natalie back in the news

Natalie Wood, a superstar at the time, played Maria in the movie version of West Side Story (Rita Morena played Anita), 1961. Twenty years later, 1981, she drowned after falling off a yacht near Catalina Island. The circumstances were mysterious -- did her husband Robert Wagner drown her? -- but eventually, after plenty of tabloid stories, somebody determined that it was just an accident.

Now, thirty years after that, fifty years after West Side Story, here in 2011, the case has been re-opened because of some so-called "new evidence." How could new evidence about a drowning turn up after 30 years? I think that story will go away again.

This particular song came back to my attention this weekend because James has been playing the Glee version of it, which isn't half bad. Natalie Wood didn't have a singing voice, she is lip-synching it. Marni Nixon, who was also the singing voice for Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady, owns the voice that you hear.