RIP Dana Wynter (1931-2011)

Actress Dana Wynter, who was best known for her role as Becky Driscoll in director Don Siegel‘s 1956 sci-fi classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers, has died of congestive heart failure at the age of 79.according to The Hollywood Reporter

I recall seeing her in Shake Hands With The Devil with James Cagney, with my Mom on TV (Cagney was Mom's favorite film star)

Though she was born in Germany, Wynter was British, raised in the UK until the age of 16, when her father, a respected surgeon went to Morocco to perform an operation. While there, he visited friends in Zimbabwe and ultimately ended up moving his family there shortly afterwards

Despite plans to enter the medical field and follow in her father’s footsteps, a love of drama and the theatre saw her return to the UK in the hopes of starting an acting career.

Other notable films include Henry Koster's D-Day the Sixth of June, with Robert Taylor and Richard Todd; Sink the Bismarck! John Huston's The List of Adrian Messenger, with George C. Scott  opposite Rock Hudson and Sidney Poitier in Something of Value ; and Arthur Hiller's all-star blockbuster Airport that bean a sub-genre throughout the decade we have not seen since.

Her TV credits were quite extensive ... such as The Man Who Never Was, Wagon Train, Cannon and The Rockford Files...and others

As a sci-fi geek though the original Snatchers is the one Wynter pic I will remember most..