Natalie Wood's lookalike daughter reveals 'very painful' upbringing without her actress mother after yacht tragedy... and heartbreaking realization strangers told her in the street

Natalie Wood's lookalike daughter has opened up to the Daily Mail about the pain and pressure she has felt in the 45 years since her mother's untimely death.

And Natasha Gregson Wagner said she is determined to keep the memory of the late star of such movies as West Side Story, Gypsy and Splendor in the Grass alive nearly half a century after she fell from her family yacht and drowned.

'I've definitely felt pressure in my life,' Gregson Wagner, who turned 56 on Tuesday, said.

But she has been careful to keep away from the drugs and alcohol that have blighted the lives of so many children of famous parents.

'I know what's right, I know what's wrong,' she said in the exclusive interview.

'I'm not saying I haven't had very, very painful things in my life. My life was dramatic in that my parents were famous, and dressed up, glamorous, but in the home, it was all very safe and secure and warm, so I got lucky in that way.'

Gregson Wagner is Wood's older daughter. Her father was the three-times Oscar-nominated actress's second husband, British movie producer Richard Gregson.

At the time of her death in November 1981, Wood was divorced from Gregson, who died in 2019 aged 89, and famously remarried to her first husband, Hart to Hart star Robert Wagner, now 96. 

Wood, born Natalie Zacharenko, had been on a boat trip aboard Wagner's 58-foot yacht, Splendour, moored off California's Catalina Island, with him, Wood's Brainstorm co-star Christopher Walken and skipper Dennis Davern when she died aged 43. Her death was ruled an accidental drowning. 

After the tragedy, both Gregson and Wagner looked after young Natasha, and she added Wagner's name to her own. 

'Luckily I had these two men, Daddy Gregson and Daddy Wagner, who came together and rose to the occasion and completely put me first,' Gregson Wagner said. 

'They got me into therapy right away and I had that same amazing therapist here in Beverly Hills until my twenties.'

But she said her parents had already brought her up in a balanced, protected and safe environment which gave her a good foundation by the time she faced the loss of her mother. 

'By then I knew what the right priorities were in life,' she said.

'They were both raised in the studio system which taught them how to be respectful, on time, responsible.

'Everything she stood for was very down to earth.'

Gregson Wagner, then just 11, learned of her mother's passing while listening to the radio while at a sleepover at a friend's home, as chronicled in her 2020 memoir More Than Love: An Intimate Portrait of My Mother, Natalie Wood.

'Someone once told me: "You're a self-preservationist," and I think that's true,' Gregson Wagner said.

'I think my mom was, and both my dads, and maybe it was inherited or God-given, maybe it's the Russian and the British heritage?

'And my daddy Gregson was super normal. I would spend all my summers in Wales where my Dad lived with my stepmom and my younger sister, Poppy, and I got to see what a completely normal life was like.

'I had to do my laundry, we had dinner on the table at six o'clock, I learned how to cook in their kitchen. I learned how to do laundry. 

'I learned how to take a bath with a hot tap and a cold tap putting it in a pot and pouring it on my head and all these things.'

Gregson Wagner says she and her mother, who first found stardom as an eight-year-old in the Christmas classic Miracle on 34th Street, had a tight mother-daughter relationship.

'When I was younger, I would get stopped on the street by people who would say things like: "You look so much like this actress, you've probably never heard of her, but her name was Natalie Wood."'

'Most of the time I wouldn't admit I was her daughter, and just say: "Oh, I hear that a lot!"

'We looked so much alike and had so much in common. Where did the mother end and the child begin? We were so completely connected – and she was so sharp and perceptive – that I sometimes believed she could see right into my mind,' she wrote in her book.

Gregson Wagner has been married to actor Barry Watson, 52, since 2014, and they had daughter Clover in 2012.

'I've always had an internal compass. I know how to take care of myself. I know how to prioritize. I'm a mom now. I joke that I'm giving Clover a real Groundhog's Day childhood, like I wanted.

'I cook her dinner at night, I take her to school. All those things are beads on a string of a necklace of who you are and how you approach your life. That's like my way of living in the world.'

Instead of going down a path of self-destruction like other children of famous parents, Gregson Wagner has defied the odds and has become a modern-day Renaissance woman, with credits of actress, film producer, author, fragrance creator and businesswoman attached to her name, along with mother, wife, sister and daughter.

Now it is the perfume side that she is growing with a new scent, L'Amour Mére – French for Mother Love. She started the business with the fragrance Natalie in 2016.

'As a child, I always knew my mom was home because her jungle gardenia scent arrived before she did,' she wrote on the website for L'Amour Mére.

'After she died, I spent hours lying in her bed or sitting in her closet among her clothes. If I could somehow keep her fragrance alive, perhaps she would not be entirely gone.

'For me, perfume is a scent trail leading back to the people I love most.'

She also produces C Love, a fresh, green, rose-based fragrance dedicated to Clover and Lyublyu, which means 'love' in Russian, a unisex scent with a blend of honey, amber, honeysuckle, guaiac wood and pink pepper. 

It is dedicated to her Russian grandmother, Wood's mother Maria.

There are perfume oils as well as Eau de Perfume, with no testing done on animals.

Gregson Wagner stopped by Kitson on Beverly Drive in Beverly Hills recently to check on her latest perfume line L'Amour Mére being carried by the store.

Dressed in a cream-colored matching sweater set, she is petite, just five-foot-two like her famous mom, ethereal, with sparkling brown eyes, and a quick smile.

She couldn't resist re-arranging the display, turning the boxes at a different angle, after asking if it would be okay, and then proceeded to do a little video for her own social media.

When she removed some of the packaging on the eau de parfum box in front of the staff they oohed and aahed when they saw a tiny black and white photo of Wood and Gregson Wagner was inside.

'That's a professional photo taken by Ellen Graham, in 1972 I think,' she said.

One staffer said: 'Okay, this is going to make me want to cry.' She also revealed the lid of the bottle is made of wood, an homage to her mom's adopted last name.

Kitson owner Fraser Ross told the Daily Mail: 'I always ask vendors to come to the store and talk to my employees who are on the floor selling their product to the customer. 

'Some do, many don't. It shows me what kind of a businessperson Natasha is, that she would show up with a smile on her face and excited to meet everyone.'