“Beware of Dark Water”
Much of Maria’s pushiness also stemmed from a meeting she had with a gypsy as a child. Her family had just escaped to China during the Russian Revolution, and her parents took her to get her fortune read. Maria was told that her second daughter would be “a great beauty, known throughout the world.” But the fortune-teller also warned that while she would be beautiful, she would need to “beware dark water.”
So when Natalie was invited to a screen test in Los Angeles as a child, her mother was ecstatic that the prophecy was coming true. Even before Natalie got the part, Maria moved the entire family to the City of Angels.