Natalie Wood

Speaker 20:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive.

Speaker 20:05

For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in 1980, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:31

On our Desert Island this week is the screen actress Natalie Wood.

Presenter0:36

Natalie, could you endure loneliness for a long time?

Natalie Wood0:40

Gosh, I don't know. I, um

Natalie Wood0:42

When I was a child and as I was being brought up I had very overly protective parents who never thought I should be left alone even for a moment. My mother watched me like a hawk and uh and then I was working, you know, and there were always welfare workers and all of that. And so consequently I developed a sort of phobia about being alone. I was rather frightened to be alone. I didn't know what on earth would happen, you know, but it s seemed like something awful would happen.

Natalie Wood1:04

So then, uh as we tend to do in America, I went into analysis and um discovered and during the course of the analysis that I quite enjoyed being by myself and that I was pretty good company and all that. So I enjoyed being by myself for a few years, but now I'm married, you see, and I've got kids and uh even though I feel quite happy being on my own, I'm hardly ever on my own because there isn't time. So

Presenter1:29

And there's no more need for now.

Natalie Wood1:31

No, no.

Presenter1:32

Yeah.

Presenter1:33

You have a big collection of disks at home.

Natalie Wood1:36

Yes, quite a few. Yes, I do.

Presenter1:38

did a have a hard job in narrowing it down to just eight

Natalie Wood1:42

Oh, very hard, yes, very hard. Because then some people suggested that I should name some from films that I've done, you know, but that sort of seemed silly. I don't know.

Presenter1:51

Yes, never take any notice of what other people suggest for you. You've got to live with them.

Natalie Wood1:53

Right.

Presenter1:56

Right, what's the first one?

Natalie Wood1:58

I think the first one we have is the Schubert Serenade, isn't it? My mother's uh favorite song, which I've

Presenter2:03

Yes.

Speaker 12:03

Uh

Natalie Wood2:05

learned to play on the piano very early on when I took piano lessons.

Speaker 12:08

Christina got a truck.

Speaker 12:13

Ah, Sophia.

Speaker 12:40

First maiden's walls at sea

Speaker 12:45

Fan aliens

Speaker 12:50

Yeah.

Presenter2:57

Dietrich Fischer discards in Schubert's Stension. Now, you are Russian by parentage.

Natalie Wood3:02

Yes, that's right, even though I was born in America.

Presenter3:04

And your real name is Natasha Gourdin. That's a nice name. Why did they want you to change it?

Natalie Wood3:10

Well, actually my my original real name was Natalia Nikolaevna Zaharinko. Zaharinko was was always being mispronounced. It was very difficult. So they themselves changed their name to Gordin or Gurdin, and then that got mispronounced a lot, either Gurden, Gordin, and so forth.

Natalie Wood3:26

So when I was five years old and William Goetz put me into my first film with Orson Welles and Claudac Colbert, he thought that that that Gordon was not a good name.

Natalie Wood3:36

And uh at this point I was being called Natasha, which is really a nickname for Natalie or Natalia.

Natalie Wood3:42

So he chose Natalie, and then he chose Wood in honor of his friend Sam Wood.

Presenter3:47

Uh the directive.

Natalie Wood3:48

The director, yes, so that's how I got named renamed.

Presenter3:48

The director

Presenter3:50

No, no, no. Your parents elected to go from Russia to the United States. Why did they go to Hollywood? Why did they go right across the country?

Natalie Wood3:57

Well, they didn't go in that direction. Actually, they both left when they were uh uh very young. They were about four and five years old when they left. It was during the Revolution, and their parents left. And my mother's family left and went to China, where she lived until she was a teenager. They went to Harbin. And my father's family went to Vancouver.

Natalie Wood4:16

And eventually they wound up in San Francisco, and that's where my parents met.

Presenter4:21

Oh

Natalie Wood4:21

and got married, and that's where I was born, in San Francisco.

Presenter4:24

Now your father was in the film business.

Natalie Wood4:26

Yes, he was. He used to build miniature sets.

Presenter4:29

And your mother?

Natalie Wood4:31

Well, my mother took ballet lessons, but she never was a professional really. So I think in many ways the fact that I became an actress uh she enjoyed sort of uh watching it happen because she had never had a career of her own.

