Natalie Wood
 

She conquered the world with her exceptional femininity. She often appeared in the scandal pages of newspapers in the fifties and sixties, because of her social life, her fast rides in expensive cars, and her suicide attempts. Her photos, however, appeared just as often on the front cover of renowned magazines, for she rivaled Elizabeth Taylor in terms of popularity. Perhaps for these reasons or because of her tragic death, which took place a little less than forty years ago, she continues to attract attention and stimulate curiosity.

Natalie Wood was born as Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko to a family of Russian immigrants in San Francisco on July 20, 1938, under the most feminine sign of the Zodiac, Cancer. Her ascendant is in the sign of indecisive and artistically sensitive Libra, and her Moon in the sign of Taurus, which aspires to material comfort and security. At the time of her birth, the strong concentration of planetary energy near the Zenith, the Moon and Saturn low in the sky, and Jupiter, planet of happiness, located in the house of love, children, and creativity (5^th) prophesize a great career and exceptional popularity. However, this also announces that she would be unhappy in love and seek self-accomplishment through her children. Her children had to teach her to love unconditionally, and to love herself first of all, which is the only way of strengthening self-confidence. Her love life would be harmonious when she could realize that she should not idealize the men with whom she would fall in love with, and that happiness is really just a frame of mind. This is why no one can make us happy or unhappy, only we, ourselves, are capable of doing so.

Thus it was not by chance that Natalie Wood was born to an ambitious mother who, unable to fulfill her potential because of her own cultural and financial limitations, was obsessed with the idea of satisfying her ambitions through her daughters.

It was precisely her mother Maria, the wife of an alcoholic, who took her five year old child to audition for the film Happy Land in 1943, and thus took her destiny in hand. The stars reveal that the appearance of little Natalie on the screen was not by chance. In fact, over the course of 1943, Jupiter, planet of happiness, Pluto, planet of magnetic attraction, and the North Node transited her house of reputation and career (10^th) and pushed her out of anonymity. Thus cast into the world of adults, little Natalie became a solitary beauty overnight, without schooling, poorly adjusted and without confidence. Because of her Ascendant in Libra, she was convinced that she would move forward in life only on the condition of being good and affable with others. This is moreover the main problem of people whose charts are dominated by Libra. Thus, when she was 16 years old, her natal Moon, symbol of feelings, touched eccentric Uranus in directions, in the house of sex. Natalie was then raped by a Hollywood actor. However, her mother forbade her to reveal his name, in the interest of her career. This was completely understandable, if one considers that since she was eight years old, Natalie earned 1,000 dollars a week and supported her family. Pluto, responsible for karmic lessons, located in proximity to the highest point of the sky, the Zenith, indicates that Natalie had to undergo the experience of having her desires disrespected by others. All this was intended towards the goal of becoming a mature person who fights for her freedom and does not manipulate others. A person who aspires to attain a position in life where no one can dominate her.

In fact, after escaping her mother’s claws at the age of 17, she succeeded. She was helped in this by the transit of freedom-seeking Uranus and Jupiter, who crossed her natal Sun in 1955. Breaking many taboos of the time, Natalie Wood became the incarnation of the new American generation. She was romantically linked to James Dean and Elvis Presley. The film Rebel without a causemade her the idol of young people. When filming, she had love affairs with her co-stars. She was nominated for an Oscar in the supporting role category. Later, she would confide to her sister:

“Elvis really knows how to sing, but he doesn’t know how to do practically anything else. James Dean taught me how to work professionally and to not be satisfied with just a superficial knowledge of the character I was playing.”

Her Oscar nomination and her great beauty guaranteed her enormous popularity. Controlled until then by her ambitious mother and her film studio, she suddenly realized that she did not know herself: “I couldn’t decide anything on my own,” she would later say, “because for as long as I could remember, someone else had always told me what to do.” Not knowing what she really wanted and trying hard to please everyone, Natalie passed from one love affair to another. She behaved very freely and drank to excess in order to hide her gentle Cancer soul and her need to rest on the strong shoulder of the man she loved. He would have to accept her and love her as she was. However, she had not yet met that man among her circle.

During the summer of 1956, as Jupiter crossed her natal Venus, planet of love, that fateful encounter finally took place. Reserved in appearance but with boiling Slavic blood running through her veins, Natalie Wood conquered Robert Wagner, the son of a rich industrialist. Love and passion were divided. Astrology would say this is also what Destiny intended, because in their natal charts, the close contact between his Uranus and her Saturn indicates a love that made its presence felt in spite of every barrier. This perhaps explains why, after their divorce, they married again a dozen years later, in 1972. She would say one day about her marriage:

“When we first were married, Robert and I were warned by people on both sides that our marriage didn’t have a future. His friends said that I was not on his level, and my friends said that he was bisexual.”

