where is the splendour yacht now

The yacht tied to actress Natalie Wood’s mysterious 1981 death is out of Oahu waters

HONOLULU, Hawaii (HawaiiNewsNow) - A boat that was once a crucial piece of evidence in a Hollywood homicide investigation has finally been removed from Honolulu waters.

The yacht “Splendour” is now a sitting scrap heap. On Tuesday, the state hauled the vessel from the Ala Wai Harbor. It’s been sitting there unused for over 20 years as it changed owners.

But it was once owned by actor Robert Wagner who was questioned in 1981 following the death of his wife, actress Natalie Wood.

Wood is said to have fallen from the boat one night, yet conflicting witness statements from Wagner, actor Christopher Walken, and the boat’s captain led to an extensive investigation.

For years, her death was classified as an accident until new witnesses emerged and the case was reopened in 2011. Authorities now consider Wagner a person of interest.

The vessel itself has racked up nearly $12,000 in illegal mooring fees, and it will cost the state almost $14,500 to get rid of the yacht.

The DLNR adds that the boat was in extremely poor condition and was in danger of sinking.

To this day, no one has ever been arrested in connection to Wood’s death.

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Owner of ‘Splendour’, the Yacht Once Owned by Hollywood Stars Natalie Wood and her husband Robert Wagner, Becomes Instant Celebrity

The Honolulu resident, who has had a mooring permit in the a small boat harbor in Honolulu, is the owner of the Splendour , a yacht once owned by Hollywood stars Natalie Wood and her husband Robert Wagner.

The yacht, which will soon be inspected by Los Angeles investigators, may be a key part of the investigation reopened yesterday into the 1981 drowning death of Wood.

Reached by phone today, his wife said a number of media outlets are asking for interviews.

The Los Angeles Police Department said today in a press conference that using new DNA technology, investigators will examine the boat that Wood, Wagner and their friend Christopher Walken were on the night the actress died 30 years ago. They have not disclosed what they expect to find.

The boat captain Dennis Davern, who was with the trio the night Wood fell off the boat and drown, alleges that Wagner is responsible for Wood’s death and that he lied for Wagner in the past as a part of a cover up.

This comes as 48 Hour Mysteries and Vanity Fair magazine are about to release a special investigative report on the star’s demise.

48 Hours Presents Vanity Fair: Hollywood Scandal airs Saturday, Nov. 19 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on CBS, the network’s web site said.

Police so far maintain that Wagner is not a target of the investigation.

However, Wood’s sister also claims Wagner is responsible for the beloved star’s death.

She told TMZ  that Wagner  “left her to drown” and told the captain to ‘Leave her there, teach her a lesson.”

The captain said publicly today that he was prevented by Wagner from calling the U.S. Coast Guard for four hours.

Reports are that Wood, Wagner and Walken were drinking heavily that night, and Wood and Wagner had a volatile fight over whether Walken wanted to sleep with her. The captain claims to have turned up his music so he would not have to hear them argue.

The question police have to answer now is whether Wood fell, or slipped trying to get off the boat into a smaller dingy, or was pushed into the water while they were sailing off of Catalina Island.

Marti Rulli, who authored “ Goodbye Natalie, Goodbye Splendour” in September 2009 could not be reached for comment, but her investigation – and the other new publicity surrounding her death – may have contributed to police reopening the case.

Wagner has not made a statement about the LA police department’s decision.

A source close to the Wagner family told Hawaii Reporter that Wagner has been cooperating with the police and they don’t believe the captain’s story is credible.

A statement released from Wagner’s publicist is similar: “We trust they will evaluate whether any new information relating to the death of Natalie Wood Wagner is valid, and that it comes from a credible source or sources other than those simply trying to profit from the 30-year anniversary of her tragic death.”

Wood, who was nominated three times for Oscars for her roles in West Side Story and Rebel with out a Cause , also starred  as a child in such films as the Christmas classic Miracle On 34th Street and The Ghost And Mrs. Muir .

Meanwhile when the Los Angeles police will arrive in Honolulu is part of the mystery – at least for now.

Honolulu Police Department has not been contacted so far by Los Angeles authorities to aid in the investigation, according to Caroline Sluyter, spokesperson for HPD.

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News | South Bay history: Actress Natalie Wood’s…

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News | South Bay history: Actress Natalie Wood’s 1981 death near Catalina Island remains unsolved

She played a young girl who drops her ice cream cone and looks suitably sad about it in the 1943 drama “Happy Land.” Her nonspeaking role was uncredited; she was on screen for about 15 seconds.

She was born Natalia Nikolaevna Zacharenko in San Francisco on July 20, 1938, to Russian immigrant parents. The family bought a house in Santa Rosa in 1942, and the young girl caught the attention of the “Happy Land” film crew working nearby the following year.

Her first major role came as an 8-year-old in the 1947 holiday classic “Miracle on 34th Street.” She would go on to earn three Academy Award nominations before turning 25, for “Rebel Without a Cause,” “Splendor in the Grass” and “Love With the Proper Stranger.” She also famously portrayed Maria in the film adaptation of the Broadway musical “West Side Story.”

She married actor Robert Wagner for the first time in 1957. They divorced in 1962. Each married and divorced other spouses, before reconciling and remarrying each other on a boat in Paradise Cove in Malibu in 1972.

Wood slowed her career during the 1970s while raising a family, appearing in just a few films. She made several television appearances, winning a best-actress Golden Globe award for her work in the 1979 TV miniseries version of “From Here to Eternity.”

She had just finished location shooting for the sci-fi thriller “Brainstorm,” her final film, in late 1981 when she and husband Wagner, her co-star Christopher Walken, and boat captain Dennis Davern took a Thanksgiving weekend cruise to Catalina Island.

After a family dinner on Thanksgiving Day in her Beverly Hills home, Wood and Wagner invited friends to come with them on the trip to Catalina Island, a favorite weekend boating destination of theirs, but most demurred due to stormy weather conditions.

Walken was the only one who decided to go along. They spent Friday night in Avalon before deciding to take the Splendour to their favorite part of the island, mooring the boat at the Isthmus/Two Harbors area about 21 miles west of Avalon.

The trio had dinner and drinks onshore on Saturday night, Nov. 28, 1981, at Doug’s Harbor Reef, the restaurant owned by Two Harbors General Manager Doug Bombard. They returned to the Splendour, where Walken and Wagner had an argument with each other, with Wood retiring to the stateroom to sleep.

The Wagners’ 60-foot yacht, “Splendour,” in Catalina Island’s Isthmus Cove on Nov. 30, 1981. (Photo courtesy of Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection)

Natalie Wood. 1964 publicity photo. (Photo courtesy of Sam Gnerre)

Aerial tour of Marine Protection Area off the coast of Palos Verdes Peninsula and Catalina Island. Catalina Island. Two Harbors (Photo by Robert Casillas, The Daily Breeze/SCNG)

The Isthmus Cove/Two Harbors area of Catalina Island. Wood’s body was found off of Blue Cavern Point, right. 2024 image. (Photo courtesy of Google Earth)

Natalie Wood received her first Academy Award nomination, for Best Supporting Actress, in “Rebel Without a Cause” (1955). (Photo courtesy of Sam Gnerre)

Mourners stand somberly during the burial services for Natalie Wood at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. Dec. 3, 1981 photo. (Photo courtesy of Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection)

What happened next has been the subject of speculation for more than four decades. At around 3 a.m., Wood got up and went onto the boat’s deck.

When Wagner realized she had gone above board, he went to look for her. He didn’t find her, but did notice that the dinghy attached to the boat was also missing. He contacted the Harbor Patrol, who searched, but didn’t find her. The Coast Guard was enlisted to join in the search.

Shortly before dawn, the authorities contacted Doug Bombard, thinking his local knowledge of the area might help. By this time, they had already located the dinghy, but not Wood.

Bombard told The Catalina Islander in 2012 that he began by checking the kelp line, following it east from Two Harbors around Blue Cavern Point just east of Two Harbors. There, he spotted a red object which turned out to be part of Wood’s red down jacket, and he called for another boat to come help lift her body from the ocean.

The down jacket had filled with water, adding an estimated 40 pounds to Wood’s body, which was clad in a flannel nightgown.

Various explanations have been offered as to what happened to the 43-year-old actress.

In his original 1981 autopsy report, Los Angeles County Coroner Thomas Noguchi stated Wood drowned after boarding the dinghy to get away from the arguing Walken and Wagner.

Two years later, Noguchi changed his tune in his book, “Coroner” (Simon & Schuster, 1983), speculating that Wood, who had had a few drinks, went above board to try to keep the dinghy from banging noisily into the Splendour, which was keeping her awake. Not a practiced swimmer, she then fell into the ocean, possibly hitting her head, and drowned.

Thirty years after her death, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s office reopened its investigation in November 2011, citing “new information” in the case. In August 2012, the cause of death on the official autopsy report was altered from “accidental drowning” to “drowning and other undetermined factors.”

The change came after the coroner’s office could not discern whether bruises and scratches on Wood’s face and arms occurred before or after she drowned.

Varying accounts of the events surrounding her death told by boat captain Davern, Wood’s sister Lana, the authorities and innumerable sensationalist tabloid articles and gossipy celebrity TV segments have attempted to cast further doubt upon what actually transpired.

In 2020, Wood’s daughter from second husband Richard Gregson, Natasha Gregson Wagner, released the HBO documentary, “Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind.” In addition to celebrating her mother’s life and accomplishments, the film also presents a strong, clear-eyed look at what is known and not known about Wood’s death.

Even so, the case remains officially open to date. Movie star mysteries, even 43-year-old ones, seem to take on a life of their own.

Daily Breeze archives.

Los Angeles Times archives.

“Mysterious Island: Natalie Wood,” by Jim Watson, The Catalina Islander website, Dec. 1, 2012.

Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind , directed by Laurent Bouzerau, HBO Documentary Films, 2020.

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Natalie Wood's sister says Christopher Walken spoke to detectives working her reopened case, but made them promise not to reveal what he said

• The circumstances around Natalie Wood's 1981 death have long been the focus of intense speculation.
• The actress was yachting with her husband and co-star Christopher Walken when she disappeared and drowned.
• In an interview, Natalie's sister, Lana Wood, told Insider that she doesn't hold Walken responsible. 

The 1981 drowning death of actress Natalie Wood has long been one of Hollywood's most persistent mysteries. 

Now, 40 years after the tragedy off the coast of Santa Catalina Island, Natalie's younger sister, Lana Wood, 75, is diving back into the unsolved case in her new memoir, "Little Sister: My Investigation into the Mysterious Death of Natalie Wood."