Presenter4:45

It's hard to believe it. You're a veteran actress. You began at the age of what was it for?

Natalie Wood4:50

Well, when I was four I did a little bit part, yes, and then I had my first real part when I was five, a year later.

Presenter4:56

And then a whole lot more films followed. Orson Welles, who, like all actors, doesn't like acting with children, goes on record as saying, You were terrifying.

Natalie Wood5:05

Oh my. I hope he was joking.

Presenter5:08

What was that movie?

Natalie Wood5:09

It was called Tomorrow Is Forever, and Claudet Colber and George Brent were also in it.

Presenter5:14

Now, obviously, you had to be educated. You had lessons on the lot, did you?

Natalie Wood5:17

That's right. By law, a a minor up until the age of eighteen can only work eight hours a day in America.

Natalie Wood5:24

Three of those hours have to be uh devoted to school. Yes. And there can be no less than twenty minutes.

Speaker 15:27

Uh

Natalie Wood5:29

You know, they can't just give you five minutes and count that. You know, it has to be at least twenty minutes at a at a stretch.

Natalie Wood5:35

and then an hour for lunch, which leaves four hours of working time.

Presenter5:39

How many other children were in those lessons?

Natalie Wood5:42

I was very often alone, so I was very often privately tutored.

Presenter5:43

Size.

Presenter5:45

Pretty miserable.

Natalie Wood5:46

Well, in between films I would go to a regular school.

Presenter5:50

Yes.

Natalie Wood5:50

And I was always quite a bit ahead of the class, so I I graduated high school a couple of years ago.

Presenter5:55

You were ahead.

Natalie Wood5:56

Yes. Well, because of the private tutoring, you see.

Presenter5:58

He says, Did you not feel that you were missing a lot of the fun of being a child?

Natalie Wood6:03

Well, I wasn't aware of it at the time, you know. I mean, I guess I wasn't aware that uh other kids did other things.

Natalie Wood6:09

And then when I was about uh twelve, uh which in America is sort of junior high school time, we refer to it as junior high school.

Speaker 16:15

Blen.

Natalie Wood6:17

I started going to a regular school in between jobs.

Natalie Wood6:21

And I I did feel a bit of a misfit then during that period because I I was so comfortable with adults and rather uncomfortable with kids, having not been around very many.

Presenter6:30

How do you feel now when they run one of your early films on the box and and you see this little Moppet acting away? Can you identify?

Natalie Wood6:39

Uh, sometimes I do because on some

Natalie Wood6:42

films, the Orson Welles one, for example, I remember really very vividly most of the events of the the whole thing. You know, I remember it very, very, very clearly.

Natalie Wood6:52

And I suppose it made a great impression on me. And there's certain other films that I remember for different reasons. I did a film called Scudder Hoo, Scuddah Hay in which I played this tomboy and I had great fun'cause we filmed most of it on the ranch, the Fox Ranch, and I was always catching turtles and and, you know, feeding the chickens and and it was great fun, swimming in the river and all of that. But then there are other pictures that I c that dimly, dimly remember, even though I was older when I made them. And I suppose at that time I must have been interested in other things and and so my primary d you know, focus wasn't on that.

Presenter7:24

And of course all the grown up actors and the crew used to spoil you.

Natalie Wood7:27

Yes, I'm sure they did. Yes, they did.

Presenter7:30

Write your second record. What's that?

Natalie Wood7:32

Our second one is a song that my father used to play. My father plays the balalaika, which is an old-time Russian instrument. I don't think they're allowed anymore in Russia. Not allowed?

Speaker 27:41

Uh

Presenter7:41

Law.

Natalie Wood7:42

Well, I don't think so. No. They're sort of obsolete. Oh, dear. They're only sold in in sort of uh tourist stores. But in any case, my father has a very nice one that he played, and and this was one of his favorite songs, Kalinka.

Speaker 17:45

Yeah.

Presenter8:24

Kalinka by the Soviet Army Ensemble.

Presenter8:27

You must pay.

Presenter8:29

Unique, Natalie, in that there was no break in your career. You went right through from child to adolescent to grown up.

