The Mystery of Natalie Wood - Dubbing Woes 

I love hearing what the actual star's voice sounded like, compared the finished version that we've all become familiar with! Thank you so much for sharing!

I love Natalie Wood, she was always one of my favorite actresses. Sadly, she was gone too soon.

Natalie was Gorgeous. RIP The dubbing was needed on Daisy Clover. The dubber was in a different range.

I watched your hour and a half vid on the real voice dubs and this part cracks me up...."It's like she can't sing and then all of a sudden she can - back and forth!" Very smooth transition!

One of my favorite actresses 💜💙💜

She could carry a tune - just. But Maria in West Side Story has to have a soaring romantic voice, so Natalie was never going to make the grade. I'm sure absolutely everyone else knew this when they hired her. And her own voice was used in Gypsy because Louise/Gypsy has no real talent. That's the point.

I'm so happy I found your channel this morning, this is so interesting to see/hear! 😀

understandable the studio would want to dub, since back in the day, before streaming, vhs, dvd, etc, the only way for audiences to "relive" their favorite film(s) was to purchase the soundtrack (where you don't have the benefit of elaborate sets, costumes, performances, etc, to help "sell" the experience).. but they should have just been HONEST with the ladies when they were cast.. i mean they could have easily told them, in a nice way, UP FRONT instead of having them wasting countless hours training/stressing out about the vocals, laying the tracks, etc, and then getting their hearts broken when they inevitably dub them anyway..

Natalie was Gorgeous. RIP Very Underrated Actress.

The thing that's really frightening is that I sound like her when I sing...and I absolutely get that I do NOT have a singing voice. She had ears; didn't she hear how she sounded?

Her voice was OK but it wasn’t good enough for a big budget musical of this magnitude. When I first read about this I was in Natalie’s corner because I got the impression that she really should have been allowed to use her own voice. Then I heard her singing and it was one of those “A+ for effort but sorry.” If you really want to hear someone who definitely should NOT have been dubbed: Listen to Ava Gardner in Show Boat. Her singing fits her character to a T and the dubbed singing doesn’t. Ava had a pretty good voice coach- Frank Sinatra.

Whenever there's dubbing in a movie there's usually bad feelings all around...That happened when Harvey Keitel was dubbed on Saturn 3; Natalie Wood was dubbed on West Side Story; Jeff East was dubbed on Superman; Audrey Hepburn was dubbed on My Fair Lady; and David Prowse was dubbed in Star Wars. (Singing in the Rain is actually all about that phenomenon).

The thing about non-singers is that they suffer from the Dunning-Krueger Effect and always fancy themselves not only as singers, but as GOOD singers. I'll never get it. Don't you have ears? How can you not hear when you are off-pitch or have no color in your voice? And to compare yourself to a great singer and think you're just as or almost as good? That's some serious delusion.

People have a misconception that she was not nominated for the Best Actress Oscar for West Side Story because of the dubbing, in actuality she was not nominated for the Best Actress Oscar for that film because she was nominated that year for Splendor in the Grass and there was a rule implemented in the 1930s (which is still in place) that said an actor can only be nominated in a category for one film. Basically, because she was nominated in the Best Actress category for Splendor in the Grass she was ineligible to be nominated in the same category for West Side Story. Honestly, I do think she would have had a better chance at winning if she had been nominated for West Side Story instead.

This docudrama was filmed in 2004- and it shows. Tony Mordente affirms that Natalie was depressed when she didn't win the Oscar for "Splendor in the Grass" (she deserved it!) and told him, Tony Mordente: "I wanted it. I wanted to be up there with Katharine Hepburn." Such a 2004 lie! At the time, Katharine had won her only Oscar 30 years earlier, and there were 4 top actresses with 2 best actress Oscars each, including Bette Davis with more nominations (at the time) than Hepburn. How do they get away with such nonsense?

Natalie had a pleasing voice but her range was limited, so they had to use Marini Nixon.

She could have done very well if she had taken voice lessons; the potential was there.

The actress reminds me so much of her daughter Natasha.

Thank God the original takes were saved and presented here. Marni's voice was far richer, but Natalie wasn't bad. The use of actresses to depict her life while making the films is fair for presentation, but they sure give the impression of a spoiled brat. She seems to have been short tempered, which may have contributed to her sad death.

Don't know about you, but her voice sounds pretty awful to me - not even close to what's needed in major motion pictures. Wierd she could not see it, but she was absolutely career obsessed. Fine actress however.

Why hire her in a musical if you dont like her singing voice. Obviously her management sucked. They should have put in a contract they couldn't dub her voice

There is no mystery. The Bog docudrama was truly awful.