To Catch a Falling Star

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"If you're a star you don't stop being a star."

Margaret (Bette Davis)

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It is human nature, I suppose, to be reluctant to give up anything that is comfortable and familiar — whatever it may be.

People who have been in the public spotlight — athletes, politicians, movie stars — seem particularly stubborn about acknowledging the ravages of time or the fickleness of followers. Their resistance is doomed to failure, of course, and most of them probably already know that the batting average for those who preceded them is roughly .000, but they always seem to think that they will be the exception.

Bette Davis played such a character in "The Star," which premiered on this day in 1952. There was an ironic twist to the casting — but I'll come back to that.

Davis' character had once been an in–demand Hollywood star whose latest movies always drew long lines at the box office, an Academy Award winner, but that was when she was young and beautiful. Davis still saw herself that way, but the moviegoing public did not. (Davis, by the way, was 44 when the movie premiered and more than 20 years removed from her own big–screen debut.)

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Davis' character clearly was in the stages of grief later described by Elisabeth Kübler–Ross. Mostly in "The Star," she alternated between the anger and denial stages, but there was a generous helping of depression and even a bit of bargaining involved.

Ultimately all that was followed by the acceptance stage, but it came at the very end, and the audience had to go through that journey with Davis. It was the point of the movie.

Davis' character, who apparently hadn't been in a movie for quite awhile and was forced to sell many of her most valuable possessions to pay her debts, was offered a small role that was completely at odds with her self–image — the role of the older sister of a younger, sexier character (played by the latest Hollywood sex symbol).

In her screen test, Davis' character figured she could snag the starring role by putting a sexy spin on her performance. But that — predictably — was a dismal failure, and Davis realized what Sterling Hayden (a former actor Davis had helped once) and a young Natalie Wood (14 when "The Star" premiered and cast as Davis' daughter) had been trying to tell her.

Her career was over. It was time to decide what she was going to do with the rest of her life.

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Wood's role was definitely a supporting one — and not really all that big, even for a supporting role — but symbolically she represented the future, Hollywood's real–life next generation — in many ways like Davis' younger rival in "The Star."

Davis did receive her ninth Best Actress nomination (she lost to Shirley Booth) but would be so honored only once more in her lifetime — for "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?"

Wood, on the other hand, received only three Oscar nominations and rarely received praise for what she did, but she seldom lacked for work in her comparatively brief career.

The Maturing of Natalie Wood

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"After three husbands, it takes a lot of butter to get you back in the frying pan."

Rose (Rosalind Russell)

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Natalie Wood was in a distinctly different phase of her career when she appeared in "Gypsy," which premiered on this day in 1962.

She began her career just shy of her fifth birthday and made more than 20 films as a child — including "Miracle on 34th Street."

But as Wood got older, she began transitioning into more mature roles in the 1950s and early 1960s — and her performance in "Gypsy" was, to say the least, mature.

Or, to be more specific, for mature audiences.

It didn't begin that way. It started innocently enough.

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But the young girl who captured the nation's hearts in "Miracle on 34th Street" grew into a complex young woman, alternately enchanting, captivating and beguiling on the silver screen.

Sometimes she was all three. That was how it was in "Gypsy."

When the movie began, Wood played Rosalind Russell's supportive daughter. Russell was the epitome of a stage mother, but she wanted Wood's older sister (Ann Jillian) to be the star so, with the help of an agent (Karl Malden), she formed a Vaudeville act around the girls and took it on the road. That wasn't what Jillian wanted, though, and she eloped.

That left Wood, and Russell's character pushed her onto the stage — but it turned out to be a different kind of stage.

See, part of Russell's pitch was presenting her daughters as young girls. But, of course, no one stays young forever, and that illusion became harder and harder to maintain as the years went by.

Jillian just couldn't keep doing it and eloped with one of the dancers in the sisters' Vaudeville act, which left Wood — Russell's less talented daughter — and Russell poured everything she had into promoting her.

But there was a complication.

