Natalie Wood looking great in a bikini at a pool party, 1960s.
Oh Carol! The 1969 film Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice addressed issues of honesty and fidelity in marriage, and ultimately depicted an attempt at wife-swapping between a fairly liberated couple and their conservative friends. When you realize that Natalie Wood, vixen in a paisley bikini, is in the mix, the stakes seem suddenly a bit higher. Wood played Carol, who had resolved to be totally honest with her husband Bob (Robert Culp) — even about the extramarital affairs they were having. Ted (Elliott Gould) and Alice (Dyan Cannon) weren’t so comfortable with the idea, but in one of those movie-world intellectual conversations that gets real, Alice ends up demanding to swap partners. It works — briefly, and then it doesn’t.