NATALIE: A Memoir by Her Sister

by Lana Wood ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 23, 1984

More a Lana Wood autobiography than a Natalie Wood bio, this thin memoir finds a few touching sisterly moments--but sinks, for the most part, into a glum catalogue of Lana's many lovers and husbands, with occasional cross-references to Natalie's career/marital/personality problems. Natalie was already a child-star when kid-sister Lana--a new candidate for Hollywood--was born; their repressive stage-mother bossed Natalie around, made Lana (more bookish than actor-ish) feel that she was an un-beautiful ""failure."" So Natalie escaped into marriage with young Robert Wagner, leaving little Lana without her steadfast protector. Lana ran away from home (to Natalie), forced Mother to cool down the stage-mother routine, then also married young (instant annullment); on the career front, she found herself typecast in teen-sexpot roles--thanks to ""a chest that seemed to go on forever."" And meanwhile Natalie's marriage was collapsing, with Warren Beatty in the home-wrecker role. In the years that followed, then, the sisters would have busy, sometimes-overlapping love lives: Warren made a play for teenager Lana, bedded her years later (""a passionate and inventive lover""); the sisters once found out they were sharing a lover--and got even with the cad; Lana went through several more husbands, a transvestite, a long married-man-affair, Ryan O'Neal, Alain Delon, Scan Connery (""an assured lover, given to bursts of spontaneity""); Natalie focused on psychoanalysis, attempted suicide, married, became a happy mother, then rediscovered Robert Wagner--for wedding #2. But a quarrel about that wedding-day (involving the sale of photos) created a break between the sisters. And though there was a later reconciliation, Lana was only half-aware of Natalie's post-40 depression; she has a simple explanation for Natalie's death (she ""drank too much that night""); and she doesn't understand why Robert Wagner remains so hostile to her. Tacky, tacky--neither really thoughtful nor sharp and zesty--but sure to attract a sizable chunk of the People (first serial rights) audience.

Pub Date: May 23, 1984

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Putnam

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1984

Categories: NONFICTION