysterious
Lana continued: ‘It wasn’t until later, because I didn’t put all the clues and the hysterics together.’
‘It was actually extremely upsetting to me as a kid to see someone who I thought was, you know, close to not being real.’
‘She was so close to being perfect with everything and to see her that distraught and to see things like that was very difficult for me. So I just kind of … when they said go to your room, I went and tuned it out completely.’
‘But it wasn’t until later that she said she caught him with someone. And that someone was another man.’
Wagner has never publicly identified as a homosexual. In 2014 the famed actress Debbie Reynolds told the Telegraph that everyone she dated in Hollywood was gay – ‘Everyone except Robert Wagner’.
However, there have been reports linking an alleged gay affair to the circumstances of Wood’s death.
Natalie and Wagner’s divorce in 1962 lasted for ten years, until they remarried in 1972.
Natalie and Wagner are seen together at an airport in London in 1976, after reconciling and remarrying in 1972 following ten years of divorce
Wagner and Natalie are seen in June of 1981, several months before her death on his yacht
In 1981, the couple were on board the Splendor for a weekend boat trip to Santa Catalina Island. Actor Christopher Walken was also on board, as was boat captain Dennis Davern.
Wagner has always told police that it is a mystery how his former wife died. Her body was found in the water the day after she apparently ventured off the yacht in a dingy, angry after an argument.
In February, Wagner was named a person of interest as the case. Detectives decided to reopen the case in 2011 after Dennis Davern, the captain, came forward to say he had lied about his statements decades earlier.
He gave details of the argument Natalie and Wagner had on the boat and while he would not implicate Wagner directly, he suggested that her death was not the innocent accident it appeared to have been.
The group had earlier gone for dinner on the island of Catalina where Davern claimed Wagner became angry at the sight of his wife and Walken getting along at the bar.
Back on the Splendour, the rage grew and eventually resulted in an angry fight between Wagner and Natalie in their room, Davern said. Walken was in his own room at the time, he claimed.
Splendour, the boat owned by Robert Wagner, is seen docked off Catalina Island the day after Natalie Wood drowned on November 29, 1981 near Catalina Island, California
Christopher Walken and Natalie Wood are seen together in a scene filmed shortly before her death, for the posthumously released film Brainstorm
However, there have been reports suggesting that the jealousy may not have been on Wagner’s part.
In 2013, the National Enquirer claimed to have uncovered documentation – an official lifeguard log – which suggests Wagner and Walken had engaged in a sexual act and that Natalie may have walked in on them.
The note, which is torn and illegible in parts, reads ‘also known Chris Walken and Robert Wagner were engaged in sexual activity in cab of boat… (illegible)…that Ms Woods found both of them together (illegible)…stated they took her away in a (illegible)…was the last time she was seen alive.’
The Los Angeles County lifeguard, who worked with detectives on the case, told The Enquirer he made the notes on the log after detectives told him that it was a scenario that were considering as a possible motive for any crime that might have been committed on the boat.
Neither Wagner nor Walken has ever been charged in connection with the case, and neither has commented publicly since police said in February that Wagner was a person of interest in Natalie’s death.
In one of his few public comments about the case, Walken told People Magazine in 1986: ‘I don’t know what happened… She slipped and fell in the water. I was in bed then. It was a terrible thing. Look, we’re in a conversation I won’t have. It’s a f***ing bore.’
The Fatal Voyage podcast, hosted by investigative journalist Dylan Wood, claims to have found ‘new evidence that suggests a larger conspiracy’ in Natalie’s death.
Nine chapters of the show have yet to be released.