“Turn it off, mother! Nobody makes fun of me. I’m a star. Look at my friends, look at how I live. I’m not staying in burlesque. Maybe I’ll go up. Maybe down. But for the first time I’m enjoying my life because it is my life."

“I am Gypsy. Rose. Lee. And I love her. And if you don’t, you can clear out, now!!”

That is the great fight scene in the musical “Gypsy,” when the initially reluctant ecdysiast, Gypsy, finally asserts herself against Mama Rose, and declares her independence.

Despite the dazzling impact of Broadway’s most recent Gypsy, adorable Laura Benanti, I still feel Natalie Wood’s performance in the unfairly maligned 1963 movie version — starring Rosalind Russell as Rose — is the touchstone to all other renditions of this role. And, given Natalie’s own issues with a half-mad stage mother, her final showdown with Rose is truly electrifying.

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You will have a chance to watch Natalie in action in “Gypsy” and a few other classics, if you pick up “The Natalie Wood Collection” — six beautifully re-mastered DVDs, including a separate release of her last, “Brainstorm,” which she had not quite completed at the time of her tragic death in 1981. (The rest of the bunch includes “Splendor In The Grass,” “Sex and the Single Girl,” “Inside Daisy Clover,” “Cash McCall” and “Bombers B-52.”)

Wood was one of the very few child stars who grew up to become an adult sensation and box-office draw (her good friend and movie-queen role model Elizabeth Taylor was the other). Natalie began in the sentimental perfection of “Miracle on 34th Street” as the skeptical little girl who gradually comes to believe in Santa Claus. More films followed, but unlike Miss Taylor, Natalie did not develop as quickly. She was not pushed into adult roles before her time. Eventually Warner Bros. snatched her up, and cast her opposite James Dean in “Rebel Without a Cause.” She and Dean became instant symbols of 1950’s teenage angst and discontent. Now, she was a star. (And an Oscar nominee for Best Actress!) But Warner Bros. didn’t handle her especially well.

Two of the films included in this DVD set, “Cash McCall” and “Bombers B-52” were indicative of the studio’s odd choices for the young beauty. (Warner Bros. make-up — heavy base and lurid lips, also did nothing for her. At her age, she hardly needed a cosmetic mask!)

Still, Natalie was wildly popular, and wildly publicized — her romances with Elvis, Raymond Burr (yes!) and others were all fodder for the fan magazines. When she met and finally married matinee idol Robert Wagner (whom she’d had a crush on since the age of 10), the fabulously attractive couple pushed Debbie and Eddie right off the covers of Photoplay and Modern Screen.

But her career seemed stalled in silliness until Elia Kazan, much to the surprise of everybody in Hollywood, chose Natalie to star opposite Warren Beatty in yet another tale of teen troubles, “Splendor In The Grass.” (The subtext of the movie was — let teenagers have sex, or else they’ll go crazy!) Kazan stripped Natalie of her heavy make-up and her juvenile affectations, revealing the sensitive, lyric possibilities of her talent. She was once again, Oscar-nominated.

Her career was instantly transformed. (And her marriage to Wagner collapsed.) She went on to “Gypsy,” “West Side Story” (lovely, despite miscasting and dubbing), and “Love With The Proper Stranger.” (This contemporary tale of unwanted pregnancy, co-starring Steve McQueen, brought Natalie her third Academy Award nomination.) At this point, Natalie came alongside Elizabeth Taylor. They were the two most powerful female movie stars in Hollywood, able to command any salary, demand any perk. And for Natalie — younger than Taylor and more modern in her approach — the possibilities seemed limitless.

But then there were fascinating misfires, such as “Inside Daisy Clover” and tired innuendo-laced romps like “Sex and the Single Girl.” (Natalie is, at least, gorgeous in the latter, and quite amusing, despite the script.) She would fail again, in “This Property Is Condemned” though her own performance is splendid. (And it is another movie with a powerful mother/daughter conflict.)

With times changing and her box-office dwindling, the perpetually curious, self-improving Natalie married Richard Gregson, had a child and essentially retired to collect herself, after years of movie-making.

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Natalie returned in 1970’s “Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice,” more attractive than ever, and just as clever in her business-dealings (these were already legend among agents, managers, and other ten percenters.) In lieu of a salary, she took a piece of the film’s profits, which turned out to be enormous. She was now totally secure financially. She needed to be. She kicked Richard Gregson out of their house when she found he’d been having an affair, and immediately filed for divorce. She changed the locks on the doors. When Natalie made up her mind…!

But, just like in a Hollywood movie, Natalie’s first and truest love, Robert Wagner re-entered her life and they married again, in 1972, to an orgy of approval from fans and the press. Fairy tales can come true! Happy ending are possible. Once again Natalie devoted herself to marriage and another child. But the acting itch was strong and she went back to work in movies and TV — most memorably on the small screen in “The Cracker Factory” playing a woman having a nervous breakdown. It was her skill, all her acquired life experiences that were used to mold a performance. Though in her early forties — still a knockout, but worried about appearing fresh in youth-obsessed Hollywood — Natalie was giving notice that her talents were not dimmed by the inevitable encroachments of middle age.

Tragically, real middle-age never came, nor did the full flowering of her ability. On Nov 29, 1981 Natalie Wood’s body was found floating off Catalina Island. She had disappeared from the yacht, Splendor, after an evening of drinking and arguments with Wagner and her “Brainstorm” co-star Christopher Walken. It was, without a doubt, the most shocking and unexpected movie star death since Carole Lombard’s demise in a plane crash. Nothing in Natalie’s life or image could have prepared the public for such an ugly, pointless death. Hollywood was shaken as it has rarely been. She had been genuinely loved and respected in a town short on sentiment.

As with the deaths of Marilyn Monroe (not a surprise to the industry, aware of her demons) and later Princess Diana (comparable to Natalie, in brutality and suddenness), there was a lot of conspiracy talk and “mystery.” I feel it was simply a terrible, terrible accident. Wagner was devastated. (Years later, he married the actress Jill St. John, and has found some measure of peace.)

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But I don’t like to dwell on Natalie’s death. She was so vital and such   sensitive person — always looking to improve herself, find herself, figure out her issues and put them right.

I think of her always in the final scene of “Splendor In The Grass,” having visited her now-married-to-another love, Warren Beatty. As she drives off, we hear her speaking the poignant lines of the William Wordsworth poem:

“Though nothing can bring back the hour of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower/ We will grieve not; rather find strength in what remains behind.”
Natalie Wood left behind so much, and for that we have to be grateful. The best of her work stands as a testament to the lovely girl and woman she was.

Click here to read my New York Post column.