Over the years, we’ve discussed Natalie Wood’s 1981 death and the continuing investigation into what happened on that boat that tragic night. Wood was on a boat with her then-husband Robert Wagner and Christopher Walken. There was reportedly a lot of drinking and fighting on the boat one night. The next morning, Wood’s body had been found. She drowned in the Pacific, but her body was heavily bruised and battered. Questions lingered, especially about Wagner and the state of their marriage. On a recent Gossip with Celebitchy podcast, we discussed a Vanity Fair exclusive excerpt from Wood’s biographer and friend, Suzanne Finstad. Finstad has been meticulously tracing all of the new information and new testimony coming in over the past decade, and Finstad has basically come to the conclusion that Wagner had a hand in Wood’s death, and that it was most likely murder.

Well, Natalie’s daughter Natasha Gregson Wagner doesn’t believe her stepfather/adopted father Robert Wagner hurt her mom. Natasha produced an HBO documentary called Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind (it debuts May 5th on HBO). Natasha was only 11 years old when her mom died, and this documentary is Natasha’s effort to “reclaim” her mother’s legacy, to remind people that Natalie Wood was more than a tragic death, that she was an incredible actor who did incredible work. Natasha also understands that people still want to talk about the circumstances around her mother’s death, so she interviewed her father herself, on camera, for the documentary. I should say… Natasha has never believed that Robert Wagner had anything to do with her mom’s death. That’s her right. Robert Wagner raised her – she can’t see him that way. She reportedly wrote, in her new book (More Than Love: An Intimate Portrait of My Mother, Natalie Wood) that “My father would never have harmed my mother or failed to save her if he knew she was in danger.” She also said that she hopes the documentary “ends some of that nonsense” about Wagner’s involvement in her mother’s death. Here’s the account Wagner told Natasha in the documentary:

In Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind, Gregson Wagner asks her stepfather to explain what happened the evening Wood fell off the boat. Wagner, in turn, recounts the final voyage he took with Wood, during Thanksgiving weekend 1981—with Dennis Davern and Christopher Walken, Wood’s costar in the 1983 sci-fi film Brainstorm. (Gregson Wagner told Vanity Fair that she asked both Walken and Lana Wood to participate in the documentary, but both declined. While Lana has been vocal about her sister’s death—even participating in the recent podcast Fatal Voyage: The Mysterious Death Of Natalie Wood—Walken has largely avoided commenting upon it. When People brought up Wood’s death in a 1986 interview, the actor responded by snapping, “I don’t know what happened. She slipped and fell in the water. I was in bed then. It was a terrible thing. Look, we’re in a conversation I won’t have. It’s a ——ing bore.”)

The film shows Wagner remembering his final dinner with Wood and Walken, during which Wagner says he enjoyed “a few glasses of vino.” Wagner and Wood had been having conversations about Wood’s career at that point—debating whether she should continue acting, or step away from the screen to spend more time at home with her children. Speaking to his stepdaughter, Wagner recalls opening another bottle of wine, and Wood retiring to bed. Awake with Walken and feeling “high” from the alcohol, Wagner says that Walken then told him that he believed Wood, a brilliant actor, needed to continue acting. Wagner says he angrily told Walken to mind his own business, before “smashing a wine bottle.” Wagner says that he and Walken eventually resolved the argument. After Walken retired to bed, Wagner says that he and Davern swept up the broken bottle on the floor. Then Wagner went downstairs, discovered that Wood was missing, and notified the coast guard.

In the film, Wagner recalls authorities later telling him that Wood’s body had been found.

“Everything just went out from under me,” Wagner says, his voice faltering. “We were all stunned, everybody. That night’s gone through my mind so many times. You can imagine.”

An emotional Wagner then recalls how—before returning to the family’s Beverly Hills home—he met with his therapist to discuss how he should tell Natasha and Courtney about their mother’s death. The stepfather and daughter discuss the heartbreak, the devastating funeral, and the surreal months and years that followed, in which the family struggled to put the pieces of their lives back together. Gregson Wagner and her stepfather—who clearly have a close, loving relationship—do not address some reports, like the one stating that Wood’s body was found with “fresh bruises” on her body, or Davern’s allegation that Wood and Wagner were fighting the night of her death.

Speaking about the conversation she had with her stepfather, which was filmed over the course of two days, Gregson Wagner said, “I am very protective of my stepdad and I adore him. So I didn’t want him to feel uncomfortable or unsafe. And yet I was asking him to step outside of his comfort zone to talk about the night that [Wood] died.” Asked whether she went into the conversation hoping to disprove specific theories, Gregson Wagner said, “I wasn’t really concerned with disproving these outlandish theories, I was more just wanting to have the kind of conversation that he and I have had in the past about other things, but on camera. I wanted him to feel safe enough to unfold, like a flower, and be honest, and show his humanity. That was my goal, or my intention for that interview.”

[From Vanity Fair]

Again, I don’t blame Natasha for believing the man who raised her, or for not wanting to do some kind of forensic examination into her mother’s death. It’s obviously quite painful and Natasha has no desire to reopen those wounds for herself or Wagner. But… yeah, don’t treat this documentary like a real examination about what happened that night. Tons of people who knew both Natalie and Robert Wagner believe that he was capable of murdering her, and that he was capable of being violent with her, and that he’s been living with what he did to her for nearly 40 years.

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Photos courtesy of WENN, Getty.