Today is the 93rd birthday of Robert Wagner. I am a big fan of Hart to Hart and It Takes a Thief and not coincidentally, Robert Wagner’s swagger. He turns in great performances, so much so I am sure that most people confuse him as being those characters. The world is a better place because he is in it.
NAME: Robert Wagner
OCCUPATION: Film Actor, Television Actor, Television Personality
BIRTH DATE: February 10, 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH: Detroit, Michigan
HEIGHT: 5′ 11″
Wife: Natalie Wood (m. 22-Dec-1957, div. 27-Apr-1962)
Wife: Marion Marshall (m. 22-Jul-1963, div. 1970, 1 daughter)
Wife: Natalie Wood (m. 16-Jun-1972, d. 29-Nov-1981 accidental drowning)
Wife: Jill St. John (m. 1991)
Daughter: Courtney Brooke
Daughter: Katie Wagner (with Marion Marshall. Katie is a TV host)
BEST KNOWN FOR: Robert Wagner is an American film and television actor known for his popularity in numerous television series and most recently, in the Austin Powers films.
Robert John Wagner Jr. was born in Detroit, Michigan, on February 10, 1930. His father was a successful steel executive who was called Bob; to distinguish the two Wagner became R.J., a nickname that lasted all his life.
In 1937, Wagner and his family relocated to Bel Air, California. They lived near the Bel Air Country Club, and Wagner went on to caddy for well-known club members like Fred Astaire and Alan Ladd. Wagner, who’d worked in movies as an extra, was given the opportunity to try for fame himself when he signed a contract with 20th Century Fox Studios as a teenager.
Among Wagner’s early films were Halls of Montezuma (1951) and With a Song in My Heart (1952). He appeared with screen legend Barbara Stanwyck in Titanic (1953), and soon became romantically involved with his co-star. Wagner portrayed the title role in Prince Valiant (1954) and learned more about his craft from working with Spencer Tracy in Broken Lance (1954) and The Mountain (1956). But Wagner didn’t become a breakout star.
In 1956, Wagner went on a first date with Natalie Wood. She was eight years his junior yet had more acting experience. (As a child she had starred in 1947’s Miracle on 34th Street; she had also appeared in 1955’s Rebel Without a Cause). The pair fell in love and wed in December 1957.
The public adored Wagner and Wood as a Hollywood couple. Yet when they shared the screen in All the Fine Young Cannibals (1960), the film didn’t do well. In the glare of the Hollywood spotlight, the celebrity couple struggled to keep their marriage together. Wagner and Wood separated in 1961 before divorcing in 1962.
Wagner soon found love again, marrying Marion Marshall in July 1963. They had a daughter, Katherine, the following year.
In the 1960s, Wagner continued to act in films such as The Pink Panther and Harper. But it took a lead role in television’s It Takes a Thief (1968-70) to bring his career to the next level. (The show also gave him a chance to work with Astaire, known from Wagner’s caddying days.)
Wagner’s second marriage ended in 1971. He and Wood reunited and remarried in 1972; their daughter, Courtney, was born in 1974.
From 1975-78, Wagner starred in the CBS detective agency series Switch, with Eddie Albert, Charlie Callas and Sharon Glass. Then in 1979, Wagner joined Stefanie Powers to star as a debonair crime-solving couple in ABC’s Hart to Hart. The popular show, which aired until 1984, offered Wagner even greater career success.
On Thanksgiving weekend in 1981, Wood invited Christopher Walken, her current co-star in the film Brainstorm, to join her and Wagner on their yacht, Splendour. Sometime on the night of November 28, Wood, who’d had a fight with Wagner, disappeared from the boat, which was anchored near California’s Catalina Island. When the boat’s occupants realized she was missing, they saw that a dinghy was gone as well.
On the morning of November 29, Wood’s body was discovered floating about a mile from the yacht. The autopsy showed that Wood had bruises and a high blood alcohol level. At the time, investigators surmised that she’d accidentally fallen into the water, perhaps while trying to board or retie the dinghy. The death was ruled an accidental drowning.
Grief mixed with shock is such a difficult state to be in; it’s hard even to describe it. On the one hand, I was numb and felt like I was in some sort of dream state – I couldn’t believe Natalie was gone, but I knew it was true. And despite the shock, which makes you feel like you’re muffled in cotton, my nerve ends were screaming. I was in emotional pain so intense it was physical.
– Robert Wagner, Pieces of My Heart
A devastated Wagner was left responsible for three girls: his daughter from his first marriage, his daughter with Wood and daughter Natasha Gregson Wagner. (Natasha had been born in 1970 to Wood during her marriage to Richard Gregson; Wagner and Gregson agreed that after losing her mother, it would be best to let Natasha stay with her sisters.)
After Wood died, Wagner began seeing Jill St. John, a longtime friend and fellow actor. The two wed in 1990.
Wagner’s career stayed busy. He starred as Number Two, Dr. Evil’s henchman, in the Austin Powers movies and he made regular guest appearances on various TV shows, including Two and a Half Men and NCIS.
Wagner’s memoir, Pieces of My Heart, was published in 2008. He also wrote You Must Remember This: Life and Style in Hollywood’s Golden Age (2014).
