Robert Wagner was born in Detroit, and his family moved to Los Angeles when he was seven. Always wanting to be an actor, he held a variety of jobs (including one as a caddy for Clark Gable while pursuing his goal, but it was while dining with his parents at a restaurant in Beverly Hils that he was "discovered" by a talent scout. He had a bit part in The Happy Years but it was a small part as a crippled soldier in the Susan Hayward film With a Song in My Heart that got him attention. His fresh, all-American looks landed him a contract with 20th Century-Fox, which put him in a succession of undemanding roles in Technicolor pictures where his looks were more important than his talent (Beneath the 12-Mile Reef, Prince Valiant), but he did manage to show that he was indeed an actor of talent in several showy roles in smaller pictures (A Kiss Before Dying, Between Heaven and Hell). As he became one of Fox's rising young stars, the studio, as was customary back then, set him up with a host of nubile young actresses, among them Debbie Reynolds. While the pairing didn't lead to any romance, it did lead to a lifelong friendship. In 1956 Wagner, then 26, found the love of his life, 18-year-old actress Natalie Wood. They married on December 28 1957, in Scottsdale, Arizona. Hollywood trumpeted their marriage as the most "glittering union of the 20th century". Robert (RJ to his friends) and Natalie Wood quickly moved into a $150,000 mansion on Beverly Drive in Beverly Hills. He and Natalie Wood were deeply in love and appeared to be the perfect couple, but were actually living on the edge and were strapped for cash. RJ was being overshadowed by new male leads like Marlon Brando and Paul Newman. Natalie Wood was placed on a 14-month suspension with Warner Bros. for refusing to do a movie in England.

These problems led them to divorce on April 27 1962. He took the divorce hard. Trying to escape his pain he went to Europe to make the movie The Longest Day. In Europe he met with his old friend Marion Marshall. They married in 1963 and had a daughter, Katie Wagner, but the marriage was short-lived. In 1968 he reluctantly went into television to star in It Takes a Thief (later he would say it was the right move). By 1969 he was thriving professionally, but his personal life wasn't. He was still in love with Natalie Wood and kept in touch with her. However, she had married British producer Richard Gregson and they had a daughter Natasha (later Natasha Gregson Wagner). In 1971 Natalie Wood and RJ saw each other by accident in a restaurant and suddenly the old magic was back. She divorced Richard Gregson, and RJ and Natalie Wood remarried June 16 1972, on their yacht "Splendour". In 1974 they had a daughter, Courtney Brooke. Their second marriage was full of love and happiness. They were a real family and loved raising their three daughters, Katie Wagner, Natasha Gregson Wagner and Courtney Brooke.

Wagner went on to do a succession of successful television series (Switch, Hart to Hart) and his professional and personal lives seemed to be right on track. Then on November 29 1981, his life was shattered by the news that Natalie Wood had fallen off of "Splendour" and drowned. He was devastated and inconsolable, but insisted on arranging a funeral to honor the love of his life. He spent the next ten years raising Natalie Wood's and his daughters alone. It was 1991 when he married Jill St. John. To this day he finds it difficult to talk about Natalie Wood's death.

Wagner has since revived his career with a recurring role as the eye-patch-wearing henchman Number Two to Mike Myers' sinister Dr. Evil in the "Austin Powers" series of spy spoofs and as the host of Fox Movie Channel's Hour of Stars, which shows recently discovered and restored episodes of the old TV anthology series The 20th Century-Fox Hour, some of which Wagner himself had starred in.


All the Fine Young Cannibals (1960): $75,000

Father of Katie Wagner (born 1964, with Marion Marshall) and Courtney Wagner (born 1974, with Natalie Wood). Former stepfather of Natalie Wood's daughter, Natasha Gregson Wagner. Father of the TV hostess Katie Wagner. Due to the publication of a memoir by Lana Wood on her sister Natalie Wood's life, Wagner refuses to speak and/or communicate with his late wife's family, after it was implied in the book that Wagner probably played a role in Natalie's tragic drowning off the coast of Catalina Island in 1981. In spring 2000, a Vanity Fair cover shoot featuring all actresses playing Bond girls in every Bond film was broken up after an encounter by Lana Wood and Wagner's present-day wife Jill St. John escalated into a major argument on the set. After being submerged at one point in an industrial strength foaming agent during the bathtub scene in The Pink Panther (1963), went blind for four weeks. The studio wanted Wagner replaced, but director Blake Edwards stuck by him and he finished the picture. Cooperated with Gavin Lambert (author of the novel and screenplay Inside Daisy Clover (1965) that starred Wagner's late wife Natalie Wood on Lambert's 2004 biography "Natalie Wood." A friend of Wood's, Lambert believed that Wood's memory was sullied by the tabloid headlines generated by her tragic death, with the result that no one remembers his friend as a human being, and so wrote the book to correct the public's misconceptions about Wood. The son of a wealthy steel executive. His first acting break came when one of his friends took him to Warner Bros. to meet the head of casting. After an interview and a reading, he was told that the studio would use him in two or three bit parts coming up in the near future. Two days later a strike postponed all production plans, so it was back to school for Robert Wagner. Spokesman for the Senior Lending Network and the Guardian First Funding Group. Dedicated his autobiography, "Pieces of My Heart" to his mother and sister, daughters Katie Wagner and Courtney Wagner, former stepdaughter Natasha Gregson Wagner and to his wife, Jill St. John. He thanked them for being, "the meaning of his life". Had a long association with Eddie Albert, who was said to be one of his childhood television heroes. Will play Michael Weatherly's characters father in NCIS.