Even though their affair and their marriage were charged with emotion and romance, their marriage truly deteriorated, partly because of their youth and inexperience, and partly because of the chaotic and decadent Hollywood atmosphere. The main reason for the dissolution of their marriage was Natalie’s infidelity when she became enamored of Warren Beatty during the filming of Elia Kazan’s Splendor in the Grass. Her horoscope confirms this. More precisely, the Moon, symbol of feelings, located in the house of marriage (7^th) reveals that Natalie placed herself in dependent positions vis-à-vis others. This signifies that none of her marriages would have any chance of succeeding until she had attained emotional maturity. The presence of Saturn, initiator of problems and limitations of all types, in the house of marriage, further aggravates the situation.

During this time, she was nominated for a second Oscar. She suffered from insomnia. She met with a psychiatrist three times a week. Nevertheless, while her marriage was burning down, Natalie filmed some of her best movies: West Side Story in 1961 and Gypsy in 1962. Her relationship with Warren Beatty did not last very long. Abandoned and disappointed, instead of seeking emotional stability within herself, she again looked for it in other partners. Thus, she passed again from affair to affair. Among others, Nicky Hilton, son of the founder of the hotel chain, David Niven, son of the famous actor with the same name, the English actor Tony Curtis, Steve McQueen, and others passed through her bed. Despite her many love affairs, she felt more alone and more hopeless. Particularly in 1964, when she learned that Robert Wagner had a daughter in his second marriage. One autumn afternoon in 1966, after an argument with Warren Beatty, Natalie attempted suicide by swallowing a large quantity of sleeping pills. However, she was lucky. Excluding the North Node that then crossed her natal Uranus in the house of death, Saturn, the enforcer of destiny, unpredictable Uranus and Pluto were found in a harmonious relationship with the house of death (8^th). Thus, Natalie was saved. Her secretary found her and rushed her to the hospital.

While she finally believed she had found happiness, after marrying producer Richard Gregson and becoming a mother, Destiny decided otherwise. After only a year and a half of life together, Richard Gregson cheated on her. It was a hard blow to her sensitive Cancer nature, which did not want to forgive. This also shows that Natalie had not yet learned the lesson of Saturn. She did not stop building dependant relationships. Life lessons had not helped her reach emotional maturity. In addition, Venus, planet of love, located in the sign of rational and analytical Virgo, did not allow her to outwardly show her feelings.

In the meantime, her first husband Robert Wagner had left for Europe, moved forward in his career, married and became a father. He divorced his second wife at approximately the same time as Natalie. As if it had been arranged, when they met again in 1972, they were both single again and ready to make a new start. The stars say that the passage of free Uranus through Natalie’s Ascendant at that time gave her the feeling of definitively freeing herself from the chains that had hindered her since her childhood. This time, by Robert’s side, she felt her need for love and partnership finally satiated, she was fulfilled, her feelings were freed and she blossomed. Love creates miracles and both felt the world around them was colored in rose. They felt that they had never stopped loving each other. They raised their children from previous marriages and had a daughter together. Their careers were stable. The years had made them wiser. They now had everything they needed to be happy.

Nevertheless, Natalie probably hadn’t yet made a blank slate of her fears. Sages say that at the end, what we fear most always comes to us.

Even if the Cancer in her would have naturally loved the sea, everyone in Hollywood knew that Natalie Wood had a dreadful fear of drowning, because of several incidents that had taken place during her film shoots. “I like to be near water,” she said, “but I hate being in it.” It was precisely water that played a fatal role in her life. Whether someone had manipulated her with this fear, or Dionysus, the god of wine, had interfered, or she simply found herself in the wrong place at the wrong time remains a mystery. Neptune returned her body and rubber dinghy to Earth six hours after their disappearance. Hollywood would then speak of the curse that had befallen the actors of Rebel without a cause. James Dean had died in a car accident. Sal Mineo was killed and his murderer was never found. Nick Adams died from drugs. As for her, her horoscope reveals that she would die suddenly, a violent death. This is indicated by the position of unpredictable Uranus, located in the house of death. On November 29 1981, the day of her death, Chiron in transit touched Uranus in her house of death, which should have helped her to free a part of her fears and suppressed wounds. Simultaneously, aggressive Mars crossed Neptune, who rules alcohol and narcotics, in the house of secrets (12^th). This is why she died by drowning when she was under the influence of alcohol. However, the circumstances of her death will always remain mysterious.

Whatever the case, on November 29 1981, Robert Wagner lost his wife, their children lost their mother, and the world of film lost a great actress.

 

 
 

 
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