Lana Wood

Über Lana Wood

Svetlana Gurdin, professionally known as Lana Wood, was born on March 1, 1946, and is an accomplished American actress and film producer. She gained widespread recognition for her portrayal of the character Plenty O'Toole in the 1971 James Bond installment Diamonds Are Forever. Her older sister achieved stardom as actress Natalie Wood.

Lana's parents were Russian immigrants Nikolai Stephanovich Zakharenko and Maria Stepanovna Zakharenko, born in 1912 and 1912 respectively, who lived until 1980 and 1996. Both had fled Russia as young refugees during the Russian Civil War. Her father's family departed Vladivostok when his father, a chocolate factory employee involved with anti-Bolshevik forces, died in a 1918 street confrontation. They eventually settled in Vancouver before relocating to San Francisco. Her maternal grandfather operated soap and candle manufacturing operations in Barnaul and similarly escaped Russia with his family in 1918 following the death of his eldest son at Red Army hands. He established himself in Harbin, China's Russian enclave, where Maria married and gave birth to Olga Tatulova in 1928; her first husband passed away in May 2015. When Maria and Nikolai married, Olga joined their household. The couple subsequently had two daughters together. Their first daughter was named Natalia, using the Russian diminutive "Natasha." After settling in Santa Monica near Hollywood, the family adopted the surname Gurdin. Svetlana, nicknamed "Lana," was born there. When Natalie commenced her childhood acting career, her parents changed her surname to Wood. Natalie was named after director Irving Pichel's acquaintance Sam Wood. Upon Lana's film debut in The Searchers during 1956, her mother chose to credit her daughter using the Wood surname, leveraging the established recognition Natalie had already built.