Natalie Wood At The Cannes Film Festival (by Paul Schutzer. France, 1962).

Natalie Wood with her sister Lana, 1960s. Photo taken by Peter Basch

When I saw The Umbrellas of Cherbourg again a few years ago, it struck me: it’s exactly the same ending as in Splendor in the Grass. I adore that film. It’s one of the most beautiful love stories I’ve ever seen in the cinema. And the end scene is exactly the same as in Umbrellas. He is on the farm, with his dungarees, his wife, the child and she comes back…it was so moving to see that resemblance. I think it is one of the maddest, most audacious films on the subject of love. Particularly for a man to bring a young woman to life in such a way! Splendor in the Grass is so much about unbridled love. The idea that loving can make you insane. That is what happens: you become insane! Going as far as to see her leave for the hospital, because she is dying of love, she wants to die! That film knocked me over. - Catherine Deneuve

Natalie Wood in a dance rehearsal for “West Side Story,” circa 1961. photos by Ernst Haas.

Natalie Wood and her then-husband Robert Wagner photographed by Peter Basch, 1957.

Natalie Wood in “Love With the Proper Stranger,” 1963.

Natalie Wood and James Dean eat at a hot dog stand during a break in filming “Rebel Without a Cause,” 1955.

“The next day, she ... went to see Dean in “East of Eden,” which had opened at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. “She walked out and said, ‘I’m gonna marry him.’ Natalie later admitted she had ‘a big crush’ on Dean. “I remember going with my school girlfriends to see East of Eden like fifteen times, sitting there sobbing when he tried to give the money to his father. We knew every word by heart.”

Natalie Wood at a director’s guild dinner in Los Angeles, circa 1956.

Natalie Wood photographed in her Laurel Canyon home by Earl Leaf, 1957.

Natalie Wood photographed in her Laurel Canyon Home, 1955.