But in a book that frequently accuses and alleges — Natalie's husband Robert Wagner takes the brunt of the blame , though the authorities who initially investigated Natalie's death and the famed celebrity coroner who classified her death as "accidental drowning," face Lana's fury as well — there is one familiar face whom Lana says she does not hold responsible for the tragedy: Christopher Walken. 

Lana told Insider the award-winning actor has continued to prove helpful amid the ongoing investigation into Natalie's death, albeit privately.

A mysterious drowning death

The Oscar-nominated Natalie, who starred in Hollywood hits like "West Side Story" and "Rebel Without a Cause," was 43 when her body was found floating in the ocean off Catalina Island on Thanksgiving weekend in 1981. She had been vacationing on a yacht with her husband, Robert [RJ] Wagner, her "Brainstorm" co-star and friend Walken, and the ship's captain, Dennis Davern.

Los Angeles County coroner Thomas Noguchi ruled her death an accidental drowning, noting her blood alcohol content was 0.14%, and suggesting the actress may have slipped into the freezing water while trying to tie up the vessel's dingy.

But Lana was skeptical of the proposed explanation due to Natalie's lifelong fear of "dark waters," claiming her sister never would have attempted to re-board the vessel's dinghy on her own in the middle of the night.

In 1992, more than a decade after Natalie's death, the yacht's captain, Dennis Davern, contacted Lana, admitting that he hadn't originally told police everything he knew about that fateful night. He alleged the holiday had been tense from the start and remembered Wagner expressing anger about Natalie inviting Walken on the trip. The captain also told Lana that he heard Wagner and Natalie fighting at the back of the boat before learning Natalie had gone missing. 

Davern's admissions to Lana came around the same time she gained access to the original police report, sparking her own investigation into the incident. According to Lana, she was struck by a number of elements, including reports that both Wagner and Walken had been interviewed by authorities for less than 10 minutes in the immediate aftermath of Natalie's death as well as witness statements that appeared to have been dismissed by the initial investigators. 

In 2009, a crowdsourced petition, spurred by Davern's new revelations and Lana's amateur sleuthing, called for a new investigation into Natalie's death, and two years later, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department reopened Natalie's case , citing "additional information." 

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In 2018, detectives labeled her death "suspicious," and later that year, authorities officially named Wagner a "person of interest" in Natalie's death.

Decades of silence

Despite having already won an Oscar for his 1978 performance in "The Deer Hunter," Walken was a relative newcomer to Hollywood when the then-38-year-old accompanied Natalie and Wagner on their Thanksgiving holiday in 1981. In the decades since her death, Walken, now 78, has rarely spoken publicly about that night.

Five years after Natalie's death, Walken told People : "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 fucking bore," he added.

The few times he has spoken publicly about her death, the actor has maintained it was an accident, telling Playboy Magazine in 1997 that Natalie had gone to bed before the men and reiterating the coroner's dingy theory, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

"The people who are convinced that there was something more to it than what came out in the investigation will never be satisfied with the truth. Because the truth is, there is nothing more to it," Walken told the outlet. 

In a 2020 HBO Documentary produced by Natalie's daughter, Natasha Gregson Wagner, Natalie's husband, Robert Wagner admits that he and Walken fought about Natalie's career on the night she disappeared.

But despite Walken's longtime public silence on the matter, Lana told Insider that the actor has spoken with the current detectives working Natalie's reopened case.

"He did tell them everything he witnessed and he knows," she said. "However, he made them promise that they would never reveal anything that he has said."

Lana, who has worked closely with the LASD detectives working the case, said the investigators didn't even tell her what Walken disclosed in order to honor their agreement.

"All they told me was that they did speak to him," she said. "[The detective] said he told them everything."

A representative for Walken did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment or confirmation regarding Lana's claims about the actor, nor did a spokesperson with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. 

But a detective for the sheriff's department previously told Insider that Natalie's death is still considered suspicious, given the remaining unanswered questions.

"Her husband at the time, Robert Wagner, is the last known person to be with Ms. Woods [sic] prior to her death, and Investigators would like to interview him," Detective Ralph Hernandez said in a statement. "The goal of the investigation is to confirm the truth of how she ended up in the water, thus providing the manner of her death."

The case will remain open until it is solved, he added.

A representative for Wagner did not respond to Insider's request for comment. The 91-year-old has previously denied wrongdoing in Natalie's death.

Lana's memoir, which was released last week, delves into the sisters' adolescence in Hollywood , as well as the aftermath of Natalie's death , as the younger sister attempts to set the record straight on Natalie's life and death, and keep her memory alive — "not simply as a movie star, but as a person who had a full life." 

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What Really Happened to Natalie Wood?

The Hollywood star's death was declared accidental decades ago—but now, investigators aren't so sure.

We originally published the following investigation of Wood's death in 2018.

On a cool November day 37 years ago, four adults went for a cruise off the southwest coast of Los Angeles aboard Splendour , a 55-foot yacht. Three of those adults would come safely back to shore. The fourth would never see home again. She’d never work again or see her children reach adulthood. She was discovered floating in the water in a flannel nightgown, socks, and a down jacket the next morning.

In this story, the unlucky adult was also the most famous adult, movie star Natalie Wood , who was 43 at the time. She had been a beloved child actress, first capturing national attention in the 1947 Christmas classic Miracle on 34th Street— she played the skeptical, precocious Susan Walker—and then as a beautiful ingenue in such films as the 1961 musical West Side Story , in which she played a graceful Maria. By the age of 25, she had been nominated for three Academy Awards for Best Actress, for her leading roles in Rebel Without a Cause, Splendor in the Grass , and Love With a Proper Stranger.

But perhaps because of her tragic end, when you hear the name “Natalie Wood” today, you don’t think first of her storied career. To wit: There are 38 million Google results for the search term “Natalie Wood death.” While the circumstances surrounding her death remain murky and controversial, we can agree that in dying so young, and so mysteriously, Wood’s talent was denied a proper legacy.

In 1981, Natalie’s death was classified as an accident and “probable drowning in ocean.” Prominent Los Angeles coroner Thomas Noguchi cited in his report “numerous bruises to arms and legs” that were “superficial and probably sustained at the time of drowning” and wrote, “No other trauma noted and foul play is not suspected at this time.”

The investigator’s report attached to Noguchi’s document said that Wood and a small party that included her husband, Robert Wagner, had left the Splendour for a restaurant dinner on Catalina Island. At about 10 p.m., the “intoxicated” group returned to the yacht, using its dinghy, Valiant . Robert Wagner told the investigators that Natalie retired for the night in the couple’s cabin at about 10:45, but after talking for a while longer with their guest, Natalie’s co-star at the time Christopher Walken, Wagner went to join her in the cabin, only to find her missing.

Wagner and the others soon discovered the dinghy was also missing, and they “immediately” radioed for help. Harbor Patrol, private searchers, and eventually the Coast Guard all combed the water and island coastline, and a Sheriff’s Department helicopter eventually spotted Natalie’s floating body. She was pronounced dead at 7:44 a.m. on November 29th.

Wood’s funeral, held on December 3rd, showed a devastated, weeping Wagner, surrounded by friends, family, and the cream of the entertainment world: Laurence Olivier, Frank Sinatra, Gregory Peck, and Rock Hudson.

Instead of finality, Wood’s death only seemed to provoke questions , and three decades later, in 2011, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department reopened the investigation . And at a press conference in February of 2018, Captain Christopher Bergner of the homicide department said “new witnesses” and those with relevant information had been identified and a different timeline had emerged of Natalie Wood’s last hours on the boat and when help was requested.

At that February press conference , John Corina, a lieutenant in the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department Homicide Bureau, said that Robert Wagner, 88, was “a person of interest” in her death and they would like to speak with him again and hear his version of events. The new witnesses, he said, were people in boats moored near the Wagner yacht who heard a couple loudly arguing as well as a woman calling for help.

“[Wagner] is a person of interest, because he was the last one with Natalie Wood. And somehow she ends up in the water and drowns," said Corina.

Natasha: The Biography of Natalie Wood

“The case is still open,” says Suzanne Finstad, author of Natasha: The Biography of Natalie Wood . (Natasha was the name her Russian family called her.) When Finstad’s book was published in 2009, it contained startling claims about arguments between Wood and Wagner shortly before she was declared missing from their yacht. The source was the fourth person on the boat, its captain, Dennis Davern, who is now 70. In the February press conference, Corina said the witness statements from those who heard a couple fighting matched up with what Davern has said in recent police interviews.

Corina added that his department have also talked to witnesses who saw the group on Catalina Island that weekend as well as people who knew Wagner and Wood. Some of the details that have emerged about the last hours of the yacht are ugly, with whispers of drunkenness, rage, and accused infidelity.

The life of Natalie Wood is like a Russian matryonshka doll, a set of wooden dolls nesting in one another. When you pick up one doll, you find another inside, over and over. Even those who thought themselves familiar with the life story of the sparkling Wood would be taken aback by the reality of her childhood.

Born Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko, Wood was the daughter of Russian immigrants. (Studio executives changed Natalia’s name to Natalie Wood when she first started acting as a child.) Her father, Nikolai Zakharenko, was a laborer given to violent alcoholic rages, and her mother, Maria, was a fantasist and abusive taskmaster who drove her tiny daughter to become the family breadwinner, according to Finstad’s biography and other books, documentaries, and articles about Wood.

Maria’s family fled to China after the Russian Revolution, and when she was a child, she said she had her fortune read by a gypsy in Harbin. The fortune teller told her that her second child “would be a great beauty, known throughout the world.” But she also said that Maria must “beware of dark water.” Maria passed on that fear to her second daughter, while pushing her to fulfill that first prophecy.

There are harrowing stories of Maria’s career as a stage mother. She was determined that her daughter, after receiving small parts, would be cast in the 1946 film Tomorrow Is Forever alongside Orson Welles. The character was that of an emotionally fragile girl orphaned by the Nazis. To win the part, Wood would have to be able to cry on cue. Her mother wasn’t sure she could do it. At the studio, clutching her seven-year-old daughter before her screen test, Maria whispered to her to think of the death of the family dog.

But she went much further than that, according to Finstad’s book. “Her mother pulled her to the side, where no one else could see, ‘took a live butterfly out of a jar and tore the wings off it.’ Tenderhearted Natasha went into hysterics as her mother called out, ‘She’s ready!’ grabbing her by the hand and pushing her in front of the camera.”

Wood was so moving in the film that she won a long-term studio contract. She was famously hard-working, learning not just her lines but everyone else’s, and earning the nickname “One Take Natalie.” She performed in a dizzying number of movies, including The Ghost and Mrs. Muir , and, as she reached her teen years, wore braids and frilly dresses so she could play younger roles.

But, unsurprisingly, Wood rebelled from her mother’s tight control and her ultra-wholesome image by the time she was 16. She wanted to be a “real” actress, an artist, and with some difficulty won a part in Rebel Without a Cause , co-starring James Dean and Sal Mineo.

