“I Tested Three Times For The Part. The Director, Nicholas Ray, Was Besieged By Dozens Of Girls Wanting

Rebel Without a Cause 1955, dir. Nicholas Ray

WEST SIDE STORY (1961) — dir. Robert Wise & Jerome Robbins

- Why do you do that? why are you so fanciful? why do you make everything special? -Because it is.

— Natalie Wood in This Property Is Condemned (1966).

Natalie Wood photographed by Hal King for a 1958 Max Factor ad campaign.

Natalie Wood photographed napping with a beloved stuffed toy tiger, 1957. Natalie amassed quite a large collection of tigers in her youth, so much so that her friends and family began to call her “Tiger.”

man. what a gift to have been on this earth at the same time as stephen sondheim.

Natalie Wood and James Dean photographed in between takes of Rebel Without a Cause, 1955.

She always seemed a little tentative, a little frightened. She was sweet and lovely, and I never heard her say a bad word about anybody, but she was not a boisterously happy person. She was kind of delicate, I always felt she was vulnerable, and sensitive,- which she was. Bev Long on Natalie Wood.

Natalie Wood and Steve McQueen behind the scenes of “Love With the Proper Stranger,” circa 1963.

Natalie Wood at a director’s guild dinner in Los Angeles, circa 1956.