Natalie Wood8:37

Yes, I guess that is quite unusual. I I think luck plays a great part in in being able to make the transitions. I think in any kind of career that goes on for a bit it's terribly important to be able to make the transitions. And I think that at a time when I needed to make a transition, obviously, from being a child,

Natalie Wood8:54

into more adult roles and that's when I think it can be tricky because uh sometimes the producers only think of you as a child. And a very good film called Rebel Without a Cause came along and while I was

Natalie Wood9:06

just a teenager, the part had such, you know, range and and depth that it it kind of opened the door for me to be thought of as a serious actress and as an adult actress.

Presenter9:15

You were, what, sixteen when you played Rebel without a court?

Natalie Wood9:18

Well, fifteen and I was about sixteen when it was released, yeah.

Presenter9:21

And you played opposite that cult figure, James Dean. How do you remember him?

Natalie Wood9:27

Well, I remember him very sweetly. I don't see him as this sort of um

Natalie Wood9:32

doomed, self destructive figure that that many people see him as, although I I am in great disagreement with a dear friend of mine, Kazan, who directed him in East of Eden and uh Kazan thinks he definitely was uh very neurotic and very self-destructive. I didn't see that side of him, or perhaps I was too young, perhaps not.

Presenter9:52

He wasn't moody on the set.

Natalie Wood9:54

He didn't s he seemed introspective and quiet, but he was always very accessible and and friendly and uh he he was always very uh considerate of other people. If when we were filming at the planetarium, I remember there were a lot of uh fans grouped around. And he took great pains when he signed their autographs to to try to find out a little bit about them, you know, and get to know them. And he was never sort of uh arrogant or or big starish. Anyway, I remember him very fondly.

Presenter10:16

Ours.

Presenter10:20

Can you remember how many big screen pictures you've made altogether?

Natalie Wood10:23

Oh, I think somebody said the other day about forty four, so it's around in there, forty four, forty five pictures.

Presenter10:30

Now in those early days you always worked independently for any studio that hired you.

Presenter10:35

After Rebel Without a Cause you you signed a contract with Warner Brothers, but that didn't altogether work out.

Natalie Wood10:41

Well, um actually I was on your contract twice before when I was doing a a film which is kind of a classic in America called The Miracle on Thirty Fourth Street with Edmund Gwynn. It's about Chris. Father Christmas, yes, of Chris Kringle.

Presenter10:50

At the end of

Presenter10:52

Father Christmas.

Natalie Wood10:55

And they run it on television every year. It's kind of a tradition. At that time I was under contract to the Fox Studios and I was doing two pictures at the same time. One day I would go to work and do The Miracle on Thirty Fourth Street, which was a modern day picture. The following day I would be in costume

Natalie Wood11:11

playing Jean Tierney's daughter with Rex Harrison uh in a film called The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. So it was very confusing to go from character to character.

Presenter11:20

Yeah.

Natalie Wood11:21

But then my contract was dropped. This was a terrible thing to be dropped, you know. I didn't quite know what it meant, but it sounds awful, doesn't it? Not to have your option picked up, you know.

Natalie Wood11:32

And then, as you say, I was put under contract to Warner Brothers and I did a few films and then I sort of went on strike. I presume that's what you're talking about.

Presenter11:40

Well, the story is that you were on the payroll at about seven hundred and fifty dollars and and and uh warners were loaning you out at several hundred thousand, wh which must have made you hopping mad.

Natalie Wood11:50

Well, I thought it was fair enough because they'd given me this um chance in Rebel Without a Cause for which I was very grateful. But I felt they were trying to make me do films that I I just didn't like. And it wasn't so much the money. It was the when I went on strike, it wasn't to get more money. It was to have the right to do one picture, just one, because I mean in that time we all did lots lots more than just one or two pictures a year, we did three or four sometimes.

Speaker 112:17

Yeah.

Natalie Wood12:18

And I wanted the right to be able to pick one for myself and to keep the money for that one too. Did you win? I finally won after about eighteen months on strike.

Presenter12:23

Did you win?

Natalie Wood12:27

And, um, the only reason I won was because Kazan insisted that he needed to meet me to be in Splendor in the Grass.

Presenter12:34

Nice man, Kazan.

Natalie Wood12:35

Oh, yes, a wonderful man. And uh And so then my first picture that I was allowed to choose on my own without being told you know what to do was Westside Story.

