Pieces of My Heart

In this moving memoir, Robert J Wagner opens his heart to share the romances, the drama and the humor of an incredible life

Under the mentorship of stars like Spencer Tracy, he became a salaried actor in Hollywood's studio system among other hot actors of the moment such as his friends Rock Hudson and Tony Curtis

Working with studio mogul Darryl Zanuck, Wagner began to appear in a number of films alongside the most beautiful starlets - but his first love was Barbara Stanwyck, an actress twice his age

As his career blossomed, and after he separated from Stanwyck, he met the woman who would change his life forever, Natalie Wood

They fell instantly and deeply in love and stayed together until the stress of their careers - hers marching upward, his inexplicably deflating - drove them to divorce

Trying to forget the pain, he made more movies and spent his time in Europe with the likes of Steve McQueen, Sophia Loren, Peter Sellers, Laurence Olivier, David Niven, Liz Taylor and Joan Collins

He would meet and marry the beautiful former model and actress Marion Marshall

Together they had a daughter, and made their way back to America, where he found himself at the beginning of a new era in Hollywood - the blossoming of television

Lew Wasserman, and later Aaron Spelling would work with Wagner as he produced and starred in some of the most successful programs in history

Despite his new found success, his marriage to Marion fell apart

He looked no further than Natalie Wood, for whom he still pined

To the world's surprise, they fell in love all over again

Their life together was cut tragically short, though, when Wood died after falling from their yacht

For the first time, Wagner writes about that tremendously painful time

After a serious bout with depression, he finally resurfaced and eventually married Jill St John, who helped keep his family and his fractured heart together