The rising popularity of movies with sound was causing a decline in the popularity of stage entertainment, and work was scarce. To make ends meet the act took a job at a burlesque house, in effect providing cover for the more unsavory activities that went on there.

One day one of the strippers was arrested for shoplifting, and Wood was more or less drafted to fill in for her. She didn't make much of an initial impression, but as she gained confidence in herself, the audience responded.

And a star was born.

Inevitably, though, Wood's stardom clashed with her mother's obsessive behavior. Something had to give.

The audience got to witness a remarkable transformation. The first time Wood was seen, she was about 13. Roughly 15 years passed by the end of the movie, and Wood had turned from a rather ordinary young girl into a self–assured and beautiful young woman.

I always thought she deserved an Oscar nomination, but "Gypsy" received no nominations for acting. It did, however, receive three Oscar nominations — ironically, given the subject matter, one of the nominations was for costume design.

An Ode to Journalism, Be It Fake or Yellow

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We can do 'The Innuendo'
We can dance and sing
When it's said and done we haven't told you a thing
We all know that crap is king
Give us dirty laundry!

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It is easy these days for people whose lives have not been involved in journalism the way mine has to believe that sensationalism and yellow journalism in the media are new.

But I could have told you back when I was an undergraduate studying journalism that neither is new.

On this day in 1982, Don Henley (initially of Eagles fame) released a solo single called "Dirty Laundry" that criticized the media of that time. If you listen to the lyrics, you must conclude that little has changed.

(Actually, the song was from an album titled "I Can't Stand Still," which had been released two months earlier.)

I studied print journalism in college, then practiced it in the real world. And it was an article of faith in every newsroom I was ever in that broadcasters weren't really serious journalists — that, in the words of the lyrics from the song, they only had to look good (while they read what someone else had written for them, either from the hard copy or from a teleprompter). Being "clear" was not required.

I don't know if the song fits in the modern–day debate over "fake news," but if fake news exists it is merely an outgrowth of the kind of journalism Henley criticized in the song.

I liked the song because, even though I hadn't been in the business long when "Dirty Laundry" was still being played on the radio, I knew enough about it to know that bad news will happen on its own. It doesn't need any help from journalists, whether they are legitimate journalists or not, and I have always despised those who try to stir things up needlessly.

And I also enjoyed a little tidbit that only journalists would know. There's a line in the song that goes "Is the head dead yet?" The song, as I understand it, was largely inspired by the media coverage of the deaths of John Belushi and Natalie Wood — but that particular line has a real role in newspaper history. It asks whether the major headline story (or head) is ready to go. If a head is dead, it means it is all set and is being printed — and it is too late to make a change.

I suppose that yellow journalism is the same thing as fake news. It depends on the label you want to slap on journalism that uses little, if any, research or facts and is presented in the most sensational, eye–grabbing way possible.

And that kind of thing has been going on in America since at least the 19th century and the days of Pulitzer and Hearst.

If it preceded that time — and I am sure it did — journalism historian Frank Luther Mott probably could have told us. He wrote the textbook on American newspapers from 1690 to 1940 that was used in most college journalism history courses for many years — and, for all I know, may still be in use in some classrooms today.

But Mott died in 1964. Not that he would be likely to still be around today. After all, he'd be over 130. Still, it would be good to hear his insights about modern journalism. No doubt he would be able to compare this time in journalism history to another period, whether it qualified as yellow journalism or required a different label.

And Mott, who led journalism departments at the University of Iowa and University of Missouri, was good at naming things. For example, he was responsible for the term "photojournalism."

He didn't coin the term "yellow journalism," but he did define it so I am sure he would have some thoughts to share on fake news — or whatever it is.

Absent Mott, though, you can listen to "Dirty Laundry" and get an idea what broadcast journalism was like 35 years ago.

And, as I said earlier, you will realize that things really haven't changed that much.

John Wayne's Defining Role

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"Figure a man's only good for one oath at a time; I took mine to the Confederate States of America."