Presenter12:44

And Jack Warner must have been quite a man to argue with.

Natalie Wood12:47

Well, the funny thing about it was, though, that we never ever argued personally. These arguments were all carried on through lawyers, you know, and through it there was some kind of slightly insane aspect to it, because when we would meet at parties, he was always very polite, and he'd say, Hello, Nathalie darling, how are you? and I'd say, Oh, hello, Mr. Warner, how are you? And and on my birthday, he'd send me lovely, you know, flowers and on his birthday I'd send him, I don't know, Jack Daniels, I think he drank, and and little notes back and forth, thank you so much for the lovely flowers, thank you so much for remembering my birthday. And the meanwhile the the lawyers are saying that he's saying through them, This child will never work again, you know, over my dead body, blah, blah, blah. But eventually it got settled and there had never been a harsh word between us.

Presenter13:28

All these things iron themselves up. Let's have your third record. What's that to be?

Natalie Wood13:32

Ah, let's see. The third one is Greensleeves, and I love this song because when Robert Wagner and I were married the very first time, this song was played at our wedding.

Presenter13:43

You're you're good and married now. You've been married twice.

Natalie Wood13:45

Yes, to the same one, yes.

Natalie Wood13:48

Well, I've been married three times really, but twice to the same one. Yes. Yes, so this was my very, very first marriage and we played green sleeves at the wedding.

Natalie Wood14:12

Reloading, your God and He.

Natalie Wood14:17

Praise God Almighty.

Presenter14:27

Greens leaves by The Ambrosian Children's Choir.

Presenter14:31

White, we're back in the Warner Brothers era. You did a lot of Westerns and stuff. That must have been fun.

Natalie Wood14:36

Oh yes, it was great fun. I did one which was quite crazy in a way. It was called The Burning Hills, and um I was supposed to be a Mexican Spitfire.

Natalie Wood14:46

And so throughout the filming they could never decide whether I should be doing this with or without an accent. So so part of the film was with the Mexican accent, and part of the film was without. And finally at the end, after great deliberation,

Natalie Wood14:58

They decided that I should have the accent after all, so I had to loop, you know, post record the entire film.

Speaker 115:02

Poster core

Natalie Wood15:04

with this thick Mexican accent. And so we've always become a family joke,'cause I had this one line in which I'm beating up an actor named Earl Holloman, and I had to say, You Dory Gringos, you're no good, none of you You drive my people from Esperanza, you make a rat hole of this town, I scorpion's nest, and then I beat him with this whip.

Presenter15:24

Natalie, that's very convincing. I shall never think of you in any other way.

Presenter15:30

A splendor in the grass w w was another good one.

Natalie Wood15:33

Oh, yes, that was a lovely film. That was a wonderful, wonderful experience. To work with Kazan was the epitome. I mean, it I think it still would be, but particularly then, you know, age twenty to be able to work with the greatest actress, director

Presenter15:45

in the world. Of course, in those days there there wasn't the amount of location shooting there is now. An an awful lot was in the studio or on the lot. You you didn't go to so many glamorous places.

Natalie Wood15:56

That's right. And Splendor was different because we didn't shoot any of it in Hollywood. We shot it all, uh.

Natalie Wood16:01

In fact, we didn't go to Kansas. We we uh shot in upstate New York and uh we did some in a film studio in New York City, but it was all East Coast based, and all the other locations like the the waterfalls and all of that, those were all real.

Natalie Wood16:14

And I find I've I've always found that when films are are shot that way, it's so much better for the actors because you can concentrate so much more. There's so many fewer distractions.

Presenter16:24

Right.

Presenter16:25

Uh

Natalie Wood16:25

Uh

Presenter16:25

Let's have record number four. We've got to.

Natalie Wood16:28

All right. I I don't really know why I I like this so well. It's a well, I love Beethoven. It's the moonlight sonata, which I think is very beautiful.

Presenter16:28

Alright.

Presenter17:26

Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, number fourteen in C Sharp Minor, played by Alfred Brendel.

Presenter17:32

Now there were two exceptional musicals in which you starred. You mentioned one just now, West Side Story and Gypsy. Now we will murmur the fact that someone else's singing voice was used.

Natalie Wood17:43

In Westside Story, yes. But in Gypsy I did all my own singing.

