Lana Wood

About Lana Wood

Lana Wood (born Svetlana Gurdin; March 1, 1946) is an American actress and film producer. She is best known for her role as Plenty O'Toole in the James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever (1971). Her elder sister was film star Natalie Wood.

Wood was born Svetlana Gurdin to Russian immigrant parents, Nikolai Stephanovich Zakharenko (1912–1980) and Maria Stepanovna Zakharenko (née Zudilova, 1912–1996). They had each left Russia as child refugees with their parents following the Russian Civil War, and they grew up far from their homeland. Her father's family left Vladivostok after her grandfather, a chocolate-factory worker who joined the anti-Bolshevik civilian forces, was killed in a street fight in 1918; they settled in Vancouver, British Columbia, with their relatives, then moved to San Francisco. Lana's maternal grandfather owned soap and candle factories in Barnaul; he also left Russia with his family in 1918 after his eldest son was killed by the Red Army, and settled in a Russian community in Harbin, China. Maria married there, and in 1928 had a daughter, Olga Tatulova, with her first husband who died in May 2015.

When Nikolai and Maria married, she brought her daughter Olga to the household. The couple had two daughters together; the first was Natalia, known as "Natasha", the Russian diminutive. The family settled in Santa Monica, California, near Hollywood, and changed their surname to Gurdin. Svetlana, known as "Lana", was born there.

Her parents changed the surname of her elder sister, Natalie to "Wood", after she started her acting career as a child. She was named after her director Irving Pichel's friend Sam Wood.

When Lana made her film debut in The Searchers (1956), her mother was asked under what last name Lana should be credited. Maria agreed to use "Wood" for Lana, building on Natalie's recognized work.

Not to be confused with Lana Woods a retired british transexual porn star