"Dr. Thayer"
The Mystery of Natalie Wood is directed by Peter Bogdanovich, the once-promising American director (his first three major films were The Last Picture Show; What's Up, Doc?; and Paper Moon) whose career and life have been irreparably altered by another beautiful dead woman. In 1981, during the filming of his screwball comedy They All Laughed, Bogdanovich had an affair with his leading lady, the Playboy centerfold Dorothy Stratten, who was then brutally murdered by her jealous husband. (These sad events are chronicled in the fine Bob Fosse film Star 80.) In the years since, Bogdanovich has said that Stratten's death was the turning point of his life, and that his eventual marriage to Dorothy's half-sister Louise (still a child when Stratten died) was a conscious attempt to replace his lost beloved.