Presenter17:46

Did you? Yeah. Well done.

Natalie Wood17:47

Yeah.

Natalie Wood17:48

Yeah.

Presenter17:48

Now you weren't a dancer. You must have ached all over after that West Side story stuff.

Natalie Wood17:53

Well, my mother had seen to it that I had a lot of ballet training, a lot of ballet lessons when I was young, so uh it wasn't too difficult. But it was quite a rigorous schedule. As a matter of fact, I finished filming Splendor in the Grass on a Friday, flew to California on the Saturday and started dance rehearsals on a Sunday for Westside Story, so those two films were actually made back to back.

Natalie Wood18:15

And Westside's story was a long schedule. It was about an eight month filming schedule.

Presenter18:18

A lot of it was shot in New York streets, I believe.

Natalie Wood18:21

Well, the entire prologue was shot there. But the rest of it, everything that I did, was shot back in California.

Presenter18:28

In Gipsy you you played opposite that rather dominating lady, Rosalind Russell. How did you make out?

Natalie Wood18:34

Oh, we we remained friends and uh we got along very well. She was wonderful to work with, just great. The funny thing was, while I was doing Westside Story, I had no idea that I was going to be offered Gypsy, but I just loved that score and all day long in the trailer I would play all the songs from uh from Gypsy, you know, and then uh it was one of the very, very nice things that Jack Warner did when he when he let me play that without any fuss.

Presenter18:52

And then

Presenter18:57

Who's the most difficult performer that you worked with?

Natalie Wood19:01

Oh, God The most difficult

Presenter19:03

Yes.

Natalie Wood19:04

That's hard to say. Um

Natalie Wood19:07

Well, I guess I'd rather not say.

Presenter19:08

All right, fair enough. What's the worst film you've been in?

Natalie Wood19:10

What's the

Natalie Wood19:12

And where's film? Oh God, that's I think there are about five or six that f would fall into the category. Um let me see.

Natalie Wood19:22

Well, I did a film called Penelope that I don't think was very good, but I think Burning Hills might might might easily have been one of the worst.

Presenter19:27

Or the Western.

Natalie Wood19:28

The Western, yes, the uh

Natalie Wood19:30

The the the scorpion's nest.

Presenter19:32

I shall track that down next time it's not being shown anywhere.

Natalie Wood19:34

That's not being shown anywhere.

Presenter19:38

Right, we've got to record number five.

Natalie Wood19:41

Okay, record number five. Well, I just love Bog Dylan, everything of his, but um

Natalie Wood19:46

I particularly like this one, it's uh just like a woman.

Natalie Wood19:51

Just like a woman

Presenter19:53

Uh

Natalie Wood19:54

Yeah.

Presenter19:54

Yes, you do!

Speaker 119:56

Percy makes love just like a woman.

Speaker 120:01

Yes, she does, and she peaks.

Speaker 120:04

Just like a woman.

Speaker 120:08

But she breaks just like a little

Speaker 120:12

Good

Presenter20:19

Bob Dylan?

Presenter20:21

Just like a woman.

Presenter20:23

You have never done any theatre work you've never been in a run in the theatre.

Natalie Wood20:26

Unluckily, unhappily, I never have. I would very much like to. I couldn't do it now, at least not in New York, because of uh, you know, m my life and my husband's work being in California. But we have some very good theater in California, so I have recently, the last year or so, been speaking to the people at the Music Center and hoping to do preferably a a new play, perhaps at the Mark Taper, where they do some awfully good work.

Presenter20:49

You've got one or two in mind.

Natalie Wood20:51

Well, there's one new one, but it's just, you know, at the moment they want me to take it to New York and I'm trying to convince them to cast somebody else to take it to New York and let me do the part where it's in California, so I don't know. Uh, there have been quite a few uh revivals that I've been offered to do at the Amundsen uh Cat in a Hottin Roof and uh

Natalie Wood21:09

Um, streetcar named Desire and um a few others. But I'd I'd rather like to do a new play if I

Presenter21:15

You did Cat and Hot Tin Rufo on on on television.

