94 LONGISLANDPRESS.COM • JULY 2019
REAR VIEW
NATALIE WOOD
THE HEROINE AND THE HAMLET
By ANNIE WILKINSON
Though nothing can bring back
the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory
in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind.
—William Wordsworth
In its heyday, the Patchogue Hotel on
East Main Street and Maple Avenue
boasted expansive banquet halls.
Its popular restaurant was always
booked. And in 1960, the whole town
had something to talk about, when
some 65 movie people checked in.
The dog days didn’t sap the energy
of the film crew and cast. At the helm
was lauded Hollywood director Elia
Kazan; in his first major role was the
devilishly handsome Warren Beatty;
and cast as the conflicted heroine was
the endearing child-star-turnedglamorous
celebrity Natalie Wood.
The cast and crew of Splendor in
the Grass endured long, hot, humid
days shooting outside at the old Tiger
Nursery farm in Brookhaven hamlet,
transformed to look like a windswept
Kansas oilfield during the Great
Depression.
Wood’s stirring performance was
nominated for an Oscar and a Golden
Globe. But years later she would meet
a tragic end that no one understood —
not the hotel guests, not her on- and
off-screen lover Warren Beatty, and
not the overzealous stage mother who
goaded her into stardom.
SMART MOPPET
Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko
would have turned 81 this month, on
July 20. Her parents were Russian
immigrants who raised her in San
Francisco and struggled economically.
Her mother often took her to films
featuring young stars and moved the
family to Los Angeles.
Just before turning 5 years old,
Wood made her film debut. Notable
roles followed: An orphan opposite
Orson Welles in Tomorrow Is Forever
in 1946 (Welles called her a born
professional — "so good, she was
terrifying”). Joseph L. Mankiewicz,
who directed her in The Ghost and
Mrs. Muir (1947), said he had never
met a smarter moppet. That year, she
costarred in the Christmas classic
Miracle on 34th Street.
Her mother pushed her relentlessly,
warning her that a fortune teller had
predicted death by drowning. That
revelation instilled in Wood a lifelong
fear of water.
At age 16, Wood earned an Oscar
nomination, costarring with James
Dean and Sal Mineo in Rebel Without
a Cause (1955); the next year
LIFE magazine called her “The Most
Beautiful Teenager in the World.”
SPLENDOR IN BROOKHAVEN
The film’s Brookhaven location
was found by Assistant Producer/
Unit Manager Charles H. Maguire
of West Islip: the old Tiger Nursery
farm backlot’s 200 acres, stretching
from Beaver Dam Road south to the
bay marshes.
The Town Board gave the okay for
filming to the property’s owner, Sullivan
Gallo of East Patchogue, reported
the Long Island Advance on August
5, 1960. An August 18 Patchogue
Advance photo shows Supervisor
August Stout Jr. on the set, giving
Wood a symbolic key to the Town of
Brookhaven. Her husband Robert
Wagner, the internationally famous
film actor she had married when she
was 18, also visited the set.
Director Kazan cast 22-year-old
Wood because he saw in her a "trueblue
quality with a wanton side that
is held down by social pressure.”
Kazan’s directing wizardry of her
wrenching portrayal of a sexually
repressed, hysterical young woman
committed to a mental institution
during the Great Depression produced
what was arguably her most
powerful performance.
During shooting, gossip persisted
about Wood’s alleged affair with
Beatty. Ten months later, she and
Wagner separated; they divorced in
1962.
THE FINAL TAKE
The years went by. Wood starred in
West Side Story and Gypsy, setting
a record as the only actress to be
nominated for an Oscar three times
before age 25. The Patchogue Hotel
was demolished in 1969 and replaced
by an apartment building; Murray
Pergament’s once-dominant home improvement
downtown store closed,
unable to go up against big-box
stores Home Depot and Lowe’s; and
the Chevy Corvairs advertised in the
paper were discontinued. Wood and
Wagner reconciled and remarried
in 1972.
On November 29, 1981, they sailed
their yacht The Splendour to Santa
Catalina Island off the Southern California
coast. Late that night, Wood
disappeared.
Her body was found floating in a
dark, lonely cove.
Ironically, a year earlier, Natalie told
an interviewer, "I've always been terrified
… of dark water; sea water…” Because
detectives could not determine
why she was in the water, her cause
of death was listed as "drowning and
other undetermined factors.”
Fame and glamour fade. But Wood’s
onscreen radiance and memorable
roles will live forever. Kazan wrote
that his favorite scene was the final
Kansas-Brookhaven one, when Wood
visits her lost first love.
“It's terribly touching to me. I still like
it when I see it.”
Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner, 1960/Wikipedia
/LONGISLANDPRESS.COM
