She made me cry and laugh in lots of films so she was able to get a rise out of people and was a very professional, beautiful actress.
I just love it when people come here and bash her who haven't accomplished one quarter of one ounce of what she did in her life. Jealousy, that's all.

Natalie was not a great actress, but she was good enough to play this role.
That's spot-on, pontevedro! Thanks.

I hope you feel better now.
I never liked Wood much anyhow, she did not even look like Juliet (Olivia Hussey did)
Pretty stupid thing to say. Juliet and Maria are not the same person.
Juliet: 13 year old Italian. Juliet has pale skin.
Maria: 16-18 year old Puerto Rican. Maria has darker skin.
But there's really not much of a physical description of Juliet in the Shakespeare's play. So I'm not sure how you would know that Olivia Hussey looked like Juliet. Of course, in the original production Juliet would have been played by an English boy or young man who presumably did not really look all that much like Juliet either.
[Just as an aside - you compare Natalie unfavorably to Judy Garland in the Wizard of Oz, but you have to know that Judy didn't really look much like Dorothy in the Oz books.]
Natalie was cast as Maria because they thought they needed a box office draw. Natalie was not a great actress, but she was good enough to play this role.

I could not agree more with OP. In fact not just Natalie but this whole movie STUNK! I think people think she is a great actress because she died so early, lol. How stupid is that? Only people who are gonna love it are clueless teenagers with stupid dreams of getting married with a prince charming who looks like Richard or bored housewives who hate their husbands. I don't see any genuinely intelligent person who has grown to love the original play of Shakespeare finding it as anything less than travesty; thankfully the Bard didn't live to watch it. Morons posting here about how great this is should read the original play then watch Franco Zeffirelli's movie to see how Romeo and Juliet actually behaved (they certainly did not behave like numbskulls as they do in this movie).
I never liked Wood much anyhow, she did not even look like Juliet (Olivia Hussey did), and on top of that, she was so beep WOODEN in every movie she starred in - I guess she'd got a real good manager for herself who brought her such terrific roles even though she herself was, ironically, so terrible in them. And when such stinking pile of poop gets a rating of 8 on imbd, you can be confident that the country is beep Rita Moreno was the only good thing about this movie: she tried hard to bring a semblance of reality into this dumb movie. Oh and I have never heard more boring songs in my life; so far as musicals are concerned I would any day watch Wizard of Oz than this - at least Judy Garland sang her own songs (oh and she too died early, but was a much BETTER actress than the 'WOODEN' Wood)! All the while I basically TOLERATED (rather than enjoyed) this boring movie because I was waiting to stumble upon at least ONE clue that would tell me why this movie is rated so high here. Boy, was I disappointed!

This whole film stinks.
To each their own, Feologlid! I, along most people here on this board, disagree with you, that's all.

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They obviously didn't see the same movie we did.
"DON'T YOU TOUCH HIM!!!!!"
If that is "wooden", I'm Whistler's Mother.