Natalie Wood21:18

Yes, here in London with uh Lord Olivier, and it was a wonderful experience because it was the closest feeling I've had to doing a play. Although it was for television, we rehearsed it for four weeks and it wasn't film, it was tape, which meant that with four cameras we could do these very, very long takes. In fact, we we practically did an act at a time. So we got the feeling, or I got the feeling, that I could have perhaps opened it somewhere at that point on the stage.

Presenter21:46

Most of your work, or a lot of your work in recent years, has been in television films. Although there was a a big disaster film, I remember. What was the disaster? I didn't see it.

Natalie Wood21:57

It was a disaster, it's called Meteor.

Presenter22:00

I mean the movie was the result.

Natalie Wood22:01

Yeah.

Natalie Wood22:03

But it was uh interesting for me because uh it enabled me to uh uh study uh Russian formally, which I hadn't had never done.

Presenter22:11

You were playing a Russian what in Inmeteor.

Natalie Wood22:14

I was actually playing a Russian astrophysicist translator, so one had to have quite a better grasp of of the language th than I had. I had always remembered Russian as a child.

Presenter22:22

Yeah.

Natalie Wood22:24

But I spoke it about as well as a child did, and I felt I ought to speak it a bit better than that, to be realistic, as an astrophysicist.

Natalie Wood22:32

And uh soon after that I went to Russia for the first time last year. Yes, and Peter Yustinoff and I did. uh program uh for the BBC about uh the air motage.

Presenter22:42

Yes, that that was marvellous. You you conducted us through all those treasures.

Presenter22:47

The old winter palace of Catherine the Great thirteen miles of galleries, you said.

Natalie Wood22:51

Yes, wasn't that extraordinary?

Presenter22:53

It was really quite an experience.

Presenter22:56

A great advantage to have had those Russian lessons.

Presenter22:59

Is your Russian as good as Peter's, or better?

Natalie Wood23:03

Well, I don't know. I I uh I would say we our Russian is about equal.

Presenter23:10

We've got a record number six.

Natalie Wood23:12

Record number six. Well, I think Don McLean did such great songs. I especially liked another one called And I Love Her So but American Pie is terrific and My Little Daughter Natasha.

Natalie Wood23:22

w was just beginning to learn to walk, and this was during the time when Robert and I got back together again and we were talking about getting married for the second time. So American pie always makes me think of that as well.

Presenter23:32

You have in fact got three children on strengths.

Natalie Wood23:35

Yes, we do. I I have a stepdaughter, Katherine, who's fifteen almost sixteen and then Natasha, whose father's Richard Gregson, and uh she's nine and then Robert and I have a daughter named Courtenay, who just turned six.

Presenter23:49

So that's fine. They're they're nicely spaced out.

Natalie Wood23:52

Yes, and they

Presenter23:52

Here we go.

Speaker 223:54

So by Miss American Pye Drove my Chevy to the levee, But the levee was dry And them good old boys were drinking whisky and rye, Singin' This'll be the day that I die

Presenter23:59

Joe.

Speaker 224:14

This'll be the day that I

Speaker 224:16

Yeah. Yeah.

Natalie Wood24:20

Did you write the book of love?

Presenter24:24

American Pie by Don McLean. Have your locations included in a desert island?

Natalie Wood24:29

No islands, no. Well, unless you consider Hawaii as a as a not quite a desert island. No, no, no, no.

Natalie Wood24:38

Deserts. I was once in the Monument Valley doing a film for John Ford.

Presenter24:38

Desert

Presenter24:42

Yeah. Now this is really a deserted island. It's quite pleasant. It's got palm trees and fresh water.

Natalie Wood24:48

Mm-hmm.

Presenter24:48

And the water's a very good temperature. It's got everything you really need if you can find out how to use it. And with.

Natalie Wood24:48

And

Speaker 124:49

Yeah.

Natalie Wood24:50

It's not everything you

Presenter24:54

Open air life in California you should know about beach life.

Natalie Wood24:58

That's right.

Presenter24:59

You got some?

Natalie Wood25:00

Well, I'm a fairly good swimmer, although I must admit I don't like to swim in the ocean because I'm afraid of the fish.

Presenter25:05

When you were first married to mister Robert Wagner, I read that you had two swimming pools, his and hers. I I I can't see the point in that.

Natalie Wood25:14

No. Well, that's another another fund of misinformation. What we had in the living room were two tiny little reflecting ponds where there were some goldfish.

