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Maria Gurdin

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Celebrity's Relative

The Resume

    (January 26, 1908-January 6, 1998)
    Born in Barnaul, Russian Federation
    Birth name was Maria Stepanovna Zakharenko
    Mother to Natalie and Lana Wood

Why she might be annoying:

    She was a shameless self-promoting stage parent who lived off her daughter.
    She liked to claim that Irving Pichel had discovered Natalie when they were on the boat to America and wanted to adopt her.
    In reality, she had taken Natalie to the set of the movie Pichel was filming and forced her to go over to him and start singing Russian folk songs.
    Her method to get Natalie to cry on cue at six was to take a live butterfly out of a jar and tear the wings off it (it drove her into hysterics that continued after the cameras had stopped rolling).
    She insisted on keeping Natalie away from everyone else on the set other than the director and the movie stars, leading some to incorrectly conclude that her daughter was a snob.
    She contributed to her daughter's mental issues and overall neuroses to the point where she was in therapy on a daily basis.
    When she learned that her daughter had been brutally raped by a powerful Hollywood figure (rumored to have been Kirk Douglas) she was elated - she believed it meant she would land her a role in his next movie.
    Natalie eventually got so fed up with her crap that when she tried to talk her into making her own children into stars she forced her out of the house kicking and screaming.

Why she might not be annoying:

    She was deeply superstitious.
    Her husband had a drinking problem.
    Her daughter died in a freak accident that remains unsolved.
    She was portrayed by Alice Krige in 'The Mystery of Natalie Wood.'
    She was driven to make her daughter a star and succeeded (she said: 'God made her. I invented her.').

Credit: BoyWiththeGreenHair


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 2 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 8 Votes: 75.00% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 102 Votes: 60.78% Annoying