Died at 87
female
Natalie Wood (née Zacharenko; July 20, 1938 – November 29, 1981) was an American actress who began her career in film as a child and successfully transitioned to young adult roles. Wood started acting at age four and was given a co-starring role at age 8 in Miracle on 34th Street (1947). As a teenager, she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), followed by a role in John Ford's The Searchers (1956). Wood starred in the musical films West Side Story (1961) and Gypsy (1962) and received nominations for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performances in Splendor in the Grass (1961) and Love with the Proper Stranger (1963). Her career continued with films such as Sex and the Single Girl (1964), Inside Daisy Clover (1965), and Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969). During the 1970s, Wood began a hiatus from film and had two daughters: one with her second husband Richard Gregson, and one with Robert Wagner, her first husband whom she married again after divorcing Gregson. She acted in only two feature films throughout the decade, but she appeared slightly more often in television productions, including a remake of From Here to Eternity (1979) for which she won a Golden Globe Award. Wood's films represented a "coming of age" for her and for Hollywood films in general. Critics have suggested that her cinematic career represents a portrait of modern American womanhood in transition, as she was one of the few to take both child roles and those of middle-aged characters. Wood died off the coast of Santa Catalina Island on November 29, 1981, at age 43, during a holiday break from the production of her would-be comeback film Brainstorm (1983) with Christopher Walken. The events surrounding her death have been the subject of conflicting witness statements, prompting the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, under the instruction of the coroner's office, to list her cause of death as "drowning and other undetermined factors" in 2012. Description above from the Wikipedia article Natalie Wood, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Natalie Wood
Jenny Pruitt
for Jenny Pruitt in Hope Floats (as a 1940's movie)
Suggested by jacobfisher
After finding out her husband is having an affair with her best friend, a woman and her daughter move back to the mother's hometown in Maine to start a new life. While there, the woman runs into her old high school crush. Soon, the two begin a romantic relationship with each other and discover that hope has a chance to float back up. Differences between the 1998 movie and 1940's version: Many of the characters names have been changed. Example: Birdie is named Betty in the 1940's version. Betty and her daughter are from New York and move back to Maine in the 1940's version, while in the '98 version, they're from Chicago and move back to Texas. In this version, Betty is a call-girl and discovers that her husband is having an affair with her best friend through a phone-call by overhearing their conversation, while in the '98, she discovers this when she appears on a talk show with her best friend.