Presenter25:19

Right.

Presenter25:24

They weren't

Natalie Wood25:25

They weren't big enough to swim in at all.

Presenter25:26

So that was his and hers.

Natalie Wood25:28

That's right.

Presenter25:28

Ye you kept the fish segregated.

Natalie Wood25:30

Yeah.

Presenter25:33

Could you look after yourself? Could you rig up some kind of shelter? Could you cook?

Natalie Wood25:38

Uh on the desert island.

Presenter25:39

On the desert island.

Natalie Wood25:40

Yes, I think I could. I could probably catch a fish and rub a couple of sticks together and cook the fish.

Presenter25:45

Would you try to escape?

Natalie Wood25:47

Oh, God, I probably wouldn't because I'd be so scared to swim in the water. Unless I could build a raft.

Presenter25:53

Well, you should be able to. There's enough driftwood coming up.

Natalie Wood25:55

Driftwood around. Yes, I suppose if I was there all alone, I would most definitely try to escape because I'd have to get back to my family. There'd be no way. Yeah.

Presenter26:01

There you go.

Presenter26:02

Well, in the meantime, I'm sure they'll be making arrangements, too.

Natalie Wood26:06

Yourself.

Presenter26:06

Your seventh record, watch that.

Natalie Wood26:08

Seventh one is uh Bob Seeger, who I love very much. I think he's great, and I played this album

Natalie Wood26:15

All during the time I was filming on um The Last Married Couple in America. I particularly like this song, We've Got Tonight.

Presenter26:22

We got tonight.

Presenter26:25

Who needs to run?

Presenter26:29

Let's make it last week.

Speaker 126:32

Uh

Presenter26:33

Let's find a way.

Speaker 126:36

Yeah.

Presenter26:36

Turned out blue light.

Presenter26:40

Come take my hand.

Speaker 226:42

Yeah.

Speaker 226:44

We've got tonight

Speaker 226:47

Why don't you stay?

Presenter26:51

Bob Seeger, we've got tonight.

Presenter26:53

And that brings us to your last record, number eight.

Natalie Wood26:56

Number eight. Well, It's Imagine by John Lennon, and I just love the record. I play it all the time, and I think it's got a lovely philosophy.

Speaker 127:10

But I'm not the only one.

Speaker 127:16

I hope someday you'll join me

Presenter27:29

John Lennon.

Presenter27:30

If you could take only one disk instead of eight, if we took seven from you quite rudely as you as you went ashore

Natalie Wood27:38

Mm how terrible. Let me see. Only one. Oh, I guess I'd take American Pie.

Presenter27:45

Right. And you're allowed to take one luxury, any one object.

Presenter27:50

That is of no practical use. You can't take a cooking stove or anything of that sort.

Natalie Wood27:54

Ooh.

Presenter27:55

any one object that would give you pleasure to have.

Natalie Wood27:58

How about um an upright piano?

Presenter28:00

An upright piano, that's fine. Yes, you enjoy playing the piano.

Natalie Wood28:03

I enjoy playing the piano, because then I could play some other songs, you know, I could play the ones that I wasn't allowed to bring.

Presenter28:08

Hmm.

Natalie Wood28:08

And uh I do find that very, very enjoyable. And my daughter, Natasha, is now becoming quite a good piano player as well.

Presenter28:14

Good.

Presenter28:15

And you're allowed one book.

Presenter28:17

apart from the Bible and Shakespeare as obvious choices.

Natalie Wood28:20

Mm-hmm. Well, then I think a book of poetry would be good. Um perhaps the EE Cummings would be very, very nice.

Presenter28:28

No capital entered.

Natalie Wood28:29

No capitalism

Presenter28:30

And

Presenter28:31

You have a solar pod videotape machine. You can take one film.

Natalie Wood28:36

One film. Oh, that's so tough. But I think it would have to be um I think it would have to be Gone with the Wind.

Presenter28:42

A nice long wallow.

Natalie Wood28:44

Yes, exactly.

Presenter28:45

Good. And thank you, Natalie Wood, for letting us hear your Desert Island Discs.

Natalie Wood28:50

Thank you, Roy. It was lots of fun. Pleasure.

Presenter28:52

Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 228:59

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co. uk slash radio four.