Warren Beatty

Robert Wagner was so distraught after the breakdown of his first marriage to actress Natalie Wood that he considered killing himself and her lover Warren Beatty.

Wagner says he would sit with a gun outside the home of Beatty, whom Wood met on the set of Splendour in the Grass in 1961.

Wagner told Reuters in an interview to publicize his new memoir Pieces of My Heart, released this week:

“I was pretty young, and I don’t think I could have ever gone through with that act, but I was pretty frustrated and upset. Beatty was pretty smooth, very attractive, he was the man.”

Wagner and Wood first married in 1957 and then split, before remarrying in 1972. Wagner says he was left “absolutely paralyzed” when Wood’s body was found floating off southern California’s Catalina Island. The couple had been staying on their boat with her Brainstorm co-star Christopher Walken.

There was speculation Wood drowned trying to flee the boat while the men argued over her career - Walken thinking Wood should work more and Wagner believing that would threaten his domestic bliss. “He may not have been off the mark,” Wagner says of Walken’s belief. “But I didn’t want him involved in setting anything off that might take her away from me.” Wagner says he believes Wood accidentally fell overboard.

Just keep adding fuel to those conspiracy theories, buddy….what happened on that boat! Talk Wagner! We know there’s stuff you’re not telling!

source: Wagner considered suicide and killing Beatty [the west]

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