Ethan (John Wayne)

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Sixty years ago today, "The Searchers" premiered on America's movie screens. Its hero, played by John Wayne, was unabashedly racist. He was a middle–aged veteran of the Civil War, a former Confederate soldier who returned to West Texas a few years after the end of the war, presumably with the intention of forming a partnership with his brother.

When I say the character was racist, those who haven't seen "The Searchers" might presume from what they have read so far in this article that the character was anti–black. But he wasn't. He was anti–Indian.

See, in the story, Indians raided a neighbor's homestead and stole some cattle. Wayne and some others went in search of the Indians to retrieve the cattle, but it turned out that the theft was simply a ruse to get the men away. When the men returned, Wayne's brother's home was in flames. His brother, his brother's wife and their son were killed. Their two daughters had been kidnapped.

So Wayne and his nephew (Jeffrey Hunter) embarked on a search.

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The search went on for five years. Early on, the body of the oldest daughter was found brutally murdered and, presumably, sexually assaulted. The search went on for the youngest daughter, who had been 8 years old at the time of her abduction. No one knew what had become of her.

They finally found out. She was with the chief of a company of Comanche. She was played by a young Natalie Wood, 17 in real life and one year removed from her Oscar–nominated performance in "Rebel Without a Cause." Seventeen is a bit older than Wood's character would have been. Kidnapped at the age of 8, discovered five years later.

I saw it a few years ago after having gone several years without seeing it, and I remember thinking that Wood looked really young in the early part of the movie, much younger than she should have been. It wasn't until later that I realized that the young version was Natalie's younger sister, Lana Wood, who would have been about 9 when the movie was made.

Natalie played the role briefly at the end when Wayne found her in the Comanche camp. She said she was now a Comanche and didn't wish to return with him. Wayne would have preferred to see her dead and pulled his gun on her, but Hunter shielded her.

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I had to wonder, as I watched it a few years ago, if "The Searchers" would have been a success in the theaters today. Wayne's racism certainly would have been a lightning rod for criticism, but, like Captain Ahab, there was a kind of beauty in his character, driven by an obsession that seems ugly without its redemptive qualities.

What are those redemptive qualities? Well, the character stood for principles like devotion and loyalty, but he was driven by the desire for revenge. He was a complicated character, worthy of Shakespeare.

It was a gritty story; the American Film Institute ranked it #12 all time — and #1 among the westerns. High praise.

It was pretty successful at the box office, too, but it received no Academy Award nominations. That surprised me when I heard that for the first time. I wasn't really surprised that Natalie Wood wasn't nominated. Her part was pivotal, but her screen time was brief. She did far more to deserve that nomination for "Rebel Without a Cause."

But the failure to nominate Wayne was a big mistake on the part of the Academy.

I once read a Roger Ebert column about the movie, and I recall that he said Wayne's character was the most compelling character Wayne and director John Ford ever created together. And that is certainly saying something, given how many times they made movies together.

It also happens to be true.

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John Wayne's fans will point to all sorts of movies and roles that they will tell you defined the Duke — but it is hard to imagine either a John Wayne movie or role that could be said to have defined him better than "The Searchers."

'Rebel Without a Cause' Told a Tale That is Still Socially Relevant

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"Watch out about choosing your pals. You know what I mean? Don't let 'em choose you."

Frank Stark (Jim Backus)

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Ten years ago, as the 50th anniversary of the premiere of "Rebel Without a Cause" approached, film critic Roger Ebert wrote that the movie "has not aged well."

Well, that movie is 60 years old today, and it still doesn't seem to be aging gracefully — although it may have more social and (dare I say it?) political relevance today than it did in 2005. The 1950s, after all, have been reviled as a decade of conformity, a Leave it to Beaver decade, by the political left in this country for a long time — and in many (but not all) respects, the decade deserves that reputation.

But we are living in a time that is every bit as judgmental about anyone who doesn't share the popular opinions on everything as the '50s generation was about the nonconformists of that time. This is not reviled by the left because it embraces many of the left's values, but it is every bit as harsh and unforgiving to anyone who steps out of line.

