Here She Is Boys! Here She is World! Here's Natalie!
Tuesday, July 16, 2013 at 10:12PM Presenting... Natalie Wood Week for her 75th anniversary. Anne Marie kicks it off as Natalie flings her kit off.
Let’s get this out of the way now: GYPSY is not a great movie musical. It’s not even a good movie musical. It’s not the best Natalie Wood musical, nor is it her best performance in a musical. In fact, you’d be forgiven for almost missing her entirely behind Rosalind Russell in full Auntie-Mame-mode, all personality and no pipes. But despite these glaring flaws, Gypsy is a significant film; significant to Natalie Wood’s career, significant to us as star worshippers, and significant to the countless young actresses since who have tried to mature their images. It’s significant because this is the movie where Natalie Wood (literally) strips herself of her ingenue status and steps into full-blown sex symbol stardom. [more...]
Considering her virginal image up to that point, it’s surprising Natalie Wood was able to make the transition so smoothly. Natalie started as a child actor and immediately skyrocketed to fame - think Dakota Fanning famous - with mega-hit and instant classic Miracle on 34th Street. As she grew from precocious child to doe-eyed young girl, she became the perfect teen idol. This was the 1950s, when teen idols were still bubblegum sweet, so her image was one of squeaky-clean virginity. That image became squeaky-clean married life when, at age 18, she married Robert Wagner in a highly publicized Hollywood wedding. Onscreen, her roles matched her image, and she typically played characters either unaware of their sexuality or uncomfortable with it.
If those roles sound familiar, that’s because that’s exactly how she plays Louise for the first hour and a half of Gypsy. She wears baggy clothes, has a terrible haircut (think Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird), and sings to lambs in fire escapes (in case you weren’t clear on the whole “meek virgin” thing yet). Then, of course, comes the oft-parodied but still sweet scene where Louise - now Gypsy Rose Lee - puts on a dress for the first time, sees herself in the mirror, and exclaims
I'm a pretty girl, Mamma."
After that, the gloves (and the rest of her clothes) are off. The next twenty minutes or so of the movie are devoted to a stripping montage where Natalie shows what really happens when teen idols grow up. In 1962, the same year Gypsy was released, Natalie divorced her wholesome hubby and started publicly dating Warren Beatty. From that point on, Natalie Wood was a bona fide sex symbol.
This leap from debutante to dame is not an uncommon one, but it is tricky. The closest modern equivalent to Natalie Wood might be Emma Watson. We saw her grow from adorable child to little lady in the Harry Potter series, but as soon as those films were over she began modeling and taking more adventurous roles. Watson hasn’t done the sex symbol move yet, but she does seem to be heading towards more adult roles like her predecessor. Natalie Wood wasn’t the first ingenue to make the switch, and she certainly wasn’t the last, but her role in Gypsy set a template for later young actresses to follow.
So let her entertain you, And we'll have a real good time; Yes, sir!, We'll have a real good time.
Reader Comments (19)
Excellent piece! She was a real piece of work ... in the terrific sense...
I love this movie. Oh, i know it's not "great" in the traditional sense but the music is so great and Natalie is so pretty, mamma, that i just love it.
Nice piece. Its a far more difficult role to pull off than most think and she did it as well as anyone.
Patty Duke is the only other child star I can think of who made the transition to adult roles (successfully) with one film.
Natalie is a great star. Her appeal is wide and enduring. But though she was so beautiful, I don't think of her as a sex symbol. In Gypsy, she was playing a new role, and she did it with great conviction. But her subsequent career does not speak screen siren.
Nathaniel, "Gypsy" is in my Top 3 favorite musicals, so even though the movie isn't great I still love it. Natalie Wood absolutely breaks my heart/looks completely smashing as Gypsy Rose Louise.
Great post! It traces the parallel tracks of Louise's character arc, Natalie Wood's offscreen life, and the shift from the 50s to the 60s very adroitly. Also, the references to Dakota Fanning and Emma Watson are apt—I wouldn't have thought of Watson myself, but I won't be at all surprised if her career develops along a path similar to Wood's.