This period also launched her sexual rebelliousness. Wood, 16, had an affair with the 44-year-old director, Nicholas Ray, and also slept with her co-star Dennis Hopper, according to Finstad’s book. In the next few years she would date entertainers like Elvis Presley and heartthrob Tab Hunter. In Hunter’s case she was playing the part of beard, since the gay actor was then in the closet.

Wagner was different. She had long had a crush on the handsome actor, and they went on their first date on her 18th birthday. They married one year later, in 1957, becoming Hollywood’s golden couple. But the marriage did not last. Following their divorce in 1962, Wood dated Warren Beatty before marrying British producer Richard Gregson in 1969. It was with Gregson that she had her first daughter, Natasha .

To the delight of her fans, after she divorced Gregson in 1972, Wood got back in touch with Wagner. They remarried that same year, one decade after their divorce. This time, the marriage flourished, and they had a daughter, Courtney. Wagner’s career took off when he found a hit TV series in Hart to Hart . During that time, Wood made fewer films. Some say she wanted to devote more time to her family, but she was also finding it hard to get good parts after 40.

Wood’s last movie was Brainstorm , in which she played a scientist married to a fellow scientist portrayed by Christopher Walken. The New York-based actor had just won an Academy Award for The Deer Hunter . Wood told friends she was worried that she looked older than Walken onscreen (she was five years his senior), but they struck up a friendship, and rumors swirled about their connection.

The film’s first assistant director, David McGiffert told Wood’s biographer, “It wasn’t like they were lovey-dovey on the set or anything like that, but they just had a current about them, and an electricity.”

.css-4rnr1w:before{margin:0 auto 1.875rem;width:60%;height:0.125rem;content:'';display:block;background-color:#9a0500;color:#fff;} .css-1x12re0{margin:0rem;font-size:1.625rem;line-height:1.2;font-family:NewParis,NewParis-fallback,NewParis-roboto,NewParis-local,Georgia,Times,serif;color:#030929;}@media(max-width: 64rem){.css-1x12re0{font-size:2.25rem;line-height:1.1;}}@media(min-width: 48rem){.css-1x12re0{font-size:2.625rem;line-height:1.1;}}@media(min-width: 64rem){.css-1x12re0{font-size:2.8125rem;line-height:1.1;}}.css-1x12re0 em,.css-1x12re0 i{font-style:italic;font-family:inherit;}.css-1x12re0 b,.css-1x12re0 strong{font-family:inherit;font-weight:bold;} "It wasn’t like they were lovey-dovey on the set or anything like that, but they just had a current about them, and an electricity."

For the Thanksgiving weekend of 1981, Wood and Wagner invited Walken to join them as they sailed around Catalina Island, a rocky getaway about 22 miles off the shores of Los Angeles. Wagner loved his yacht Splendour and the family spent as much time on it as they could; in a 1979 TV interview, Wood talked about how it allowed the family to escape the public eye. “It’s easy with the boat,” she said with a smile.

Davern, a family friend as well as Navy vet, was the captain that fateful weekend. He has said in multiple interviews—and in a book that he co-wrote with Marti Rulli , titled Goodbye Natalie, Goodbye Splendour— that after Natalie Wood’s body was found, Wagner him and Walken to stick to the original story. That was the timeline that showed up in the 1981 coroner’s report : Natalie went to bed first; when Wagner after chatting with Walken went to join her, he saw she was missing and so was the dinghy.

However, Davern now says, that wasn’t the whole truth.

“The argument started the day before,” Davern told Nancy Grace in a televised interview years later. “The tension was going through the whole weekend. Robert Wagner was jealous of Christopher Walken.”

According to Davern, Wood and Walken spent hours at a bar on Catalina Island, laughing and seemingly flirting. When her husband showed up, he was fuming. The four proceeded to have dinner at Doug’s Harbor Reef Restaurant, drinking champagne, two bottles of wine, and cocktails. At one point, Wood or Walken threw a glass at the wall, employees of the restaurant told Finstad.

The restaurant manager saw how drunk the members of the group were becoming, and worried they would not be able to reach their yacht safely when they staggered out just after 10 p.m. Using their inflatable dinghy, Valiant , the group did reach Splendour that night, but Wood was dead hours before sunrise.

The story of what happened when the four of them returned to the yacht has changed several times. According to Finstad’s book, Walken early on told the investigators that he and Wagner got into a “small beef” about a parent being away from young children for an extended time shooting a movie, as Natalie was doing. Apologies were made, and the spat died down.

However, in his most recent version , Davern says they resumed drinking wine and that a very heated argument exploded, during which Wagner broke a bottle of wine on a table and shouted at Walken, “Are you trying to f—-k my wife?”

Goodbye Natalie, Goodbye Splendour

Davern said Walken left to go to his own room “and that was the last I saw of him.” Wood also left for her state room, with Wagner following, and Davern heard the ensuing loud quarrel. While Davern did not see them at this point, he said he heard the argument continue on the deck of the boat, before “everything went silent.” After a time, he decided to check on the situation, and found Wagner alone on deck, saying, “Natalie is missing.” He asked Davern to start looking for her.

When his search was unsuccessful, Davern said he rejoined Wagner, who then told him, “The dinghy is missing too.” With Natalie Wood being “deathly afraid of water,” Davern says he doubted she would have taken out the small boat herself. He has said in multiple interviews that Wagner, saying he didn’t want to attract bad publicity, refused to turn on the boat’s flood lights and delayed calling for help.

Sheriff’s investigators have referred to a key witness statement from Marilyn Wayne , who happened to be in a boat moored 80 feet away at the time. Wayne said that around 11 p.m., she heard a woman calling out, saying, “Somebody please help me, I’m drowning.” The cries went on until almost 11:30 pm. When Wayne’s boyfriend tried to call the harbormaster, no one answered. Also, there might have been a party on another boat moored off the island, so they wondered if it was all a joke.

Most troubling, it seems there was a critical gap before anyone learned Wood was missing. Far from notifying authorities “immediately,” according to Finstad’s reporting in her book as well as Davern in his many television and print interviews, Wagner did not make the first call to shore until 1:30 a.m.

Lana Wood , Natalie’s younger sister, has often called for Wagner to say more about what happened that night. “She would never have left the boat like that, undressed, in just a nightgown,” said Wood in one TV interview.

In 2013, Wagner released a statement through his attorney, Blair Berk, as reported by E! News : "Mr. Wagner has fully cooperated over the last 30 years in the investigation of the accidental drowning of his wife in 1981. Mr. Wagner has been interviewed on multiple occasions by the Los Angeles sheriff’s department and answered every single question asked of him by detectives during those interviews.”

The sheriff’s department said in February that the team is still working to see if more witnesses can still remember the night and may help fill in the timeline and provide more clues about when exactly Wood went into the water. “We’re doing our last shot here to see if anyone else will come forward,” said Corina at the press conference .

Finstad said that something could still advance the investigation: “In the past several months I’ve sent the lead detective two new incriminating eyewitnesses to Natalie’s injuries. After my book was published I found a key witness Davern called in a panic hours after Natalie drowned to confide how she went overboard,” the biographer told Town & Country.

Wagner has never been charged with any crime in connection to the death of his wife, meaning that if he chose to give further statements to the police, it would be purely voluntary. According to the Associated Press , “Investigators made at least 10 attempts to interview Wagner again after reopening the investigation in 2011, including tracking him down in Colorado. But either Wagner or his lawyer refused.”

“We would love to talk to Robert Wagner,” said Corina. “He’s refused to talk to us….We can never force him to talk to us. He has rights and he can not talk to us if he doesn’t want to.”

The Sheriff’s Department’s public acknowledgement that Wagner was a person of interest only deepens the tragedy for Finstad. “The L.A. Coroner, remarkably, officially changed her cause of death 30 years later—which means that Wood’s suspicious and gruesome death was never investigated and she was wrongly and publicly blamed and shamed as the drunken cause of her own death,” says Finstad.

Wagner, called “R.J.” by those who know him, appeared to have been shattered by the loss of his wife. He wrote in his memoir , “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.”

Natalie and R.J.’s daughter, Courtney, was seven years old when she lost her mother. Courtney has continually expressed her love and support for her father, praising his efforts to protect his children, and told one interviewer , “There are certain people in our lives that continue to drudge up all this speculation and stories every year for no other reason than to indulge themselves.”

Like Wagner, Walken has said very little in public about Wood’s death. In one of his few statements, he suggested that people couldn’t handle the strangeness, the randomness, of Wood’s drowning.

“Anybody there saw the logistics—of the boat, the night, where we were, that it was raining—and would know exactly what happened,” Walken said in a Playboy interview in 1997 , his fullest public response to the tragedy. “You hear about things happening to people—they slip in the bathtub, fall down the stairs, step off the curb in London because they think that the cars come the other way—and they die. You feel you want to die making an effort at something; you don’t want to die in some unnecessary way.”

For those who knew Wood, it is the ugliness of her death that is so deeply painful, for she was a kind, warm woman who took pride in looking her best. And up to that last fateful weekend, she seemed to have been deeply in love with her husband.

“I guess we do belong together,” she said in an interview with Hollywood columnist Shirley Eder , talking about her compatibility with Robert Wagner. “Yeah, I think we do.”

Or as adorable Susan Walker said in A Miracle on 34th Street, “I believe, I believe. It’s silly, but I believe.”

Nancy Bilyeau, a former staff editor at InStyle, Rolling Stone and Entertainment Weekly, has written a thriller set in the 18th century art and porcelain world titled 'The Blue.' For more information, see www.nancybilyeau.com.

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New Doubts in Natalie Wood’s Death: ‘I Don’t Think She Got in the Water by Herself’

By Maya Salam

• Feb. 3, 2018

New witness statements have re-energized the investigation into the drowning of Natalie Wood, the child star turned Hollywood icon who disappeared off a yacht over Thanksgiving weekend in 1981.

Ms. Wood went missing late on Nov. 28 from the yacht Splendour. On board were her television star husband, Robert Wagner, the actor Christopher Walken and the boat’s captain.

The men spent hours searching for her before alerting the Coast Guard. Her body was found, shoeless and wearing only a nightgown and red parka, in a rocky cove near Santa Catalina Island off the coast of Los Angeles on Nov. 29. She was 43.

Originally ruled an accident, her death was recently reclassified as “suspicious.”

“She got in the water somehow, and I don’t think she got in the water by herself,” Lt. John Corina of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department told Erin Moriarty, a CBS correspondent, in a special “48 Hours” report to be broadcast on Saturday.

Accounts from the boat’s captain, Dennis Davern, who has maintained he witnessed an explosive, alcohol-fueled fight between Ms. Wood and Mr. Wagner immediately before her disappearance, have long stoked speculation of foul play.

