Just something I came across while exploring the net and thought it was interesting. Don't know if it's ever been posted here, so if it has, sorry for the duplicate post.

The Walken Playboy interview Sept 1997


Playboy: Another controversial film for you was Brainstorm which was delayed when Natalie Wood drowned after falling off the yacht that you, she and Robert Wagner were staying on. You have maintained a strict silence about the incidence.

Walken: Out of respect for the family. It's not my place to talk about that. The other thing is, there really is nothing to talk about. Anybody there saw the logistics of the boat, the night,
where we were, that it is was raining, and would know exactly what happened. You hear about things happening to people, they slip in the bathtub, fall down the stairs, step off the curb in London because they think that the cars come the other way and they die. You feel you want to die making an effort at something, you don't want to die in some unnecessary way. What happened that night only she knows, because she was alone. There were four of us on that boat, not three of us. There was a captain too. She had gone to bed before us, and her room was at the back. A dinghy was bouncing against the side of the boat, and I think she went out to move it. There was a ski ramp that was partially in the water. It was slippery. I had walked on it myself. She had told me she couldn't swim; in fact, they had to cut a swimming scene from the movie. She was probably half asleep, and she was wearing a coat. She apparently moved the boat around, slipped, hit her head,
fell into the water. She was discovered separate from the boat: Why would she get into the boat, then get out of it and into the water? She couldn't swim. She hit her head, went into the water, the boat floated away, she floated away. In the meantime, we were sitting in the living room, the three of us, talking. And I remember distinctly that about 45 minutes after she had gone to bed, RJ went down to her room, came back and said "Natalie's not there" And then the Coast Guard was called. I feel funny talking about it in such detail, but the fact that she had gone in the dinghy the night before made it sound like we were on the high seas. We were 50 feet off the beach, moored to one of those balls, and there were boats all around. It was a drizzly night, so it wasn't like people were siting out on their decks. But there was a hotel with a restaurant on the shore. She had gone there the night before to call her kids because the phone on the boat wasn't working. The first assumption was that that's was she had done. She was very spontaneous. The
idea that she had gotten into the boat to go call her kids was not far-fetched. The first reaction was: I hope everything's OK. But then time passed.

Playboy: Thomas Noguchi, the Los Angeles County coroner, reported that an argument between you and Wagner may have been the reason she went off by herself.

Walken: Wasn't that guy Noguchi kicked out as chief medical examiner for being an *******?

Playboy: He said you guys were fighting.

Walken: I remember that. There was a quote in the paper from me saying I didn't recall the coroner being there. How the hell does the coroner know what was going on?

Playboy: What was reported in the Los Angeles Times was that you and Wagner "argued heatedly aboard an anchored yacht" on the night Natalie Wood drowned. "It may have been the reason she left the two men"

Walken: She left to go to bed. And there were three of us. Noguchi was a bad man. How would he know? If a policeman had said it, it would be one thing. The police throughly investigated the whole thing, everybody was questioned. If there had been anything wrong, certainly the police
would looked into it. The story I just told you is the absolute truth. Nobody can know, but I believe she went to move that dinghy, slipped, fell. Hit her head and died. Not a good way to go. The woman was not self-destructive. This is the first time I've ever talked more than two minutes about it.

Playboy: When did they find the body?

Walken: A few hours later.

Playboy: What was your reaction?

Walken: Oh man, forget it. My reaction was for R.J. To receive that kind of news.

Playboy: Have you two seen or talked with each other since then?

Walken: I bump into him occasionally, and you know, it's sad. He married her twice. They really were a glamorous couple.

Playboy: Were you close to her?

Walken: They were very nice to me. They invited me to their home. We had a lot of fun. To have something like that happen to someone who really was loved and who was legendary, the sadness of it make it hard to talk about. I was in a restaurant about a year ago, and there was a young beautiful girl, I was looking at her and somebody said to me "You know who that is?" It's Natalie's daughter Natasha." There was a resemblance.

Playboy: Did you ever talk to Wood about her early films?

Walken: I did, yes. She talked about those people. She had dated Elvis. She was Elvis' girlfriend at one point. She talked about what a gentleman he was. She knew everybody.

OK, and...? Walken was asleep. Walken was interviewed briefly and he along with RJ we allowed to leave the island.

That interview was 12 years ago. I wonder why Walken has not made a statement concerning GNGS.

Has he ever been asked to?

I have no idea. Maybe he is afraid of big bad RJ! LOL

It is Walken everyone is in fear of, he is huge and has a big influence on Hollywood, why do you think Rulli barely mentioned him in GNGS, fear utter fear of him.

LMAO. the trolls are getting more desperate as time goes on. Walken is not and never has been a Hollywood player. At this stage he is a character actor.

Other than being kind of creepy looking, what has he done that's made him a "major player" in Hollywood that people would be afraid of?

Oh please! Here we go again with the BIG PLAYER routine. Walken is a respected character acter. He Can NOT write his own ticket in Hollywood and does not live there. How the hell many times does this idiot have to be told that and how many times does she post the same bull crap?