In the 1950s, the buzz phrase was juvenile delinquency; the problem with that is that it was a blanket phrase that was used for many things, some completely unrelated, and it came to be epitomized on screen in the '50s by the likes of James Dean, Marlon Brando and Elvis Presley, who were regarded as more sensitive than their predecessors. In many ways, I think Dean is the forgotten one of the three because his light was extinguished so prematurely — four weeks before "Rebel Without a Cause" premiered.

I didn't really understand that when I was a child. I heard people speak of James Dean, but I kept wondering why he made so few movies if he was so great. Then, of course, I found out that he died in a car crash at the age of 24. The only movie to be released during his lifetime was "East of Eden," in which he played a role similar to the one he played in "Rebel Without a Cause."

And, in the process, he became the poster child for teen angst.

I agree with Ebert. The film hasn't aged well.

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Even so, there are not many young people who won't recognize themselves or people they know in the young people in "Rebel Without a Cause." There are some things that are universal and eternal — teen angst is one of them.

But true teen angst, it seems to me, is a symptom of something deeper, and "Rebel" touched on those deeper issues — dysfunctional relationships with parents being high on the list — but never really resolved them. And, frankly, who hasn't felt that way at some time and to some extent? Teens today seem to have the same issues with their parents as they did when I was a teen — and, I assume, my parents had those same issues with their parents.

The circumstances differ, but it's really the same group, isn't it? There is always at least one who had only one parent. There is always at least one who has both parents and feels he is being smothered by them. There is yet another who has both parents and is ignored by one or both.

Dean played the teenager who had both parents and was being smothered by them. "You're tearing me apart!" he wails to them in what may be his most memorable line from a meteoric career.

Natalie Wood's character was Dean's love interest. She had an emotionally distant father — clearly uneasy with a blossoming teenage daughter in the house who yearned so for affection that she risked his alienation by simply giving him a peck on the cheek or putting her arm around his shoulders.

"Girls don't do that sort of thing," he reprimanded her.

"Don't do what?" she asked incredulously. "Love their fathers?"

Then, after she had met and grown to know Dean, who was the new boy in town, Wood's character said — in an equally incredulous manner — "I love somebody. All the time I've been ... I've been looking for someone to love me. And now I love somebody. And it's so easy. Why is it easy now?"

Not long before, when the two were together for the first time and found themselves outside Wood's home, Dean asked innocently, "Is this where you live?"

"Who lives?" Wood asked.

Both Dean and Wood were tragic figures in their own ways — but the most tragic figure probably was Plato, played by Sal Mineo. Plato had no father in the house and barely had a mother, who had a habit of running off on adventures and leaving her son in the custody of the housekeeper. In the rear–view mirror of 2015, it seems obvious that Plato was homosexual.

He, too, yearned for male affection but not from a father he had never really known. He was clearly drawn to Dean.

"Hey, you want to come home with me?" he asked after the game of chicken run that took the life of another disaffected youth. "I mean, there's nobody home at my house, and heck, I'm not tired. Are you? See, I don't have too many people I can talk to. If you want to come, we could talk, and in the morning we could have breakfast like my dad used to. Gee, if only you could have been my dad."

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Mineo was nominated for Best Supporting Actor but lost to Jack Lemmon in "Mister Roberts." Wood was nominated for Best Supporting Actress but lost to Jo Van Fleet in "East of Eden." Nicholas Ray was nominated for Best Writing but lost to Daniel Fuchs in "Love Me or Leave Me."

Dean wasn't nominated for Best Actor for his performance in "Rebel Without a Cause." He was nominated for "East of Eden" but lost to Ernest Borgnine in "Marty."

On the Long Road With the Great Leslie and Professor Fate

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Leslie (Tony Curtis): Are you a native of Burracho?

Lily Olay (Dorothy Provine): I ain't no native. I was born here!

