Paul, “Brainstorm” was being filmed in Durham when I first got to Duke in September 1981 to go to grad school. Most of the filming here was out at the then-Burroughs Wellcome building in the RTP, but, having been a lifelong Natalie Wood fan, I was hoping to get a glimpse of her on one day when they were filming near the chapel. Never did, though. She died not long after that, in November 1981, before the movie was released. I’ve never seen the movie.
One of my favorite Natalie Wood movies is “The Great Race.” There’s a scene in which she and Professor Fate (Jack Lemmon) drive into Vladivostok through a huge crowd of scowling Russians. She stands up and says, in a perfect Russian accent, “Kak paszhivaete, druzya!” and the crowd breaks out in cheers. Her accent is not surprising since her given name was Natalya Nikolaevna Zakharenko and she was the daughter of Russian immigrants.
