From Wikipedia. Born to a U.S. Navy commander and swimming and diving coach father (John H. Wagner) and a mother (Rudy Arnold Wagner) who was a champion skier, Wagner grew up on Coronado Island in California and lived in nearly all the Continental United States with her family's various naval postings.[citation needed]

While living in Coronado, California, with her family, Billy Wilder, then filming Some Like It Hot, saw Wagner swimming and offered her a screen test. Her parents forbade it until she completed her senior year at Coronado High School. Some Like It Hot was filmed at the Hotel del Coronado as well as on the Coronado beaches. After graduating, she visited Wilder and did a screen test, but turned down a role in The Apartment.