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"The Great Race," which made its theatrical debut half a century ago on this day in 1965, was pure slapstick from start to finish. If there was any doubt, the opening credits included this tribute: "For Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy."

It was set shortly after the turn of the 20th century. It was about a New York–to–Paris (by way of the Bering Strait) road race, and it was directed by Blake Edwards at a time when he was getting rave reviews for his early "Pink Panther" pictures — if you are familiar with his directorial style, you could see similarities between "The Great Race" and Edwards' other comedies.

Edwards made many of those movies, of course, with the great Peter Sellers, who had nothing to do with "The Great Race." In "The Great Race," Edwards worked with another of his frequent collaborators, Jack Lemmon.

The project also reunited Lemmon with his "Some Like It Hot" co–star, Tony Curtis, this time as genuine rivals (rather than the implied rivals — for Marilyn Monroe's affections — that they were in "Some Like It Hot"). And, although she seemed to shift her loyalties throughout the movie, Natalie Wood, as a feminist journalist reporting on the race, played Curtis' love interest.

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Kind of an interesting twist, given that, only a few months earlier, Curtis and Wood had been adversarial co–stars in "Sex and the Single Girl."

In the context of 1965, "The Great Race" was a star–studded show with prominent people showing up even in small roles. Vivian Vance (probably best known as Ethel Mertz in the I Love Lucy sitcom), Keenan Wynn, Peter Falk, Larry Storch were there — along with others whose faces you probably would recognize even if you never knew their names.

"The Great Race" clearly identified the good guy and the bad guy. Curtis (The Great Leslie) was the good guy who always dressed in white; Lemmon (Professor Fate) was the bad guy, always dressed in black. And they periodically swapped the lead — for the screwiest of reasons.

In the end, the good guy seemed to be on the brink of victory — but he gave it all up to prove to Natalie Wood that he loved her.

When he stopped his vehicle inches from the finish line, Wood's character protested, "What are you doing?"

"Proving that I love you," Curtis replied.

"But you'll lose the race," Wood said.

"Can you think of a better way to prove it?" he asked before kissing her in a passionate embrace.

Sorta reminiscent of the Sylvester Stallone/"Rocky" experience, eh? When Rocky lost the fight and won the girl. Yo, Adrian.

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Max (Peter Falk): We gotta do something.

Professor Fate (Jack Lemmon): Oh, don't worry. Before this iceberg melts and we drown like rats, we're going to do plenty.

Max: Yeah? What?

Professor Fate: We're gonna starve!

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But Professor Fate wouldn't take a victory that way, though. After all, he had a reputation ...

"The Great Race" was terrific entertainment — complete with an honest–to–God pie fight near the end. Wood got pelted numerous times, but Curtis' character seemed unusually blessed, walking through a crossfire of pies without getting hit once, his all–white duds showing not even a trace of fallout from a pie — until almost the end of the fight.

Meanwhile, Lemmon's double, a dandified drunkard of a king, got hit with a brandy pie and encouraged the participants in the pie fight to hit him with more brandy pies, then got hit with a rum pie and scolded them with the admonition, "I never mix my pies!"

At the Oscars, "The Great Race" beat "Von Ryan's Express" for Best Sound Editing — and lost for Best Sound Mixing, Best Color Cinematography and Best Film Editing. Although he wasn't nominated for his work on "The Great Race," composer Henry Mancini went on to win four Oscars in his lifetime.

Thoughts on 'Sex and the Single Girl'

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Helen Gurley Brown (Natalie Wood): You know, when you smile like that, you do look like Jack Lemmon!

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In 1962, Helen Gurley Brown's "Sex and the Single Girl" was a best–selling self–help book that encouraged women to become financially independent and to experience sex outside the traditional marriage relationship.

The movie that was released 50 years ago today had the same title and its lead character (played by Natalie Wood) had Dr. Brown's name, but that was just about all the two really had in common.