Investigators said they have two new witnesses who support Mr. Davern’s account, according to “48 Hours.”

“A witness provided details about hearing yelling and crashing sounds coming from the couple’s stateroom,” according to a statement from the Los Angeles Sheriff Department.

The statement added: “Shortly afterwards, separate witnesses identified a man and a woman arguing on the back of the boat. The witnesses believed that the voices belonged to Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner.”

The statement did not elaborate on where the witnesses were at the time or their identities.

Mr. Wagner is not a suspect but “more of a person of interest now,” Lieutenant Corina told Ms. Moriarty.

Investigators also told “48 Hours” that bruises noted on Ms. Wood’s autopsy report suggested she may have been struck.

“She looked like the victim of an assault,” said another investigator, Detective Ralph Hernandez.

Thirty years after her death, the case was reopened by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department because of new information, but Lieutenant Corina did not offer more specific details at the time. In 2012, the cause on her death certificate was changed to “drowning and other undetermined factors” from “accidental drowning.”

Mr. Wagner, who turns 88 next week, has not spoken to investigators since they reopened the case but has maintained that Ms. Wood’s death was an accident.

Mr. Walken has spoken with investigators since 2011, Ms. Moriarty told “ CBS This Morning” on Friday .

Representatives for Mr. Wagner and Mr. Walken did not respond to requests for comment on Friday.

By age 9, Ms. Wood had her breakthrough role in the movie “Miracle on 34th Street.”

Over the next 15 years, she starred in “West Side Story,” “Rebel Without a Cause,” “Splendor in the Grass” and “Love With a Proper Stranger.” She earned an Oscar nomination for each of the last three, solidifying her leading-lady status. Dozens of movies and television shows followed.

In a 1969 interview with The New York Times in Las Vegas, the reporter John Hallowell painted an image of Ms. Wood replete with money, glamour and romance. Sitting at a blackjack table, clad in a silver lamé minidress and a sable fur, Ms. Wood was “stuffing her winnings into a gold egg,” he wrote.

At that point in her life, Ms. Wood was between marriages to Mr. Wagner, the handsome star of television shows like “It Takes a Thief,” “Switch” and “Hart to Hart.” They married in 1957 and divorced in 1962. In a lawsuit she filed, she charged Mr. Wagner with “mental cruelties.”

She married the British film producer Richard Gregson in 1969 and divorced him in 1972, the same year she remarried Mr. Wagner on a boat off the coast of Southern California, even though she feared the ocean.

“I’ve always been terrified, still am, of water, dark water, seawater,” she famously said.

The Los Angeles medical examiner, Thomas Noguchi, in 1981 called her death “a tragic accident while slightly intoxicated.”

While Ms. Wood’s body was found alongside the Splendour’s dinghy — she reportedly took the dinghy out alone sometimes — Dr. Noguchi said that she had likely not gotten into it the day she died.

Despite their woes, Mr. Wagner and Ms. Wood — born Natalia Zakharenko to Russian and Ukrainian immigrant parents — were an aspirational celebrity couple. She’d admitted to having a teenage crush on Mr. Wagner, who was eight years older, and in her Times interview in 1969, she reflected on their relationship.

“We loved each other tremendously,” she said. “It was disillusioning when it didn’t work out.”

A Complete Timeline of Natalie Wood's Mysterious Death

The events are re-examined in HBO's new documentary, Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind .

There are few Hollywood mysteries more enduring—or more heartbreaking—than the one surrounding Natalie Wood's tragic death.

Below, a timeline of the known events of Wood's passing, which remains cloaked in mystery to this day.

Late November 1981

After Thanksgiving 1981, Wood and Wagner began planning one of their frequent boat trips to Catalina Island, off the coast of California. According to several interviews in Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind , the actress invited multiple friends to join them on the trip, but most of the invitees declined, citing the less-than-ideal sailing weather that weekend. Wood's Brainstorm costar, Christopher Walken, who was in town for the film, but not from Los Angeles, was the only person to accepted, joining Wood, Wagner, and Dennis Davern, the captain of the couple's yacht, Splendour .

November 28, 1981

Wood, Wagner, Walken, and Davern enjoyed a champagne-filled dinner at the restaurant Doug's Harbor Reef in Catalina before re-boarding the yacht for the evening. Don Whiting, the night manager of the restaurant, later said he was worried that all four were too intoxicated to make it back to the boat safely in their dinghy after the meal and even went so far as to ask Kurt Craig of the Harbor Patrol to make sure the group made it safely back to their yacht when they left the restaurant at 10:30 p.m. The toxicology report released after Wood's death revealed that the actress had a blood alcohol content of 0.14 percent at the time of her death.

In the HBO documentary, Wagner describes having a heated conversation with Walken after dinner, during which Wood was not present, but believed to be safe elsewhere onboard.

At around 11:05 p.m. that evening, other passengers realized that Wood had gone missing and began looking for her. Around this time, they realized that the boat's dinghy was also gone.

November 29, 1981

At 1:30 a.m., a ship-to-shore call was made and two hours later, at 3:30 a.m., the Coast Guard was finally called . This part of the timeline has become of particular interest to investigators.

"There are many, many things that should be examined, but mainly the four-hour wait to call for the Coast Guard," Marti Rulli, co-author of the book, Goodbye Natalie, Goodbye Splendour previously told CNN .

At around 8 a.m., Wood's body was found about a mile south of the couple's yacht, off an isolated cove known as Blue Cavern Point.

November 30, 1981

Dr. Joseph Choi, a deputy medical examiner at the Los Angeles Medical Examiner’s Office performed an autopsy on Wood. Noting Wood's blood alcohol levels and several bruises on her arms, legs, and face, believed to be consistent with a fall overboard while she was trying to board the dinghy, the office ruled the death an accident, according to Huffington Post .

September 1, 1997

Walken broke his silence on the night of Wood's death, offering a theory as to how she died. The actor's account of the evening, given during an interview with Playboy Magazine , was consistent with investigators' initial findings.

In the interview, Walken said, per The Hollywood Reporter :

"Anybody there saw the logistics—of the boat, the night, where we were, that it was raining—and would know exactly what happened. You hear about things happening to people—they slip in the bathtub, fall down the stairs, step off the curb in London because they think that the cars come the other way—and they die. You feel you want to die making an effort at something; you don’t want to die in some unnecessary way.

"What happened that night only she knows, because she was alone. She had gone to bed before us, and her room was at the back. A dinghy was bouncing against the side of the boat, and I think she went out to move it. There was a ski ramp that was partially in the water. It was slippery—I had walked on it myself. She had told me she couldn’t swim; in fact, they had to cut a swimming scene from [ Brainstorm ]. She was probably half asleep, and she was wearing a coat."

November 17, 2011

Thirty years after her death, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department reopened their investigation after receiving "additional information" from unidentified sources who contacted the authorities.

November 18, 2011

In an interview with NBC's Today, Davern said he lied about Wood's death when he was originally questioned by police. He also claimed that Wagner was actually responsible for the tragedy.

January 14, 2013

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department officially changed Wood's cause of death from an accidental drowning to "drowning and other undetermined factors." The change came after investigators determined that some of the bruises found on Wood's body during her initial autopsy may have been sustained before she drowned. However, coroners said they couldn't definitely confirm when exactly the bruises were inflicted.

February 1, 2018

Wagner was officially named as a person of interest in Wood's death for the first time. Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Lieutenant John Corina disclosed the update during an interview with CBS News' 48 Hours .

In Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind , her daughter, Natasha Gregson Wagner, confronts Wagner on-camera about speculation that he had something to do with Wood's death. He denied the accusations and Gregson Wagner offered her emphatic support, stressing that she does not believe he was involved in her mother's death in anyway.

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The Mystery Surrounding Natalie Wood's Death

It soon emerged that Wood had spent Thanksgiving weekend aboard her yacht, Splendour, with her husband, actor Robert Wagner , her Brainstorm co-star, Christopher Walken , and the ship's young captain, Dennis Davern, before an accident of some sort left her lifeless in the water.

On November 30, Thomas Noguchi, chief medical examiner in the L.A. County Coroner's Office, announced his determination of an "accidental drowning." He noted the "superficial" bruises on Wood's body, likely from falling in the water, and the scratch marks on the yacht's dinghy, Prince Valiant, as evidence of her attempts to climb on board before succumbing to exhaustion.

Two days later, Hollywood mourned Wood's passing at a star-studded funeral, marked by a teary Wagner kissing her coffin, and the investigation was formally closed on December 11.

READ MORE: Inside Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner's Tumultuous Relationship

Associates raised questions as recollections changed

Although an accidental drowning seemed fully plausible, nagging questions lingered for those paying attention.

Noguchi himself raised some of those questions in his 1983 book, Coroner . Why, he wondered, did Wood slip out to the yacht's stern in the middle of the night and untie the dinghy? Where was she going? And why did it take so long for the men aboard to realize she was gone?

Wood's sister Lana, who followed by publishing Natalie: A Memoir by Her Sister (1984), was also puzzled by the supposed chain of events. How was it possible that Wood, with her long-known fear of "dark water," would venture out into those very environs, alone, on a starless night?

Elaborating on things in the 1986 book Heart to Heart with Robert Wagner , the actor described how he and Walken were engaged in a "political debate" for much of the evening, prompting his bored wife to check out of the discussion and head to bed. He theorized that she was unable to sleep with the dinghy banging against the yacht and fell and hit her head while attempting to tighten the line.

However, his recollection of impassioned discussions differed from an original description to police, in which he admitted to arguing with Wood about her extended time away from the family. It was just one of the many inconsistencies that surfaced as accounts of the night's events evolved over the years.

The ship’s captain came forth with his version of events

Still, with Wagner sticking to his general version and Walken saying next to nothing, the case likely would have lain dormant if it weren't for the efforts of Davern. After years of trying to get publishers and tabloids to bite on the story, he began leaking more revealing details to the mainstream press.

In a March 2000 story for Vanity Fair , the captain divulged that Wood and Walken had been flirting throughout the weekend and that things turned nasty after the foursome returned to Splendour after an evening spent drinking on the island. According to Davern, Wagner at one point smashed a wine bottle on the table and yelled at Walken, "What are you trying to do, f**k my wife?"

Wood stormed off and slammed the door of her room, with Wagner eventually heading down to confront her, setting off what Davern recalled as an epic fight. He claimed to have heard the dinghy being untied before Wagner returned, "tousled" and "sweating profusely."

With Walken in bed for the night, the two remaining men stayed up for more drinks, before Wagner, at around 1:30 a.m., said he would check on his wife. He returned with the news that he couldn't find her, prompting Davern to conduct his own search.