In 2011, 30 years after Wood drowned, the investigation into her death was reopened by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Questions about Wood’s death had circulated for years—as she was scared of deep water, it struck some as unlikely that she would have ventured near the dinghy on her own. In addition, Splendour’s captain, Dennis Davern, had said he’d given the police inaccurate information. (Davern also released a book about the case in 2009 and reportedly had tried to sell his story to tabloids). Authorities stated that new information prompted their renewed investigation and specified that Wagner was not seen as a suspect.
The designation of accidental drowning on Wood’s death certificate was changed in 2012 to “drowning and other undetermined factors,” as she might have been bruised before entering the water. Wagner did not speak to investigators about the case; his attorney released a statement in 2013 that said, “After 30 years, neither Mr. Wagner nor his daughters have any new information to add to this latest investigation, which was unfortunately prompted by those seeking to exploit and sensationalize the 30th anniversary of the death of his wife and their mother.”
Unless further evidence comes to light, it seems that what Wagner wrote about Wood’s drowning in his 2008 memoir remains accurate: “[T]he bottom line is that nobody knows exactly what happened.”
TELEVISION
It Takes a Thief Alexander Mundy (1968-70)
Colditz Maj. Phil Carrington (1972-74)
Switch Pete Ryan (1975-78)
Hart to Hart Jonathan Hart (1979-84)
The Trials of Rosie O’Neill Peter Donavan (1992)
Celebrity Poker Showdown Contestant 2005
FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
Making the Boys (18-Jul-2009) · Himself
Pretty/Handsome (2008)
A Dennis the Menace Christmas (13-Nov-2007) · Mr. George Wilson
Man in the Chair (27-Jan-2007) · Taylor Moss
Everyone’s Hero (15-Sep-2006) [VOICE]
Hoot (5-May-2006)
Category 7: The End of the World (6-Nov-2005)
The Fallen Ones (14-May-2005)
Sol Goode (26-Sep-2003) · Sol’s Dad
Mystery Woman (31-Aug-2003)
Hollywood Homicide (10-Jun-2003) · Himself
Austin Powers in Goldmember (22-Jul-2002) · Number Two
The Retrievers (27-Jul-2001) · Durham Haysworth
Play It to the Bone (25-Dec-1999)
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (8-Jun-1999)
No Vacancy (16-Apr-1999) · Mr. Tangerine
Fatal Error (28-Mar-1999)
Crazy in Alabama (4-Feb-1999) · Harry Hall
Dill Scallion (25-Jan-1999)
Something to Believe In (8-May-1998)
Wild Things (20-Mar-1998) · Tom Baxter
Off the Menu: The Last Days of Chasen’s (Oct-1997) · Himself
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (2-May-1997)
Parallel Lives (14-Aug-1994)
Heaven & Hell: North & South, Book III (27-Feb-1994)
Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (7-May-1993)
Jewels (18-Oct-1992)
The Player (3-Apr-1992) · Himself
Around the World in 80 Days (16-Apr-1989)
Windmills of the Gods (7-Feb-1988)
Love Among Thieves (23-Feb-1987)
I Am the Cheese (11-Nov-1983)
Curse of the Pink Panther (13-Aug-1983) · George Litton
The Concorde: Airport ’79 (17-Aug-1979) · Kevin Harrison
Death at Love House (3-Sep-1976)
Midway (18-Jun-1976) · Lt. Cmdr. Ernest L. Blake
The Abduction of Saint Anne (21-Jan-1975)
The Towering Inferno (10-Dec-1974) · Bigelow
The Affair (20-Nov-1973)
Journey Through Rosebud (2-Mar-1972)
Madame Sin (15-Jan-1972)
City Beneath the Sea (25-Jan-1971)
Winning (22-May-1969) · Erding
Don’t Just Stand There! (4-Sep-1968)
The Biggest Bundle of Them All (17-Jan-1968)
Banning (13-Dec-1967)
How I Spent My Summer Vacation (7-Jan-1967)
Harper (23-Feb-1966) · Allan Taggert
The Pink Panther (19-Dec-1963) · George Lytton
The Condemned of Altona (30-Oct-1962)
The War Lover (25-Oct-1962)
The Longest Day (Sep-1962) · U.S. Ranger
Sail a Crooked Ship (Dec-1961)
All the Fine Young Cannibals (22-Sep-1960)
Say One for Me (19-Jun-1959)
In Love and War (31-Oct-1958)
The Hunters (26-Aug-1958)
Stopover Tokyo (3-Dec-1957)
The True Story of Jesse James (Feb-1957) · Jesse James
The Mountain (14-Nov-1956) · Chris Teller
Between Heaven and Hell (11-Oct-1956)
A Kiss Before Dying (12-Jun-1956) · Bud Corliss
White Feather (15-Feb-1955) · Josh Tanner
Broken Lance (29-Jul-1954) · Joe Devereaux
Prince Valiant (5-Apr-1954)
Beneath the 12-Mile Reef (2-Dec-1953) · Tony Petrakis
Titanic (16-Apr-1953) · Gifford Rogers
The Silver Whip (Feb-1953)
Stars and Stripes Forever (22-Dec-1952) · Willie
What Price Glory (22-Aug-1952)
With a Song in My Heart (4-Apr-1952) · GI paratrooper
Let’s Make It Legal (31-Oct-1951) · Jerry Denham
The Frogmen (24-May-1951) · Lt. Franklin
Halls of Montezuma (5-Jan-1951) · Coffman
Waldina 