Tony Curtis played the managing editor of STOP magazine, a real rag of a publication, who wanted to get a scoop on Brown. He had already published an article alleging that Brown was a virgin, and that article had damaged her reputation. Half a dozen of her patients had quit on her, and Brown was intent on suing Curtis, who wanted to interview Brown but had no luck.

So Curtis' character impersonated his housemate (Henry Fonda) who worked in women's hosiery, pretending to be having marital problems so he could get closer to Brown. In the reality of the movie, Fonda actually was having problems with his wife (Lauren Bacall).

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And where would a Tony Curtis movie be without a car chase? That's how "Sex and the Single Girl" concluded: with just about everyone involved in a car chase and then living happily ever after (apparently).

Much of the movie was a farce about mistaken identity, sort of a single–joke "Midsummer Night's Dream." I have never read Brown's book, but it only inspired the screenplay, most of which apparently was written by Joseph Heller. Brown got partial credit for the story, but that may be because it was her book's title, not its content, that inspired it.

It wasn't clever. It wasn't thought provoking. It was mostly silly and contrived. It wasn't Heller's best work.

At one point, Fonda was accused of bigamy, which turned out to be false. That set up lots of cheap jokes about fidelity. To be honest, I had to wonder how stars of such stature as Fonda and Bacall got roped into this project.

In the interest of full disclosure, I admit that I laughed out loud when Brown compared Curtis' character to Jack Lemmon in "Some Like It Hot," but that sort of thing didn't happen very much. Curtis and Lemmon, of course, were co–stars with Marilyn Monroe in "Some Like It Hot" — and there are folks who will tell you it was the best comedy ever made. (That is hard — but not impossible — to dispute.)

I don't know if that is true, but I know that the talent in "Some Like It Hot" was superior to the talent in "Sex and the Single Girl" — at least when you compare how the talent was used.

Fonda, for example, was capable of comedy even though he was usually seen in dramatic roles. The same could be said of Bacall and Wood. That wasn't the problem. The problem was that the material in "Sex and the Single Girl" just wasn't worthy of their talents. (You couldn't say that about "Some Like It Hot.")

Maybe the producers should have been faithful to the original book.

A Fabulous Foursome

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"First, we'll have an orgy. Then we'll go see Tony Bennett."

Ted (Elliott Gould)

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When I was in college, I remember having the kind of frank conversations that were abundant in "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice," which premiered on this day in 1969.

Having such conversations when you are 20 is one thing. It is quite another when you have come to occupy that middle earth known as one's 30s — when one is apt to be married, maybe have a house and a car and a kid or two — and such conversations can lead to divvying up such things.

With some people and in some situations, it is possible to be too honest. There are probably some topics that are best left unexplored.

What made "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" funny was that its writers were sensitive to the crisis the 30–somethings of that time faced. They were caught in the no–man's land of the Generation Gap.

Now, there is always a gap between the generations, but it was particularly pronounced at that time when a war half a world away wasn't the only war being waged in America. There was a race war in America in those days, and there was a war between the sexes, which came to include the emerging gay rights movement.

It is no exaggeration to say there were times when the fabric of American society seemed to be coming apart at the seams.

Quite often the conflicts seemed to come down to the Generation Gap. The young were usually on one side, the old were on the other. The couples in "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" were too old to be the radicals and too young to be the parents of the radicals.

Most of the time, I guess that isn't so bad. Being in your 30s gives you a unique — but temporary — ability to connect with both extremes. I have never been able to be as honest with both groups as I was when I was in my early 30s. The rest of the time, I've been able to be pretty honest with one side but not so honest with the other.

In the late '60s and early '70s, there was a lot of emphasis on honesty in relationships, and that really was what "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" was about.

It wasn't really about wife swapping although that was the premise for the movie.

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"My darling, you did not cheat. You told me about it. If you hadn't told me about it, that would have been cheating!"

Carol (Natalie Wood)

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Things really got started when one of the couples (Natalie Wood and Robert Culp) spent a weekend with one of those groups that were so prevalent in those days — dedicated to helping couples get in touch with their feelings and open up to each other and all that. Culp's character got caught up in the moment, and he found himself confessing to infidelity.

