More than 40 years after the mysterious drowning of his wife Natalie Wood, Robert Wagner is still tormented and haunted by her death in his sad last days, sources say.
The actor, who turned 92 on Feb. 10, is now living with his wife of 32 years, Jill St. John, on a Colorado ranch, but life isn’t rosy, sources say.
“Wagner’s health isn’t too bad, at least as far as he’s let on, but people around him suspect what’s troubling him is more mental than physical and that it’s making him miserable,” dishes an insider.
Sources say the November release of a book by Natalie’s sister Lana — Little Sister: My Investigation into the Mysterious Death of Natalie Wood — has left Wagner shaken.
“Lana’s book has taken a real toll,” dishes the insider. “He knows she hates him and blames him for what happened to Natalie.”
Wagner and Wood were in their second marriage when the 43-year-old West Side Story beauty drowned off the coast of Catalina Island in 1981 during a Thanksgiving getaway on a yacht with her husband and Brainstorm co-star Christopher Walken.
As GLOBE reported, Wood’s death was first ruled “accidental,” but suspicions of foul play were fueled by reports Wood and Wagner had a loud, booze-fueled fight before she vanished from the yacht.
That led to reopening the probe into her demise in 2011, after which the L.A. coroner changed the cause of death from “accidental” to “drowning and other undetermined factors.”
Says the source: “Wagner is reticent to come back to Hollywood because people will stare and some may point accusing fingers.”
“Jill often spends the day doing her own thing so he’s left alone to wallow, which is never good when someone is hiding from as much as he is.”