At that point, the captain recalled, Wagner rejected his suggestions to turn on the floodlights and look for Wood in the water. "We don't want to do anything, Dennis, because we don't want to alert all these people," the actor allegedly said, before they finally radioed for help.

Wagner revisited the case one more time in his 2008 memoir, Pieces of My Heart . "There are only two possibilities – either she was trying to get away from the argument or she was trying to tie the dinghy," he wrote. "But the bottom line is that nobody knows exactly what happened."

The case was reopened in 2011 and later reclassified as ‘suspicious'

In 2009, Davern finally published his long-gestating tell-all, Goodbye Natalie, Goodbye Splendour . Two years later, he was among the 700-plus people who signed a petition over the flawed investigation into Wood's death, prompting the L.A. County Sheriff's Department to reopen the case in November.

The following summer, the L.A. County coroner added emphasis to the newfound urgency by changing the cause of death to "drowning and other undetermined factors," citing a closer examination of bruises that suggested Wood was assaulted.

Yet another wrinkle emerged in February 2018, when the sheriff's department reclassified the death as "suspicious" and named Wagner "a person of interest" following interviews with former neighbors and fellow boaters.

At almost 90 years old, Wagner was no longer interested in talking to the police about his wife’s death. Still, it was clear that other people were, leaving open the possibility of finding some real answers after four decades of question marks.

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Natalie Wood

Updated on: February 1, 2018 / 5:29 PM EST / CBS News

In November 2011, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department re-opened its investigation in the death of actress Natalie Wood nearly 30 years after the actress drowned in the waters off Southern California. It is one of Hollywood's most enduring mysteries.  

More than 36 years after her death, investigators spoke to "48 Hours" about what they learned. 

The drowning death of actress Natalie Wood in 1981 shocked the world. At the time of her death, Wood had been enjoying Thanksgiving weekend on the Splendour, the family yacht, with her husband, actor Robert Wagner, boat captain Dennis Davern, and her "Brainstorm" co-star, actor Christopher Walken.  After a two-week investigation, Wood's death was ruled an accidental drowning.

Dogged Investigators

Los Angeles County Sheriff's investigators, Lt. John Corina, left, and Det. Ralph Hernandez, have been working the Natalie Wood case ever since they reopened it in November 2011. Here, the detectives are pictured outside of Robert Wagner's home in California.

Death Investigation Reopened

In 2011, 30 years after Natalie Wood's death, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department reopened the case. At the press conference, Lt. John Corina, center, was asked if Wood's husband, Robert Wagner was considered a suspect.  Corina responded, "No."

Natalie Wood's Death Certificate

Authorities amended actress Natalie Wood's death certificate on Aug. 1, 2012, to reflect some of the lingering questions about how the actress died in the waters off Catalina Island in November 1981. The changes include changing her manner of death to "Drowning and other undetermined factors" and adding the statement "Circumstances not clearly established" to address the question how did Wood end up in the water.

Natalie Wood's fatal voyage

What Happened That Night?

Years after Natalie Wood's death, Dennis Davern, the captain of Splendour, changed his story about what happened that night, sold it to tabloid magazines, and collaborated on a tell-all book. But Davern says he was motivated by his conscience. In 2011, he told "48 Hours," "What I really want is to give Natalie a voice." He also said, "I believe that Robert Wagner was with her up until the moment she went into the water."

Homicide detectives with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department aboard the Splendour on their first trip to Hawaii in December 2011 to re-investigate the death of actress Natalie Wood.  Natalie Wood's death re-investigated in Hawaii

Dennis Davern, in yellow, former captain of the Splendour, with Los Angeles County Sheriff's Dept. homicide detectives in Honolulu, Hawaii. 

The Splendour

The 55-foot yacht Splendour, belonging to actor Robert Wagner and his wife, actress Natalie Wood, sits in the waters off Catalina Island in Santa Catalina, Calif., near the site where Harbor Patrol personnel and lifeguards discovered the body of Wood, an apparent drowning victim, Nov. 29, 1981. 

Robert Wagner and Natalie Wood's yacht, Splendour. Wood drowned in 1981, after a night of partying with husband Wagner and "Brainstorm" co-star Christopher Walken on the couple's yacht anchored off Santa Catalina Island. 

A Life in the Movies

Natalie Wood got her first role at the age of four in the movie "Happy Land" (1943). By 1946, at age eight, she was making $1,000 a week.

Pictured: Natalie Wood with Orson Welles in "Tomorrow is Forever" (1946).

Iconic Role

Edmund Gwenn, as Kris Kringle, greets Natalie Wood in a scene from the 1947 Christmas classic, "Miracle on 34th Street."

Natalie Wood's Career

Young Natalie Wood played the daughter of Gene Tierney in the spectral romantic fantasy "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" (1947).

Actress Jane Wyatt fixes a hair ribbon for actress Natalie Wood in Hollywood, Calif., on Oct. 26, 1949. 

Wood continued playing roles of young girls until the age of 17, where she landed the role of Judy in the film "Rebel Without a Cause" (1955), opposite James Dean and Sal Mineo.

Natalie Wood and James Dean in "Rebel Without a Cause" (1955). She received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress as the girlfriend of Dean's troubled youth.

Actress Natalie Wood pictured in 1955. 

By 1950, Wood was the queen of fan magazines and the second biggest actress next to Elizabeth Taylor. During her career, Wood made 56 films for TV and the big screen, among them "West Side Story" (1961).

After spending years on the trail of an Indian party that kidnapped his young niece, Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) finally comes upon Debbie, now 15 (played by Natalie Wood), in the John Ford classic "The Searchers" (1956), which also starred Jeffrey Hunter.

Movie Stars Marry

Actress Natalie Wood and actor Robert Wagner cut their wedding cake after their wedding in Scottsdale, Ariz., on Dec. 28, 1957. They divorced four years later - and remarried in 1972.

Natalie Wood starred with Gene Kelly in the romantic drama "Marjorie Morningstar" (1958).

Natalie Wood and husband Robert Wagner on the set of "All the Fine Young Cannibals" (1960). 

Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty in "Splendor in the Grass" (1961). Wood received a Best Actress Oscar nomination for the tale of forbidden love.

Richard Beymer as Tony and Natalie Wood as Maria in the Oscar-winning musical "West Side Story" (1961). The film received 11 Academy Awards.

Natalie Wood starred as the stripper Louise Hovick - a.k.a. Gypsy Rose Lee - in the film version of the musical "Gypsy" (1962), which also starred Rosalind Russell as "Mama Rose." The real Gypsy Rose Lee visited the set during filming and offered Wood some pointers on stripping.

Actors Warren Beatty and Natalie Wood chat together at the Cannes Festival in May 1962. They were promoting their film, "Splendor in the Grass," a drama about teen love.

Natalie Wood in 1963.

Natalie Wood received a third Oscar nomination for her starring role in "Love With the Proper Stranger" (1963), in which she played a salesgirl who becomes pregnant after a brief affair with a musician, played by Steve McQueen.

Actress Natalie Wood, wearing Yves Saint Laurent, poses in Paris, Sept. 19, 1964.

In "Sex and the Single Girl" (1964), inspired by the advice book for young women by Helen Gurley Brown, Woods played psychologist "Helen Brown," who becomes the target of a tabloid reporter (Tony Curtis) seeking an expose.

Actor Paul Newman and actress Natalie Wood pose with their statuettes at the 23rd Golden Globe Awards dinner in Hollywood, Calif., Feb. 1, 1966. Wood received the World Film Favorite Female award and Newman was honored with the World Film Favorite Male award.

A picture taken in the 1960s shows actress Natalie Wood during a trip to France.

The counter-culture comedy about swinging couples, "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" (1969), starred Elliott Gould, Natalie Wood, Robert Culp and Dyan Cannon.

Wagner & Wood Remarry

Robert Wagner and Natalie Wood, who had divorced in 1962, were remarried on a borrowed yacht, the Ramblin' Rose, in 1972.

Romance Rekindled

Actors Robert Wagner and Natalie Wood pose at the Dorchester Hotel in London, England, April 23, 1972. The couple had one daughter together, and each had a daughter from previous marriages.

Robert Wagner and Natalie Wood

Actress Natalie Wood and actor Robert Wagner arrive at Nice airport in Nice, France on May 4, 1972.

Playwright Tennessee Williams, left, actress Natalie Wood, and Robert Wagner pose for photographers at the Cannes Film Festival in May 1976. Wood and Wagner starred in a 1976 TV remake of Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof."

Natalie Wood, her children Natasha, center, Courtney, right, and her husband, Robert Wagner, arrive at a London airport July 4, 1976.

Robert Wagner and Natalie Wood are shown arriving for the 50th annual Academy Awards in Los Angeles, April 3, 1978. At the time Wagner was starring in the TV series, "Hart to Hart."

Natalie Wood attends the 51st annual Academy Awards in Los Angeles on April 9, 1979. 

Playwright Mart Crowley, left, with Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner on the couple's yacht, Splendour.

Actress Natalie Wood is seen on Jan. 17, 1979. 

The actors are shown in 1980.

Wood's Final Film

Natalie Wood died during production of the science fiction thriller "Brainstorm." Here she is pictured with co-stars Christopher Walken, Louise Fletcher and Cliff Robertson.

The gravesite of actress Natalie Wood Wagner is seen in the Westwood Village Memorial Park. Wood, a three-time Oscar nominee famous for roles in "West Side Story," "Rebel Without a Cause" and other Hollywood hits, was 43 when she died in November 1981.

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Rearview Mirror: How Natalie Wood’s yacht reached Hawaii and more

By Bob Sigall , Special to the Star-Advertiser

April 3, 2020

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STAR-ADVERTISER / 1981

Natalie Wood died on or near her yacht, the Splendour, while on a weekend outing to Catalina island. The boat spent its last 24 years in Hawaii.

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Before I jump into this week’s column, I want to say that I never thought last week’s Rearview Mirror article about toilet paper would have the impact it had.

The Washington Post excerpted it Sunday, and the BBC World News interviewed me about it Tuesday. Maybe toilet paper is the common denominator of our culture, the thing that brings us all together.

Moving on … This week I thought I’d respond to several questions readers have asked me. One is about the boat that Natalie Wood died on or near, which ended up in Hawaii. The next is about whether Hawaii was the first place in the U.S. to sell Honda automobiles.

I’ll also write about the Christmas tree guy, Richard Tajiri, and a particular location at Kahala Mall.

THE SPLENDOUR

An anonymous reader asked about actress Natalie Wood, who drowned off Catalina island on Nov. 29, 1981. Her family yacht, the Splendour, ended up in Hawaii. It was named after her 1961 movie, “Splendor in the Grass.”

“What is the story behind how it came to be in Hawaii?” the reader asked. Did Natalie Wood’s fateful voyage take place in Hawaii?