Wood's response was that it was wonderful that he could be so honest with her, and she proudly shared the news of his affair with the other couple (Dyan Cannon and Elliott Gould), which caused a ripple effect within their relationships.

I thought that was the funniest part of the movie. The four had been spending the evening together, going out for dinner, then getting high back at Bob and Carol's place. Throughout the evening, Bob and Carol ranted about the life–changing experience they had had.

Then Carol dropped the bombshell on Ted and Alice as they were leaving.

Alice was furious with Bob and made it clear on the drive home. My memory is that Ted said little — except that it was clear he was aroused. Alice was not.

After discussing the subject of whether to have sex, Alice, in frustration, suggested that she should just lie back and let him do what he wanted to do with no additional participation from her. "Now," she said triumphantly, for she couldn't imagine anyone wanting to have sex if the partner did not wish to actively participate, "do you wanna do it just like that with no feeling on my part?"

"Yeah," Ted replied.

Well, he was being honest — but it probably wasn't the most diplomatic way he could have done it.

Later, Ted told Bob that he had been tempted to cheat but hadn't gone through with it. Bob's advice to him was to do it if he had another chance. "You've got the guilt, anyway," he advised. "Don't waste it."

Eventually, the couples reached the conclusion that the only way they could be totally honest with each other would be to swap sexual partners.

Some of the reviews I have read criticized director Paul Mazursky's ending, in which the couples did not trade partners after all, but I disagreed. I thought it was consistent with the characters and where they were emotionally at that point in their story. If they had swapped partners, it would have totally obscured the movie's message.

"Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" received four Oscar nominations but lost all four.

Reading Other People's Minds

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Dr. Michael Anthony Brace (Christopher Walken): Why do you have to die to let go?

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Natalie Wood was finishing the movie "Brainstorm" when she died in November 1981.

As a result, much of the movie had to be rewritten and earlier footage had to be used.

It was, perhaps, inevitable that "Brainstorm" would be promoted in the media, when it was finally released 30 years ago today, as Natalie Wood's last film — even though the character she played was, at best, a supporting character.

The star was actually Christopher Walken, who was a hot box–office draw by that time, having appeared in some of the best movies of the '70s and early '80s ("Annie Hall," "The Deer Hunter," "Pennies From Heaven"). Walken was a scientist who experimented with a device that could read a person's thoughts and transfer them to video tape.

One of Walken's colleagues, Louise Fletcher, had a heart attack while by herself. Figuring (apparently correctly) that help could not reach her in time, she put the device on her head and allowed it to record the experience of her death.

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When he tried to play back the recording of Fletcher's character's death, Walken's character nearly died as he realized that not only could the device record experiences visually but it could also make the viewer have the same physical experience the wearer had.

Kind of a twist on the old 3–D effect, wouldn't you say?

In the case of Fletcher's tape, that meant the viewer would experience the physical sensation of a heart attack.

Of course, there were other kinds of experiences that were candidates for abuse when committed to this futuristic tape. What was a brave new world in the early '80s has, in many ways, come to pass today.

In fact, I have often thought in recent years that it was practically prescient the way "Brainstorm" anticipated things like artificial intelligence and virtual experiences.

In the movie, one member of the research team had sex with his girlfriend while wearing the device. An older team member, seeking to re–capture his youth, got the tape that had been made and spliced the lovemaking segment to run continuously, nearly killing him.

Thus the potential for misuse/abuse of this technology was established.

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I've been an admirer of Natalie Wood for a long time, and I was kind of sorry that this was her final movie. It isn't that I didn't care for the subject matter. On the contrary, I thought it was almost visionary, even at the time but certainly as the years have passed.

No, the thing I regretted was that Wood was a supporting character. Nothing wrong with that. I've known of many great actors and actresses who were supporting actors. But Wood was a leading lady. She always gave great performances, and sometimes they were in supporting roles, but she was mostly a star as an adult, yet she played Walken's estranged wife. Fletcher, as Walken's like–minded research colleague, had more of a presence in the film, as did Cliff Robertson as CEO of the research team.

