Brandon Judell
Natalie and Gavin: Two Rebels With A Cause
Judy: All my life, I've been--I've been waiting for someone to love me, and now I love someone. And it's so easy. Why is it so easy now?
Jim: I don't know; it is for me, too.
Judy: I love you, Jim. I really mean it.
Jim: Well, I mean it . . .
Who can forget Natalie Wood and James Dean as Judy and Jim in "Rebel Without a Cause"? Two dysfunctional, suburban teens with a closeted pal named Plato (Sal Mineo), all trying to make sense of a society where your dad doesn't understand you, ignores you, or worse wears an apron in the kitchen.
One gal's angst-ridden search for sense and love is clearly the theme of Gavin Lambert's critically acclaimed new biography, "Natalie Wood: A Life" (Knopf; $25.95), a work that is clearly spearheading a new appreciation of an actress who's star has dimmed a bit over the years from critical neglect.
But if you just rewatch "Rebel" (1955), "Splendor in the Grass" (1961), "West Side Story" (1961), "Miracle on 34th Street" (1947), or the hyper-emotional "All the Fine Young Cannibals" (1960), you'll see what all the buzz was once about. (It should be noted that Natalie won a Golden Globe for Most Promising Newcomer in 1957. It was a three-way-tie though with Carroll Baker and Jayne Mansfield.)
This bio, if you're not a big fan of the Bolsheviks, the Winter
Palace, and Nicholas II, begins with a bit too much detail on Wood's ancestry.
You almost
at times think this is going to be the life story of Anastasia. There is
a reason, though, for all the textbook data. Lambert, who's also written
about George Cukor, Nazimova, and the making of "Gone with the Wind,"
is building a case here for Natalie's mother's manic drive. Russian immigrant
Maria Stepanova
Gurdin's unbridled ambition helped make her daughter both a star and an
emotional mess: a mess that dated both bisexual and gay men such as director
Nicholas Ray and actor Nick Adams.
Lambert, an open Hollywood homosexual himself for decades, wrote both the novel and the screenplay of Inside Daisy Clover (1965) which is how he became friends with Natalie. She starred as Daisy, the child star who winds up wed to a homosexual played by Robert Redford. Gayness in this flick was toned way down by the studio, but not in Natalie's bio. It's frequently bristles with homo-trivia.
Her secretary, for instance, was Mart Crowley, who went on to write Boys in the Band. Natalie once almost starred as a closeted lesbian in Casandra at the Wedding. And then there are all the guys who used Natalie as a beard. Even her two-time spouse Robert Wagner has been accused of being bisexual. Some even spread the rumor that he was making love to actor Christopher Walken the night Wood drowned.
Lambert, who wrote this biography with the cooperation of Wagner, argues that Wagner is as straight as a ruler, and Wood's death was an accident. He even gets Wagner to address the queer intimations. The stories of his gay sexcapades apparently all started when he became the client of the Famous Artist agent Henry Willson, who had a "reputation as a sexual predator."
"Over the years," Wagner notes, "I've been linked sexually with Jeffrey Hunter, Burt Lancaster, Dan Dailey, Clifton Webb and, my God, even Clark Gable." Lambert adds in his own words, "[Wagner] could shrug the rumors off because he felt secure about his own sexuality, and like Natalie had many gay friends throughout his life."
"But why did Wood have so many gay men in her life?" I asked the author over the phone last week. From his West Coast home with its several living rooms, Lambert responded in a delicious British accent: "I have two answers to that. One is specific to her, and the other is specific to a lot of actresses. Actresses like gay men because they know there's going to be no problem of them making a pass, and therefore they feel that they are not being used and all that stuff.
"In Natalie's case," he continued, "she grew
up in a drastically dysfunctional family, feeling like an outsider, and
she responded across the board not
only to gay people as outsiders but to anybody who felt alienated in some
way because of their life experiences. She particularly responded to gays
because they were very entertaining about it, which some of the others were
not. She didn't like self-pity or anything like that. What she did like
were people who would say the unconventional things and be entertaining
about it. She was a great shitkicker, and in part, gays tend to be, too,
and she liked that."
Lambert has been known to be a gay shitkicker himself, having been best friends of Christopher Isherwood, Cukor, and Tennessee Williams among dozens of others. He's also written the Oscar-nominated screenplays for "Sons and Lovers" (1960) and "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden" (1977). But what could top his teleplay for the camp classic, "Liberace: Behind the Music" (1988)?
"That was more than a fun experience," Lambert laughs. "I didn't know Liberace, and yes, in a way it was campy. But it was again something that interested me because here again was another person who was outrageously gay and a public figure. Until the scandal sheets got ahold of him, he got away with it, and it was wonderful. I looked at a lot of footage of him, his television shows and stuff, and all these sort of middle-aged ladies loved him. They were so in denial. He could be absolutely outrageous and was. He'd come down in all this mad drag, and they would laugh and love it. They would feel maternal and tender toward him as well as being amused by him. I found that fascinating. That couldn't happen now. You'd be outed instantly."
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