Peter Basch - Blog Posts

She always seemed a little tentative, a little frightened. She was sweet and lovely, and I never heard her say a bad word about anybody, but she was not a boisterously happy person. She was kind of delicate, I always felt she was vulnerable, and sensitive,- which she was. Bev Long on Natalie Wood.

Natalie Wood with her sister Lana, 1960s. Photo taken by Peter Basch

Natalie Wood and her then-husband Robert Wagner photographed by Peter Basch, 1957.

“The next day, she ... went to see Dean in “East of Eden,” which had opened at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. “She walked out and said, ‘I’m gonna marry him.’ Natalie later admitted she had ‘a big crush’ on Dean. “I remember going with my school girlfriends to see East of Eden like fifteen times, sitting there sobbing when he tried to give the money to his father. We knew every word by heart.”