The Splendour had been in Hawaii for many years and was recently demolished.

Natalie Wood (born Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko) began acting at age 4, and by 25 already had garnered three Oscar nominations,

Wood was 43 in 1981 when she; husband Robert Wagner; their two daughters, 7 and 11; captain Dennis Davern; and actor Christopher Walken took a weekend boat trip to Catalina island, off the coast of Los Angeles. Wood was making a film with Walken at the time.

They dined ashore and returned to the yacht. Wood retired to the bedroom. Walken and Wagner got into an argument. Afterward, Wagner could not find Wood and called the Coast Guard. They found her body a mile away at 8 a.m.

Wagner believed Wood had been trying to secure a rubber dinghy, which was banging against the 60-foot yacht in the middle of the night, and slipped and drowned. Walken also believes that her death was an accident.

Los Angeles Coroner Thomas Noguchi found no evidence of foul play, although suspicions have continued ever since. Her blood alcohol level was high at 0.14.

Ron Nelson bought the Splendour in 1986 at a Long Beach auction and brought it to Kewalo Basin in Hawaii around 1996, where he spent a lot of time and money refurbishing the wooden boat.

Los Angeles sheriffs decided in 2011 to reopen the investigation into Wood’s death and asked to see the yacht. CBS also came and filmed a “48 Hours” mystery show on her death.

Nelson said he was planning on chartering the boat, and the publicity came at a good time.

In 2020 the Splendour, then at the Ala Wai, had racked up over $12,000 in mooring fees and was in poor condition and in danger of sinking. The boat was impounded in December and demolished in January, ending the 60-year saga of the Splendour.

It’s interesting to me that, in so many ways, national and international news stories often have a Hawaii connection.

FIRST IN THE NATION?

Doug Oda of Pacific Honda (formerly Pflueger Honda) told me they have claimed to be the “nation’s first Honda dealer.” But is it true, he asked? He wasn’t sure.

I went back and searched the newspaper archives. One article I found said that the first Honda automobile sold on the mainland was in May 1970.

However … the first Honda automobile for sale in Hawaii appears to be in 1969.

A Sept. 20, 1969, Honolulu Advertiser article on the Honda 600 says it is “available in white and red at local Honda distributors.” The car had a two-cylinder overhead cam, 38-horsepower engine. It had a top speed of 75 mph and got 40 mpg.

A Dec. 28, 1969, article says that “Pflueger Lincoln- Mercury has the exclusive dealership in Hawaii” for the Honda 600.

Jimmy Pflueger began Pflueger Lincoln-Mercury in 1964 at 1409 Kapiolani Blvd. (near Ala Moana Center). Pflueger Honda was founded in 1969 at 3233 Nimitz Highway near the airport.

I told Oda a few months ago that my conclusion is that Pflueger was the first in the U.S. to sell Honda automobiles. Recently, he said Honda in Japan went through their records and confirmed it.

Oda told me the first Honda 600s sent to Hawaii had seats that didn’t move. Owner Jimmy Pflueger, who was well over 6 feet tall, could not fit. He told Honda that Americans had longer legs than Asians and that he could not sell the cars just to people with short legs.

Honda suggested he destroy them rather than send them back, and Oda heard they may have been dumped offshore in the ocean. Seats on the next shipment could move forward and back.

TOWER RECORDS

Joyann wrote, “I seem to remember a restaurant in the space before Tower Records opened at Kahala Mall. Am I crazy?”

The location is now a Christ Centered Community Church.

Tower Records opened in Kahala Mall in June 1993. It was on the second floor above California Pizza Kitchen. Tower Records also had stores in Aiea and on Keeaumoku Street.

Tory Laitila remembered one restaurant at Kahala Mall in the spot prior to Tower Records: Chi-Chi’s Mexican Grill, around 1986. It served Sonoran-style food that was subtly seasoned rather than spicy.

The menu included tacos, fajitas, enchiladas, burritos and a $5.95 lunch buffet.

Two more restaurants occupied the site after Chi-Chi’s: Country Kitchen in 1990 and Pasta Pub in 1992.

Before that it was McInerny’s on the second floor when Kahala Mall opened in 1969, next to Liberty House and Carol & Mary’s.

RICHARD TAJIRI

Another reader asked about Richard Tajiri, the Christmas tree guy. Tajiri died in January at age 78. He brought Christmas trees to the islands for 43 years from Oregon and Washington.

Wailuku-born Tajiri married Paula in 1983 and moved to the mainland. They owned Japanese restaurants in Oregon and Washington, but Christmas trees were always his top priority. He had lots in town, Aiea, Kailua and other locations.

His goal was to sell Christmas trees for 50 years, and the family decided to keep the business going for another seven years to get him across the finish line,

The Rearview Mirror Insider is Bob Sigall’s now twice-weekly free email newsletter that gives readers behind-the-scenes background, stories that wouldn’t fit in the column and lots of interesting details. I invite you to join in and be an Insider at RearviewMirrorInsider.com . Mahalo!

Natalie Wood's Death Boat Ready for Open Water Again

Owner of the splendour , the yacht the actress disappeared from in 1981, has finished renovations and is taking cruise reservations.

Robert Wagner ditched the boat where Natalie Wood spent her final hours years ago.

The Splendour has passed through several owners since and now, just as police are reexamining the strange case of the actress' death after 30 years, it is ready to set sail, E! News has exclusively learned.

First of all, where can people book a cruise on the infamous boat?

MORE: Natalie Wood's Mysterious Death: A Who's Who Guide

The Splendour , which Los Angeles Sheriff's homicide detectives say they'll be visiting as part of their investigation, has been docked in Honolulu for the past 25 years, since Ron Nelson bought it at a boat show in Long Beach, Calif.

Nelson's renovations on the pleasure cruiser have been "ongoing" since he brought it to Oahu in 1986 and now folks are calling him "non-stop" about it, he says—especially now that people are wondering once again whether or not the Splendour was the scene of a crime, rather than an accidental drowning.

It was eventually presumed that Wood slipped and fallen from the deck of the boat on the evening of Nov. 28, 1981, after consuming a few too many glasses of wine while docked off of Catalina Island with Wagner and her Brainstorm costar Christopher Walken —neither of whom are now suspects, according to investigators.

READ: Natalie Wood Case: What's the Yacht Captain's Motive?

Dennis Davern , the former skipper of the boat and a longtime friend of Wood's, recently told detectives that he didn't tell the whole truth about what he witnessed that night 30 years ago, and then he said on Today that he felt Wagner was responsible for what happened to his then-wife.

And Nelson most certainly knows all about the lore—"I've read pretty much every article ever written about it," he says—and he tells E! News he never worried or felt superstitious about buying something with such an eerie history attached to it.

He says the boat will be ready to charter within the next two or three weeks and he's taking reservations at [email protected]. "As long as I own it, this is where it will be," he says.

GALLERY: Mysterious Hollywood Deaths

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Breaking news, how to stream the democratic national convention online, natalie wood death: owner of boat knew for weeks police would reopen case.

Ron Nelson, who purchased Splendour in 1986, says authorities contacted him several weeks ago about an investigation.

By Philiana Ng

Philiana Ng

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Natalie Wood Magazine - H 2011

It will be 30 years next weekend since Natalie Wood died while boating off Catalina Island on Thanksgiving weekend off the Southern California coast, but one person wasn’t surprised by police reopening the investigation into the actress’ death.

The owner of the Splendour, the boat Wood was on with husband Robert Wagner and Brainstorm co-star Christopher Walken, revealed that he was aware for weeks that police were looking into the case, the Los Angeles Times reports .

PHOTOS: Best Pictures of Natalie Wood

“I have known for a few weeks that there was going to be a police investigation,” says Ron Nelson in an interview with Honolulu’s KHON-TV. “But I didn’t know it was going to explode like it did overnight.”

Nelson purchased the Splendour — a 60-foot yacht now used for charter cruises — back in 1986, five years after Wood died at the age of 43. He said that police had contacted him several weeks ago, but did not reveal any details of their conversation.

PHOTOS: 12 of Hollywood’s Most Mysterious Deaths

Police announced on Friday morning at a press conference that investigators would be traveling to Hawaii in order to examine the boat as part of their investigation, reaffirming news from the night before that the case would be reopened.

On Thursday evening, Wagner said through his rep that he supported the police’s decision. “Although no one in the Wagner family has heard from the LA County Sheriff’s department about this matter, they fully support the efforts of the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department and trust they will evaluate whether any new information relating to the death of Natalie Wood Wagner is valid and that it comes from a credible source or sources other than those simply trying to profit from the 30-year anniversary of her tragic death,” his rep said.

VIDEO: 5 of Natalie Wood’s Most Memorable Roles

The Hollywood Reporter broke the news Friday that Walken, who is not considered a suspect, has hired a lawyer to handle the Wood investigation. Officials also noted that Wagner is not a person of interest.

At the time, Wood’s death was ruled an accident, though there has been speculation that there were more details to the story. Author Marti Rulli teamed up with Dennis Davern, who at the time was the captain of the Splendour, more than two decades ago to investigate and research that fateful November evening, publishing the book Goodbye Natalie, Goodbye Splendour two years ago.

Davern made the media rounds on Friday, making the bold claim that Wagner had something to do with Wood’s death. In his 2008 memoir Pieces of My Heart , Wagner blamed himself for Wood’s passing. “Yes, I blamed myself. Natalie would have felt the same way had it happened to me. Why wasn’t I there? Why wasn’t I watching? I would have done anything in the world to make her life better or protect her. Anything,” he wrote. “I would have given my life for hers, because that’s the way we were.”

CBS News’ Wood special, originally set to air next weekend for the 30th anniversary of her death, moved up the investigative report to this weekend. Wood’s sister Lana also made an appearance on CNN’s Piers Morgan Tonight.

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Five bodies found inside superyacht that sank off Sicily

Divers recovered four bodies Wednesday from inside a  superyacht that sank in a sudden storm off Sicily , Salvatore Cocina, director of the island’s Civil Protection Agency, confirmed to NBC News.

Cocina later confirmed to Sky News that a fifth body had been found and was being brought to shore. One passenger remains missing.

The identities of the bodies were not immediately released. Their recovery follows a dayslong search in the deep waters off the Italian coast where  British tech tycoon Mike Lynch  and several others were believed to be trapped in the hull. Fifteen of the 22 people aboard survived.

The rest had been missing since early Monday, when  the Bayesian was caught in the storm  while anchored off the coast of Porticello, a village near the Sicilian capital city of Palermo.

The body of the ship’s cook, identified as Canadian-Antiguan national Recaldo Thomas, was recovered Monday. 

On Wednesday, NBC News witnessed what appeared to be at least three body bags being lifted from fire department boats after they pulled into port at Porticello. It was unclear whose bodies they were. Some were later transferred to ambulances and driven away from the dock.

