I married the film star Natalie Wood in the spring of 1969 after we'd been together, on and off, for three years. We divorced not much more than a year later. The on-off periods were due mostly to Natalie living in Los Angeles and me living in London. But there were other reasons, emotional ones, that had made our lives together difficult.
She was a big star, beautiful, nearing the height of her fame. I was struggling up the ladder working as an agent for actors, writers and directors. Also we had previous entanglements. I had three children, she had a couple of ex-lovers and a determination to continue her daily visits to her psychiatrist come what may. It had been an emotional few years together, which getting married did nothing to change except for the birth of our daughter, Natasha, whom Natalie loved more than anyone or anything in her life. If I thought her birth would mark the end of our trials together, I was mistaken. The road ahead was much longer and harder and came to an end in a dramatic and most tragic way.
I could hear the phone ringing as I climbed the stairs to my London flat. When I opened the door, the ringing stopped. Within two beats of my heart, it started again.
"Hello?"
"Dad?"
My son's voice sounded muffled, as if he'd been crying.
"Hugo. Are you all right?"
"Did you hear …? On the radio … Dad …" His voice broke.
"What?"
"It said … the film star Natalie Wood has drowned." His voice choked again. "Natalie's dead, Dad."
Natalie drowned? It couldn't be. Please God, don't let it be. Death by drowning had been her nightmare. How many times had she told me about her terror of "the dark water".
I stared out at the bleak November night feeling as cold inside as the weather outside my windows. Tears pricked my eyes. I couldn't speak.
"Dad …?"
"I'm here …" I croaked. "Drowned? Where?"
"I don't know. Shall I come over?"
I looked at my watch: a quarter past five in London; a quarter past nine in California.
"Shall I come now?" Hugo said again.
"Let me call the house first … I'll call you back."
I stood there, a sad idiot, tears streaming down my face. My thoughts flew back to a recent dinner party where an Anglo-Indian woman I knew read my tarot cards. There came a moment when she refused to continue. She shrugged her shoulders, her large, kohl-lined eyes avoiding mine. Later, at my insistence, she told me my cards foretold someone close to me would die by drowning. Of course, you can't believe stuff like that but …
Natalie and I had become close again despite our divorce 10 years earlier. After all was said and done, I was the father and she was the mother of our dearly beloved 11-year-old daughter, Natasha.
Natasha …
She had lived for years with her mother, her stepfather, Robert Wagner – RJ – the star of Hart to Hart, and her half-sister, Courtney, in a fine house in Beverly Hills. She was happy there, happy with her school, happy with her many friends. Despite the family's high-living style, Natasha had somehow managed to retain an objectivity about herself that protected her from the worst excesses of a Hollywood film-star life. When she came down to the beach to stay with me and my soon-to-be wife, Julia, whom she adored, she seemed to have as much fun beachcombing firewood for our old cast iron belly stove as she did dressing up for a Beverly Hills party.
If Natalie was dead?
I dialled the Beverly Hills number. It was answered immediately. I held my breath.
"Hello …"
"Who's that?" I asked.
"It's Liz, Richard." Liz was Natalie's very efficient English personal assistant.
"Is it true, Liz?"
"I think so … I don't know for sure. I haven't had time …" Her voice tailed away.
"Does Natasha know?"
I could hear other phones ringing.
"Richard, I have to go. Call me later." She hung up.
What should I do? I felt a wave of confusion. Then the phone rang. It was my daughter, Sarah, in tears.
"Dad, is it true?"
"I think so. I'm checking."
I called my close friends Delia and Jerry in LA. They confirmed that Natalie had drowned.
I couldn't speak.
"What will you do?" Delia asked.
"Come out," I said.
"Stay with us," she offered.
The phone never stopped. Two calls were from old friends in LA with whom I'd worked closely for many years.
Over time they had become good friends of Natalie's and RJ's too. I was expecting sympathy and support, but what I got was both of them trying to persuade me not to come out.
"What are you talking about?" I demanded. "Why are you saying that?"
It wasn't necessary, they agreed.
"Necessary?" I shouted. "Of course it's bloody necessary. Natasha will need me."
After I cooled off, I asked myself if Natasha would need me. I was her father, for God's sake, of course she'd need me. Then suddenly it dawned on me that as her blood father I might have a legal right to bring her back to live with me in England. But would I do that? Remove her from the only life she'd ever known? Take her away from her LA family and friends? I was pretty sure RJ wouldn't want that.
When I arrived in LA, I went to the house to see Natasha.
North Canon Drive is in the heart of the Beverly Hills flats – a stone's throw from the glossy shopping playground of Rodeo Drive. Normally it is a peaceful street, almost genteel, with its palm trees and well-tended lawns and gardens. That night it was lined with dozens of parked cars. Two Beverly Hills policemen and a squad car guarded the front of the house. I approached them feeling uncomfortable and out of place. They asked why I was there. When I told them, they lowered their eyes and stepped aside.
