Natashawood - The Sweetheart Tree

Natalie Wood photographed by Bill Ray for Life Magazine, 1963.

Natalie Wood and Jack Lemmon depicted by caricaturist Al Hirschfeld, for “the Great Race,” 1965.

Natalie Wood photographed on the telephone at the 1962 Producers Guild Awards.

Natalie Wood at her Grauman’s Chinese Theatre imprint ceremony, 1961. 

SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS (1961) “We took them to lunch at a place on East Fifty-eighth street, and my dear, we shouldn’t have been there. They were entwined, lots of hugs and kisses. The restaurant was rather crowded. But that didn’t deter the lovers. They went at it all through lunch. I loved it!” - Eleanor Kilgallen

“I tested three times for the part. The director, Nicholas Ray, was besieged by dozens of girls wanting to play Judy. After weeks of waiting, I heard the part was mine. But I had to keep quiet because the studio wanted to announce it at the right moment. I felt like running through the halls of Warner’s!”

Natalie Wood on her casting as Judy in “Rebel Without a Cause;” Natalie Wood and James Dean in a screen test for “Rebel Without a Cause,” 1955.

Natalie Wood and James Dean on the set of Rebel Without A Cause

“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.”

“Natalie [Wood] started “Splendor” with the mingled fear and pleasure she had with “Rebel”... She would recall [Elia] Kazan encouraging her, “Don’t be afraid to make a fool of yourself,” to be bold, be free, to “shock herself.”

Natalie Wood and director Elia Kazan photographed behind the scenes of “Splendor in the Grass;” Excerpt from “Natalie Wood” by Suzanne Finstad.

When I saw The Umbrellas of Cherbourg again a few years ago, it struck me: it’s exactly the same ending as in Splendor in the Grass. I adore that film. It’s one of the most beautiful love stories I’ve ever seen in the cinema. And the end scene is exactly the same as in Umbrellas. He is on the farm, with his dungarees, his wife, the child and she comes back…it was so moving to see that resemblance. I think it is one of the maddest, most audacious films on the subject of love. Particularly for a man to bring a young woman to life in such a way! Splendor in the Grass is so much about unbridled love. The idea that loving can make you insane. That is what happens: you become insane! Going as far as to see her leave for the hospital, because she is dying of love, she wants to die! That film knocked me over. - Catherine Deneuve

Natalie Wood photographed in between takes of “Love With the Proper Stranger,” 1963. Photo by Bill Ray.