Excuse me, did you just say Natalie Wood?

Natalie WOOD? Is that what you just…

Did you jus…

Because if you just did, if you just said “Natalie Wood,” then my 12-year-old boy brain, which so unfortunately seems to be the biggest part of my small, dinosaur-size brain — I blame this on an evolution mistake — has your full attention.

Because, well, Natalie Wood and all.

Natalie Wood would have been 80 today, had she not drowned in 1981 at the terribly young age of 43 in a yacht trip off the coast of California’s Catalina Island.

Robert Wagner, her two-times husband — they married in 1957 and divorced in 1962 and remarried not long before she died. In the in-between, she married this other guy in 1969, the same year as man first walked on the moon which is 49 years ago today if you are interested, and you should be, and if you listen to today’s Designated Podcast you’ll be even more coached-up — but obviously Wood and that guy divorced because she remarried her first husband.

I’m exhausted just from typing all that.

Anyway, Wood, who I had a huge crush on as an adolescent, was on board the yacht with her husband, Wagner, and fellow actor Christopher Walken when the incident occurred. That is not entirely accurate though as she was NOT on board when the incident occurred, but Wagner and Walker were.

Her cause of death was ruled an accidental drowning.

Thirty years later — 2011 — the case was re-opened and remains so. I tell you this because today begins the 12-part podcast series, Fatal Voyage: The Mysterious Death of Natalie Wood.

Can I listen fast enough? Neg. Should be everywhere, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play and other spots. I love a podcast. If you haven’t tried one, do. And I’m sorry, no matter how it occurred, about what happened to Natalie Wood. Who, at one points, was on a yacht. In Catalina. With her husband and a friend. And then…

Terribly sad. Natalie was the bomb. Hurts me.

-30-