Lynch’s 18-year-old daughter, Hannah; Morgan Stanley International Chairman Jonathan Bloomer and his wife Judy; and Clifford Chance lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife Neda, are also missing. 

The Bayesian is owned by a firm linked to Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, who was among the survivors rescued by a nearby vessel after getting into a lifeboat.

Built by Italian shipbuilder Perini Navi in 2008, the U.K.-registered yacht could carry 12 guests and a crew of up to 10, according to online specialist boating sites. Its nearly 250-foot mast is the tallest aluminum sailing mast in the world, according to CharterWorld Luxury Yacht Charters.  

Regularly described in U.K. media as “Britain’s Bill Gates,” Lynch was  acquitted of fraud by a San Francisco jury  earlier this year, stemming from the 2011 sale of his software company Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard for $11 billion.

The Mediterranean sailing vacation was designed to be a celebration for Lynch, who brought Bloomer, who testified in his defense, and Morvillo, one of his U.S. lawyers, on the trip.

Lynch’s co-defendant Stephen Chamberlain was not aboard the Bayesian, but in what appears to be a tragic coincidence, a  car struck and killed  Chamberlain on Saturday as he was jogging in a village about 68 miles north of London, local police said.

This story first appeared on NBCNews.com . Claudio Lavanga and Claudia Rizzo reported from Porticello. Henry Austin reported from London.

Claudia Rizzo is an Italy-based journalist.

Henry Austin is a London-based editor and reporter for NBC News Digital.

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Yacht Sank in Sicily Due to ‘Endless Chain of Errors,' Ship Maker's Owner Speculates: ‘Everything Was Predictable’

"A series of activities should have been done to avoid finding oneself in that situation," argues Giovanni Costantino, who owns the firm that built the vessel in 2008

• Giovanni Costantino — who is the CEO of The Italian Sea Group, the company that now owns Perini Navi, which built the  Bayesian  in 2008 — blames an "endless chain of errors" for the luxury yacht’s sinking on Monday, Aug. 19
• "Everything was predictable. I have the weather charts in front of me here," Constantino told Italian newspaper  Corriere della Sera  of the storm the boat was caught in
• "An unsinkable ship but from the crew an endless chain of errors," the CEO claimed to the outlet

The sinking of the luxury Bayesian  yacht off the coast of Sicily this week  resulted from an "endless chain of errors" by the crew, the ship maker's CEO is speculating.

"This episode sounds like an unbelievable story, both technically and as a fact," Giovanni Costantino — who leads The Italian Sea Group, the company that now owns Perini Navi, which built the  Bayesian  in 2008 — said,  according to CNN .

While speaking to  Italian newspaper  Corriere della Sera , Costantino said he believes those on board should not have been in their cabins, as he claims they were, when the Bayesian sank in the early hours of Monday, Aug. 19. 

Many details of why the yacht went into the water so quickly remain unclear and it's not yet known what the passengers and crew were doing before tragedy struck.

PERINI NAVI PRESS OFFICE/HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

The 183-foot British vessel sank around 5 a.m. local time on Monday after a "violent storm" while near Porticello, the Italian coast guard said in a statement that was previously obtained by PEOPLE.

"Everything that has been done reveals a very long sum of errors. The people should not have been in the cabins, the boat should not have been at anchor. And then why didn't the crew know about the incoming disturbance?" Costantino said in his interview, translated from Italian.

"The passengers reported an absurd thing, namely that the storm came unexpected, suddenly. It's not true. Everything was predictable. I have the weather charts in front of me here. Nothing came suddenly ... Ask yourself, why was no fisherman from Porticello out that night? A fisherman reads the weather conditions and a ship doesn't? The disturbance was fully readable in all the weather charts. One could not not know," he argued.

"An unsinkable ship but from the crew an endless chain of errors," the CEO asserted.

The coast guard has said 22 people were aboard the  Bayesian  when it sank — 12 passengers and 10 crew — and that 15 of those were subsequently rescued.

The body of the yacht's chef, Recaldo Thomas, was recovered nearby. 

ALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP via Getty

Costantino's comments came as it was reported that five bodies had been found in the search for the missing six people as of Wednesday, Aug. 21, a source close to the rescue operations confirmed to PEOPLE. Authorities have said that their work is ongoing. 

An Italian government official, Massimo Mariani, reportedly named one of the dead as British tech tycoon Mike Lynch . The other bodies have not yet been publicly identified by authorities. 

Lynch was celebrating with family and friends on the yacht following his acquittal in a fraud trial in June, PEOPLE previously reported.

Costantino offered his view of how the tragedy could have been avoided: "To begin with, in a weather alert situation it was inappropriate to have, as I read, a party. Not that evening. The hull and deck needed to be secured by closing all doors and hatches, after putting the guests at the ship's meeting point as per emergency procedure. Then start the engines and pull up the anchor or release it automatically, put the bow to the wind and lower the keel.

"The next morning they would have departed with zero damage." 

Jonathan Brady/PA Images via Getty

When discussing whether the crew were at fault, Costantino reiterated to the Italian outlet that he believes "errors were made."

"A series of activities should have been done to avoid finding oneself in that situation," he said. "I as the ship's captain would have moved, but even if for some reason I had to stay there, I would have managed those weather conditions which then, let's face it, weren't so crazy."

Never miss a story — sign up for  PEOPLE's free daily newsletter  to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.  

Costantino contended that there would have been "a zero risk if the correct maneuvers had been made and if situations that compromised the ship's stability had not occurred," adding to the newspaper that reports that the boat went down in seconds is "nonsense." He believes the yacht would have "went down" after water "started to enter" within "six minutes."

The remaining missing  Bayesian  passengers are Lynch's daughter Hannah as well as Chairman of Morgan Stanley International  Jonathan Bloomer, his wife, Judy , and New York City-based lawyer  Christopher Morvillo and his wife, Neda , sources have said.

Lynch's wife, Angela Bacares, was among those rescued, PEOPLE previously reported.

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The bodies of those found in the search for six people missing after the sinking of a luxury yacht during a storm off the coast of Sicily are being recovered from the wreckage. Five bodies have now been brought to shore in the small fishing village of Porticello, around 11 miles from the Sicilian capital of Palermo.

On Thursday, the Italian Coastguard confirmed to the PA news agency that the sixth and final person yet to be found is a woman. Technology tycoon Mike Lynch, his daughter Hannah, Morgan Stanley International bank chairman Jonathan Bloomer, his wife Judy Bloomer, Clifford Chance lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife Neda Morvillo were lost when the Bayesian was hit by a storm and sank at around 5am on Monday.

The bodies of the missing men onboard the luxury yacht, as well as the boat's chef, have now been recovered. These are the details of each of the victims on board.

British technology tycoon Mr Lynch founded software giant Autonomy in 1996 and made his name as one of Britain's most influential entrepreneurs. In June, the 59-year-old was cleared of conducting a massive fraud relating to an 11 billion dollar (£8.64 billion) sale to US company Hewlett Packard.

The boat trip was a celebration of his acquittal. Of the 22 passengers and crew on board, 15 - including Mr Lynch's wife, Angela Bacares - were rescued after escaping onto a lifeboat.

Mr Lynch was born in Ilford, east London, brought up in Essex and was the son of a nurse from Co Tipperary and a fireman from Co Cork who enjoyed childhood summers in Carrick-On-Shannon and Tipperary where he had family. He went to Cambridge University and started his first business while studying for a PhD in signal processing and communications research.

He was made an OBE for services to enterprise in 2006. That same year, he was appointed to the board of the BBC and was later elected to then-prime minister David Cameron's council for science and technology in 2011. David Tabizel, Mr Lynch's Autonomy co-founder, said: "The world has lost a genius. His family have lost a giant of a man."

Mr Lynch was a member of the Create The Change fundraising board, set up by Cancer Research UK, which helped fund the building of the Francis Crick Institute. Chairman Lord John Browne, who described him as "a human being of great ability", said: "Mike Lynch should be remembered as the person who catalysed a breed of deep tech entrepreneurs in the UK. His ideas and his personal vision were a powerful contribution to science and technology in both Britain and globally."

He became a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2008, which paid tribute for his "active role" as a "mentor, donor and former council member". He was an inaugural member of the enterprise committee. On Thursday, the technology industry group TechUK also described him as "a hugely significant and pioneering figure in the UK technology sector".

Jonathan Bloomer

The Morgan Stanley International bank chairman is a prominent businessman who held a number of boardroom roles after an extensive career in financial services. He was the chief executive of global finance group Prudential between 2000 and 2005 and had been chairman of Morgan Stanley International as well as Hiscox and property business SDL. Mr Bloomer was among those to give evidence as a defence witness for Mr Lynch, and media reports suggest the pair were close friends.

Chris Morvillo

Mr Morvillo, 59, a partner at law firm Clifford Chance, represented Mr Lynch during the long-running criminal fraud trial where he was eventually cleared of all charges. His long career included representing corporate and individual clients in white-collar government investigations, related regulatory and civil proceedings, and internal investigations.

Mr Morvillo had previously been a federal prosecutor, working on cases related to the 9/11 attacks and securing the conviction of lawyer Lynne Stewart for assisting terrorism during his time as assistant US attorney for the Southern District of New York between 1999 and 2005. A Clifford Chance spokesman said the firm was "in shock and deeply saddened" about the tragedy and its thoughts were with Mr Movillo's relatives.

He added: "Our utmost priority is providing support to the family as well as our colleague Ayla Ronald, who together with her partner, thankfully survived the incident."

Recaldo Thomas

The first body recovered at the scene of the sinking on Monday was that of Canadian-Antiguan national Recaldo Thomas, who was working as a chef on the Bayesian superyacht, the Italian coastguard told Sky News. In a tribute shared on Tuesday, Gareth Williams, a friend of Mr Thomas, told the BBC: "I can talk for everyone that knew him when I say he was a well-loved, kind human being with a calm spirit."

Mr Thomas grew up in Antigua and spent his time there during the off-season, Mr Williams said. Another friend, Eli Fuller, told the outlet Mr Thomas was "friends with everybody", "always positive" and "sought after" in his profession.

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This Day In History : November 29

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Actress Natalie Wood drowns

On November 29, 1981, the actress Natalie Wood , who starred in such movies as Rebel Without a Cause and West Side Story, drowns in a boating accident near California’s Catalina Island. She was 43 years old.

Born Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko on July 20, 1938, in San Francisco , California , Wood began her acting career as a child. She gained acclaim for her role as Susan Walker, the little girl who doubts the existence of Santa Claus in Miracle on 34th Street (1947). As a teenager, Wood went on to play James Dean’s girlfriend in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), for which she received a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination. She also earned Best Actress Academy Award nominations for her performances in Splendor in the Grass (1961) with Warren Beatty and Love with the Proper Stranger (1963) with Steve McQueen.

