‘Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind’ HBO Release Date

Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind premieres Tuesday, May 5 at 9 p.m. ET/8 p.m. CT on HBO. The documentary first debuted during January’s Sundance Film Festival and explores late actress Natalie Wood’s short but meaningful life through previously unseen interviews, home movies, diaries, letters and more.

The description of the HBO documentary reads, “Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind explores actor Natalie Wood’s life and career through the unique perspective of her daughter, Natasha Gregson Wagner, and others who knew her best. The film features previously unseen home movies, photographs, diaries, letters and artifacts, as well as intimate interviews with her friends, family, co-stars and colleagues; re-examining her personal and professional triumphs and challenges, which have often been overshadowed by her tragic death at age 43.”

Wood’s daughter, Natasha Gregson Wagner, produced the documentary alongside author Manoah Bowman, who wrote Natalie Wood: Reflections on a Legendary Life.  Laurent Bouzereau (Five Came Back, Don’t Say No Until I Finish Talking) directed and co-produced the documentary, according to HBO.

The Documentary Was a ‘Healing Experience’ For Gregson Wagner

Gregson Wagner told The Guardian that she wanted to focus on her mother’s life and legacy in the documentary – not just her death. “My goal was to cast the attention on her life, period,” Gregson Wagner said. “Not the night she died.”

According to Deadline, the documentary was an incredibly healing experience for Gregson Wagner, and she feels healthier and happier for sharing her mother’s life with the world. She told the publication, “I think the thing that has surprised me the most doing the documentary and writing the book was just how healing it feels to share the story. You know, for a lot of years I’ve been so private about my life with my parents because it’s been so misconstrued in the press and I wasn’t ready to share, and now that I’m doing it I feel so much better. I feel so much bigger and brighter and healthier and happier, you know?”

She added, “She was an amazing human and so why not celebrate people like that? And I don’t mean celebrate in like a candy-cane-and-roses way, I mean, in a very human way, a true way, the way she was. She spoke so honestly in her own words about her struggle to be a three-dimensional person, to have a great personal life, to get past her demons, to not just be a painted lady, and so I’m proud of her. I’m proud to be her daughter, and now that I have my own daughter you know, I want my daughter, Clover, to be proud of her grandmother. I mean, her grandmother did a lot of things. She was very ahead of her time and she loved us in this very kind of space and buoying you know, it was a buoy, her love, and so that was enough for me to sustain and so that’s important for my daughter to know about that.”

The Documentary Focuses on Natalie Wood’s Life & Career, Not Just Her Tragic Death

GettyActors and spouses Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner following their reconciliation, Britain, April 24th 1972.

Natalie Wood was 43 years old when she was found dead off of Catalina Island on November 29, 1981. Wood’s death was labeled as an “accidental drowning” at the time, but nearly 30 years later the case was reopened and her death was changed to “drowning and other undetermined factors.” Wood’s then-husband, Robert Wagner, was named as a person of interest in 2018.

According to Bouzereau, who directed the documentary, the point of the film was to focus on Wood’s life, and not to unleash a fresh wave of accusations or explanations surrounding her death. Bouzereau told The Guardian, “We knew we didn’t want to do an investigative type of reportage on the tragedy. We’re not operating under the guise of finding out ‘what happened?’, because we know what happened.”

The Guardian reports that Gregson Wagner and Robert Wagner continue to maintain a similar explanation to the one given in 1981 by the Los Angeles county medical examiner, who described her death as a “tragic accident while slightly intoxicated.” To this day, Gregson Wagner does not believe Robert Wagner killed her mother.

Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind premieres Tuesday, May 5 at 9 p.m. ET on HBO. In the meantime, you can find all the latest in TV coverage and entertainment news here.

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