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His disappearance was not a mystery in the conventional sense. There was no foul play, no crime, no stranger's hand in what happened. But it was a disappearance nonetheless a man who had been present and then simply was not, who had fallen through the gaps of every system that might have caught him. It raised the question of how completely a person can vanish from those who love them while the world continues on around them. Natalie Wood, Natalie Wood had been famous for almost her entire life. She had appeared in Miracle on 34th Street at the age of eight. She had been nominated for Academy Awards. She had starred in Rebel Without a Cause alongside James Dean and West Side Story alongside Richard Beymer. She was, by the time she reached her forties, one of the most recognized and celebrated actresses in the history of Hollywood. On the evening of November 28th, 1981, Natalie and her husband, actor Robert Wagner, were aboard their private yacht, the Splendour, anchored in the waters off Santa Catalina Island. They had been joined by Christopher Walken, who was then Natalie's co-star in the film Brainstorm, which was still in production. The boat's captain, Dennis Davern, was also aboard. The evening began socially enough. The group had dinner and drinks. At some point, the atmosphere changed. Witnesses aboard nearby boats later reported hearing a loud argument coming from the direction of the Splendour. The shouting continued for some time. The exact nature of the argument, who said what, and what preceded it, remained disputed for decades. Sometime in the early hours of November 29th, Natalie Wood went into the water. Her body was found the next morning by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, floating approximately one mile from the yacht, near the shore of the island. She was wearing a flannel nightgown and a down jacket. She was 43 years old.