The sitting room and bar area was packed with well-dressed, beautiful people holding glasses in their hands. The steady buzz of conversation was interrupted by an occasional shaft of laughter. I had the uncomfortable feeling I'd come to the wrong house, that I was an extra in a 60s Fellini film. I smiled at a couple I knew and heard them repeat my name to people nearest them. The buzz of conversation slowly dwindled as dozens of pairs of eyes swivelled to watch me, waiting to see what I'd do. I scanned the crush until I saw Natasha, petite and beautiful, sitting on the floor on the other side of the room. She looked up.
"Daddy," she said.
Her arms went around my neck, her legs encircled my waist. I felt a huge surge of love. Without thinking, I carried her through the crush and up to her bedroom where we could talk privately. Eyes and whispers followed us up the stairs.
We sat together on her bed. I'm not sure what I said: that she was my beloved daughter; that I would look after her; that I would try to make things right again. That I had loved her mother. Ordinary things, banal things. I knew in my heart there was little I could say or do that would help her get over the loss of the one person she loved more than anyone in the world. All I could offer was a different kind of love, a shoulder to cry on. She held my hand and listened gravely. It was as if she was consoling me.
Before I left the house, Liz asked if I would go to see RJ. He was propped up in bed, his famous face ravaged by grief, his eyes red and misty with tears. You poor bastard, I thought, you're going through hell. His yacht had been moored off Catalina Island the night Natalie had drowned. It was late and when she fell overboard, no one had heard her cry for help. Like the decent man he was, he felt a terrible accountability.
I held out my hand, we embraced. I told him I had seen Natasha and was moved by her strength and stoicism. Almost immediately he made it clear that one of his greatest fears was I would try to take Natasha back to England. He asked me not to break up the family. I said I would only take her to England if it was what she wanted and if I was sure it was the right thing to do.
"Thank you," he said.
We embraced again.
"We both have to do what's best for her," I said.
Later, my darling Julia called from London to say it was more than fine with her if Natasha wanted to live with us. Because she gave me that alternative it made it easier for me to believe my inclination to leave Natasha with her LA family was correct. With Julia's help and understanding, Natasha would know our door was always open to her.
The next day when I got to Canon Drive, Natasha was waiting for me. She took me by the hand and led me to a quiet corner. "Daddy … I want to see Mummy," she said looking me straight in the eye.
"Are you sure?"
"I'm really sure," she said. "Daddy Wagner doesn't think I should. I want you to convince him."
I had a close friend, David, whose father had suddenly disappeared when my friend was about Natasha's age. His mother and sisters told David his father had died. David wanted proof. They told him it was too late for proof, his father was already buried in some far away place. Lacking evidence to the contrary, David believed his father had abandoned him. That one thought was to become the leitmotif to his life. As he got older, he became morose and drank too much. It took 30 years to track down where his father was buried and, standing beside his grave, find some kind of peace.
If Natasha didn't see Natalie's body, how would she know for sure she was dead? She had kissed her mother goodbye the morning she'd left for Catalina. Natalie hadn't come home. Was she really dead or had she gone away? Or, much worse, had Natasha been abandoned? If Natasha saw her mother's body, she would know the story of her drowning was true. She'd have to face its stark reality but wouldn't have to go through life wondering if Natalie was still alive out there somewhere.
I explained my thinking to RJ and to his and Natalie's shrinks. I said I completely understood why RJ wouldn't want to visit the mortuary with Natasha but I wanted to take her. After an intense discussion it was agreed that Natasha and I would go.
At the last moment it was decided, I'm not sure why, that Natasha's sister, Courtney, and Natalie's housekeeper, Willie Mae, would come with us. During the drive I kept wondering if I was doing the right thing. I knew Natalie's body had been dressed, her hair done, her face made up by friends she'd worked with on films, who had grown to love her, so I was confident her face and body would show few marks of the time she'd spent in the water. But how would Natasha react to seeing her mother dead? I turned my face to the window.
A mortuary attendant led us to a discreetly lit room in the middle of which Natalie's half-open coffin had been placed on a plinth. A soft, pale light hung over it.
I took Natasha's hand. Side by side, we approached.
Natalie was dressed in a full-length fox fur coat over a simple cream dress. To me she was as beautiful then as when I'd first known her. I stole a glance at Natasha. The powerful connection she'd always had with Natalie was still palpable. Natasha tried to put a letter in Natalie's hand but the stiffness of Natalie's fingers made it impossible. I suggested she put it under her hand. When Natasha tried to lift Natalie's arm it was too heavy for her so I lifted it. Carefully, Natasha placed the letter under her mother's hand then turned to me, saying: "I want to be alone with Mummy."
I walked away and watched my child speak quietly to her mother for almost three minutes without any embarrassment or self-consciousness. What she said I have no idea. Finally, she reached into the coffin and straightened Natalie's coat.
"I'm ready to go now," she told me.
On the way back to North Canon Drive she held my hand. There were no tears, no questions, no explanations, Natasha had done what she had set out to do and done it with honour and dignity. I couldn't have been prouder.
For us, the closeness we shared during those terrible days was instrumental in making our relationship as wonderful as it is today. She says I was there for her. I say she was there for me.
This is an edited extract from Behind the Screen Door: Tales from the Hollywood Hills by Richard Gregson. Available as a digital book published by DCD Publishing, £5.99, and as an audio book from Audible, £10.99