Life began in Detroit, Michigan, for Robert John Wagner, Jr. on February 10, 1930.
Hollywood became his destiny far from the steel mill city of Michigan where his father once worked in the steel business. His family moved to Los Angles when he was seven years old. Robert was known as R.J. to his friends and like most actors struggled for that first break in films.
Robert was once a golf caddy for Clark Gable and worked to find his place in Hollywood. His first movie bit part (unaccredited) in an MGM movie titled: The Happy Years (1950) started his path to greater things.
By the age of 22 his first recognizable role appeared in the movie, A Song In My Heart (1952). He touched audiences when he played the part of a crippled soldier who responded to a song sung by Susan Hayward. Though it was a brief part became his stepping-stone.
Wagner went on to star in named roles in three war-related movies: Halls of Montezuma and The Frogmen both in 1950 with Richard Widmark. This was followed by co-staring with a film classic great James Cagney in the movie What Price Glory (1952).
His next noticed role was in Beneath the 12-mile Reef (1963) in which his staring role was noticed by Spencer Tracy who requested later that he play the role of his son in the western movie Broken Lance (1954). Tracy, later cast him to play his brother in the movie The Mountain (1957).
Robert met his love, actress Natalie Wood, and married her in 1956. He was 26 and she was 18. The glittering union was met with hardship as Natalie was placed on a 14-month suspension with Warner Brothers for refusing to do a movie in England.
They had overstepped their finances by moving into a Beverly Hills mansion. Robert was competing for roles against top names like Marlon Brando and Paul Newman. Gossip and Natalie’s obsession with Warren Beatty eventually destroyed their first marriage in 1963.
After the divorce, Robert moved to Europe and made a box-office-hit movie, The Longest Day (1962). He met and married Marion Marshall (1963) and became a father at the age of 34 when his daughter, Kate Wagner (now is a television show host), was born in 1964. Marion and Robert were then divorced in 1970.
Robert started doing television roles reluctantly but they became his true success with the masses. His first venture was It Takes a Thief (1968), Switch (1975) and then his most successful TV series co-staring Stephanie Powers in Hart to Hart (1979) the rich married sleuths of crime. The Hart to Hart series was such a success that seven major movies for television were made based on these characters.
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