I saw Sandra Church on Broadway in Gypsy. Saw Natalie Wood. Wood did the better job cosidering the different mediums. In Wood's last 15 minutes of Gypsy she steals the movie from Russell.
When you mentioned a possible modern equivalent to Wood, I immediatly thought of the more obvious example, Natalie Portman. She's also someone who started off really young and had a defining sex symbol role: Closer. I'm intrigued by Emma Watson's career, and it would be interesting to see if it ends up resembling Wood's at all
I love the final scene in Splendor in the Grass -- she was a great actress in her younger years.
I think she was all wrong for 'Gypsy', but she'd left her child actor status behind with 'Rebel Without a Cause'
I too love Gypsy, maybe not a GREAT musical in the Meet Me in St. Louis/Singin' in the Rain mode but highly entertaining. Roz is terrific even if she doesn't sing everything. Ethel Merman probably would have pushed it into greatness but she was not the accomplished actress that Rosalind Russell was, she was able to shade the crazily driven Mama Rose with a bit of softness to keep her from becoming a total dragon.
Anyway back to Natalie, she was a self described utility actress as a child and the studio system while flawed provided her will endless work. Looking back on that work she possessed a maturity that was missing from a lot of other child performers as well as a certain presence that made her stand out. The same is true of most of the actresses that made that tough leap from child actor to adult star: Jodie Foster, Judy Garland, Elizabeth Taylor, Deanna Durbin etc. It of course helped that she matured into a stunner, at times she could be an inconsistent actress but always an arresting screen presence, without that star quality it doesn't matter how good an actress you are major stardom ain't gonna happen. Just ask Martha Plimpton, Mary Stuart Masterton, Peggy Ann Garner or the multitude of fine actresses that didn't have that little something extra that Ellen Terry talked about.
Also have to say love that it's Natalie Wood week! The website The Girl with the White Parasol is hosting a weeklong Barbara Stanwyck blogathon, her birthday was the 16th, where many of her films with be reviewed and critiqued. So a lot of reading this week but an embarrassment of riches for an actress loving guy or girl.
It's not a great movie, but it's a great show and the book gives us SO MANY standards, it's actually staggering.
Joel6 -- awww, i wish i'd known about that before now.
Nathaniel it started yesterday and I think there are several films still open to choose. Maybe you can still participate towards the end of the week. From the notes on the post she seems very flexible about changes and when you can join in. Would love to see what you'd pick!
joel6 -- i need more lead time sadly with all the stuff i'm always working on. plus i gotta get some natalie stuff up.
Since I am always fascinated by Rebel Without a Cause, I always found her Rebel Without a Cause performance to be something to really obsess over in watching her every gesture and hear her every spoken word. So raw and hysterical at the beginning, she seems to be getting swallowed whole by the script. But then if you want to read the subtext (which for today is just outright text) between her and her father it is somewhat understandable.
That said, the Natalie roles where there are mother issues are some of her best performances since she seemed to be taking from her own relationship to her real-life mother.
I believe Arthur Laurents, not once to mince words, really hated the movie version but loved Natalie's performance believing it was the only one that felt right.
Deborah, no joke I have listened to the soundtrack EVERY DAY since I volunteered to write about Gypsy. I thought writing about the film would purge me of it, but it didn't work. Guess what I'm listening to right now! I rotate between the Patti LuPone version, the Bernadette Peters version, the Bette Midler version, and the Angela Lansbury version.
Well, Natalie Wood has got "it" and had it since she was a little girl. Yes she's gorgeous but so is every head cheerleader at every High School. Natalie had aching vulnerability, and kind of remained "childlike" or innocent (what have you) for her entire career, even while bed-hopping, doing drugs or whatever else it is adults do. I wonder how she would have matured as an adult actress because she was just ending her "youth' at her untimely demise.
As for Gypsy, I actually think Natalie Wood was for more right for this movie than Rosalind Russell BUT I think Roz was terrific. I put Gypsy up there with Guys and Dolls as relatively unsuccessful versions of brilliant theatrical musicals. They just didn't transition well because they remained too talky, and too stagebound at the same time.