Wood’s film credits also include West Side Story (1961), winner of 10 Oscars, in which she played the lead role of Maria; Gypsy (1962), which was based on the hit Broadway musical of the same name and co-starred Rosalind Russell and Karl Malden; The Great Race (1965), with Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis; Inside Daisy Clover (1966), with Christopher Plummer and Robert Redford; and Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969) with Robert Culp, Elliott Gould and Dyan Cannon.

Wood was twice married to the actor Robert Wagner ( Hart to Hart, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery ), from 1957 to 1962 and from 1974 to the time of her death. On the night of November 29, 1981, the actress was with her husband on their yacht “The Splendor,” which was moored off Santa Catalina, near Los Angeles. Also on the yacht was the actor Christopher Walken , who at the time was making the movie Brainstorm with Wood. Neither Wagner nor Walken saw what happened to Wood that night, but it was believed she somehow slipped overboard while untying a dinghy attached to the boat. Her body was found in the early hours of the following morning. Brainstorm, Wood’s final film, was released in theaters in 1983.

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LBJ forms commission to investigate Kennedy assassination

President eisenhower goes to korea, sand creek massacre, coffee rationing begins.

Body of British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch recovered from sunken yacht

Mike lynch's 18-year-old daughter hannah is still unaccounted for, as divers continue searching the wreck of a superyacht that sank off sicily and questions intensify about why the boat sank so quickly..

The British technology tycoon Mike Lynch had invited friends to join him on the yacht to celebrate his recent acquittal in a major US fraud trial. His body was brought ashore in a blue body bag and driven in an ambulance to a nearby hospital morgue. Source: AAP / Jonathan Brady / PA Wire

• Five bodies, including that of Mike Lynch, have been recovered after a luxury yacht capsized off Sicily.
• The precise cause of the sinking is still unknown, as is the whereabouts of one passenger.
• Fifteen people were rescued and eight hospitalised after a storm struck the 56m yacht.

Why did the Bayesian superyacht sink?

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First pictures: Inside the yacht where actress Natalie Wood died... where 'fan' has kept her bedroom untouched for 30 years

By Daily Mail Reporter Updated: 13:15 EDT, 19 November 2011

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It has been 30 years since Natalie Wood died after a night on the Splendour - but little has changed aboard in the intervening years.

The stateroom contains many of the same tiles, the same blue bed remains in exactly the same spot and the initials WW are still etched into the captain's seat.

This is the first look inside the Splendour yacht, currently docked in the Hawaiian harbour of Oahu, where the Hollywood actress met her tragic end.

Memories: The boat has undergone some renovations, but many details have been preserved

Tribute: The stateroom with the blue bed, dubbed 'Natalie's Room' still has the same tiles it did when Robert Wagner owned the vessel

Exterior: The Splendour, where actress Natalie Wood died, is currently docked in the harbour of Oahu in Hawaii

Former United Airlines flight attendant Ron Nelson bought the boat from Robert Wagner in 1986.

He carried out small renovations, before taking two friends on a trip to Catalina Island, where the actress died. He said it was a 'last goodbye to Natalie'. 

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Afterwards, they made the two week trip to Hawaii where he has spent 10 years restoring the boat. He said he was now almost ready to begin chartering voyages.

He has tried to keep his makeover as close to the original as possible, and has kept the stateroom with the blue bed, dubbed 'Natalie's Room', and most of the tiles.

Home: The Splendour is currently docked in the Hawaiian harbour of Oahu

Purchased: United Airlines flight attendant Ron Nelson bought the boat in 1986

Reminder: New owner Ron Nelson with the initials WW etched onto the captain's seat

The initials WW are still etched onto the captain's seat, just as they were when Wagner and Natalie owned the boat.

Nelson said the 60ft boat's history was one of the reasons why he bought it, and told Hawaii's KITV.com said: 'I have read pretty much every article ever written about her death.'

And asked whether the yacht carried Wood's spirit, he said: 'I won't say yay or nay whether I believe or not.

'There's been a lot of strange things that have happened on the boat.'

Preserved: Many aspects of the Splendour remain the same

Out on deck: The investigation into Natalie Wood's death has now re-opened

The first look inside the boat comes as police re-open the investigation into Natalie Wood's mysterious death 30 years ago.

Robert Wagner is not being treated as a suspect.

Christopher Walken, who was on the boat the night the West Side Story actress died, has hired a lawyer in response to the new inquiry into the case, which was originally ruled an accidental drowning.

Wagner, 81, yesterday issued a statement welcoming the fresh push for evidence from authorities.

And Nelson revealed investigators had contacted him as they wanted to visit the yacht as part of their probe.

Orders: New owner Ron Nelson sitting in the captain's chair of the Splendour

Together: Natalie Wood and her husband Robert Wagner embrace on their yacht Splendour two weeks before the tragedy. The couple married twice. First in 1957 before divorcing six years later and then again in 1972

Friends: Ms Wood with her co-star Christopher Walken - who was on the boat the night she died - during filming of her last motion picture Brainstorm

Share or comment on this article: Natalie Wood death: Pictures from inside the yacht where actress was on night she died

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Missing revealed as divers search superyacht that sank in storm off Sicily

The missing include british tech magnate mike lynch, a morgan stanley boss and a clifford chance lawyer, a local official told nbc news early tuesday., by claudio lavanga, yuliya talmazan | nbc news • published august 20, 2024 • updated on august 20, 2024 at 4:20 pm.

Rescue teams and divers were searching Tuesday for six missing people, including a British tech magnate and a Morgan Stanley boss,   after  a luxury superyacht sank in a storm off Sicily .

The identity of those still missing emerged after an initial search of the 184-foot sailboat, named the Bayesian, was unsuccessful Monday. The British-flagged tourist vessel had 22 people aboard when it sank because of “a violent storm” off Sicily’s main city, Palermo, around 5 a.m. local time (11 p.m. ET) on Monday, the local coast guard said.

Fifteen people were rescued by a boat present in the immediate vicinity and then brought ashore by coast guard vessels, but six passengers, including American, British and Canadian citizens, remained missing, it said. They were believed to be trapped in the boat's hull, some 164 feet underwater, posing a challenge to divers who returned to the site Tuesday off Porticello, near Palermo.

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Salvatore Cocina, director of Sicily’s Civil Protection Agency, told NBC News early Tuesday that the missing include British tech magnate Mike Lynch and his daughter, Morgan Stanley International Chairman Jonathan Bloomer and his wife, as well as Clifford Chance lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife.

Cocina did not specify the nationalities of the missing. He also did not identify Lynch's daughter or the wives of Bloomer and Morvillo.

A spokesperson for Clifford Chance, where Morvillo works as a lawyer, confirmed to NBC News Tuesday that he and his wife Neda were among the missing. 

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“Our utmost priority is providing support to the family as well as our colleague Ayla Ronald, who together with her partner, thankfully survived the incident,” the spokesperson said.

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Italy’s national fire department said that its divers were able to get inside the wreck during a late-night dive Monday, inspecting some cabins located under the bridge, but were having trouble navigating because of obstructions and narrow access gates.

Rescuers said that there might be bodies inside the cabins but that they had so far been unable to check through the ship’s portholes.

Divers were working in 12-minute underwater search shifts, while surface searches continued in the area of ​​the shipwreck with a helicopter and a fire brigade boat, it added.

Mike Lynch, who was regularly described in U.K. media as “Britain’s Bill Gates,” was cleared of fraud charges in a blockbuster U.S. trial earlier this summer. Sources told CNBC on Monday that his wife, Angela Bacares, has been rescued. Italian news agency ANSA identified his daughter, missing alongside her father, as Hannah, 18.

Just days before Lynch went missing, his co-defendant, Stephen Chamberlain, died after being “fatally struck by a car” while out running Saturday, his lawyer Gary Lincenberg told NBC News in an emailed statement. Reuters reported that Chamberlain was a former vice president of finance at Autonomy, Lynch’s company at the center of the trial.

The sailing vacation that ended in tragedy appeared to be something of a celebration after Lynch’s acquittal — Morvillo was one of Lynch’s U.S. lawyers and Bloomer testified in his defense.

“We are deeply shocked and saddened by this tragic event. Our thoughts are with all those affected, in particular our Chair, Jonathan Bloomer, and his wife Judy, who are among the missing,” Aki Hussain, the head of insurance company Hiscox, told NBC News in an emailed statement.

A Morgan Stanley spokesperson also said: “Our thoughts are with all those affected, in particular the Bloomer family, as we all wait for further news from this terrible situation.”

Judy Bloomer was described as “a brilliant champion for women’s health and medical research” by The Eve Appeal, a British cancer charity, in an emailed statement to NBC News.

Britain's Marine Accident Investigation Branch said it was deploying a team of four inspectors to Palermo to conduct a preliminary assessment of the incident.

The coast guard said in a statement Monday that the ship’s cook had died. It did not give his nationality. Reuters identified him as Antiguan citizen Ricardo Thomas.

One of the survivors, identified as Charlotte Emsley, 35, told the Italian news agency ANSA that she had momentarily lost hold of her year-old daughter, Sofia, in the water but managed to retrieve her and hold her up over the waves until a lifeboat inflated and they were pulled to safety.

Built by Italian shipbuilder Perini Navi in 2008, the U.K.-registered, Bayesian can carry 12 guests and a crew of up to 10, according to online specialist yacht sites.

The yacht’s nearly 250-foot mast is the tallest aluminum sailing mast in the world,  according to  CharterWorld Luxury Yacht Charters. 

Luca Mercalli, Italian climatologist and president of the country’s meteorological society, told Reuters that the storm could have involved a waterspout, essentially a tornado over water, or a downburst, a more frequent phenomenon that doesn’t involve the rotation of the air.

Storms and heavy rainfall have swept Italy in recent days after weeks of scorching heat.

“The sea surface temperature around Sicily was around 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit), which is almost 3 degrees more than normal,” Mercalli said. “This creates an enormous source of energy that contributes to these storms.”

Claudio Lavanga reported from Rome, and Yuliya Talmazan from London.

This story first appeared on NBCNews.com . More from NBC News:

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Mike Lynch’s friend mourns ‘unbelievably tragic’ death after fraud trial acquittal

Mike Lynch ’s legacy “should be celebrated” a friend has said, following his death.

The body of the technology tycoon has been recovered after a luxury yacht sank off the coast of Sicily earlier this week.

His 18-year-old daughter reportedly remains missing.

After news of Lynch’s death was confirmed, his friend Brent Hoberman described him as “a titan and a figurehead”.

“We were all hoping for a miracle,” Mr Hoberman told Sky News.

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