Otherwise, it probably was an appropriate capper to Wood's career. She was too young to die, and the circumstances surrounding her death were as baffling as they come, but that fed into the plotline pretty well.

Of course, some of it had to be redone after Wood died, but I felt the writers deserved credit for, as they say in this part of the country, "making chicken salad out of chicken s**t."

Natalie Wood's 75th Birthday

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Hollywood has boasted many beautiful actresses over the years, but only a handful have made my personal list of truly great beauties.

That list doesn't actually exist, of course — well, outside my mind, I suppose. But my mental list includes the likes of Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, Ingrid Bergman, Elizabeth Taylor and Natalie Wood. I'm sure there are others that you readers will think of, but those are the top five on my list.

If she had not died in 1981 under circumstances that are still labeled, at best, mysterious — and if we further presume that nothing else would have killed her in the last 32 years — today would have been Natalie Wood's 75th birthday. If she was alive, she'd be a grandmother. Hard to imagine, isn't it?

It's always hard for me to picture people who died young as they might have been at advanced ages, whether they were famous or not. Whenever the subject of prominent people who died young comes up, it never fails to include the Kennedys, Martin Luther King, Marilyn Monroe, John Belushi, Elvis, Princess Diana, and it is always difficult for me to picture them being 30 or 40 or even 50 years older than they were when last we saw them.

I had a friend who died of cancer before his 30th birthday. If he was still living, he would be in his 50s today. I find that very hard to picture. I remember him as he was, and it is hard for me to imagine what he would be like if he had not been dead for nearly 22 years — primarily, I suppose, because I can't really imagine what might have happened in his life in the last couple of decades and how those events might have shaped him.

In a way, I guess, it is the same with Natalie Wood, whether you think of her as a young girl in the original "Miracle on 34th Street" or as a young adult in "West Side Story" or as a more mature woman in "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice." She was 43 when she died. How can we know what might have happened in her life that would have shaped her into the 75–year–old we will never know?

I guess the hardest part of imagining Natalie Wood at 75 is remembering her when she was 8 in "Miracle on 34th Street."

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I don't remember how old I was when I saw that movie for the first time. I may have been no older than Wood had been when she made it, and I remember having a huge crush on her. I guess she was my first.

Anyway, that is the image of Natalie Wood that always comes to my mind first when her name is mentioned — and, I suppose, always will, no matter how many times I see "Splendor in the Grass" or "Rebel Without a Cause" — or the movie she was making when she died, "Brainstorm."

When Wood drowned while on a yachting trip with her husband Robert Wagner and her "Brainstorm" co–star Christopher Walken, her death was ruled an accident, but many of the details surrounding her death were unknown then and are mostly unknown today.

I remember that rumors were rampant at the time. I always dismissed most of it as idle gossip. Nevertheless, there were parts of the story, however incomplete it may have been, that were disturbing.

It was known that Wood had been drinking that evening and that she and Wagner had argued. But no one could be found who could say definitively how Wood — who was known to have a fear of the water and drowning — wound up in the waters of Santa Catalina Island.

But the case was reopened last year when the captain of the yacht reportedly told authorities that an argument between Wood and Wagner had caused her death. To date, no one has been charged in connection with Wood's death.

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After all these years, I'm not really sure if I want to know the truth about what happened to Natalie Wood.

At the time, it was enough for me simply to know that she was dead. I suppose there was a time when I wanted to know if someone had caused her death, but after 32 years, I really don't know what useful purpose could be served. If Wagner really was the cause of her death, would there be anything to gain by putting him on trial now and perhaps imprisoning him? The man is 83 years old.

Wood's family may be seeking some kind of closure. If they are still seeking it after 32 years, I hope they find it — even if it doesn't come in the form they may be hoping for. Thirty–two years is a long time to wait for anything.