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Best Known For ’50s Cult Classic ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers,’ Golden Globe Winner Who Guest-Starred on Scores of TV Shows Dead at 79

May 9, 2011  •  Post A Comment

An actress who received lasting fame in her first leading role in a movie has died at age 79 of congestive heart failure at a hospital in Ojai, Calif., according to a number of media reports. Dana Wynter passed away Thursday, May 5, 2011.

The movie that most people remember Wynter from is the 1956 classic "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." Wynter, then 24, played the girlfriend of the movie’s lead actor, the late Kevin McCarthy. McCarthy died last September, at age 96.

Wynter won a Golden Globe for her role in "Invasion" as "Most Promising Newcomer," an award she shared that year with Anita Ekberg and Victoria Shaw, according to IMDb.com.

Dating from the early days of live TV, Wynter was in far more TV shows than movies.

According to The Washington Post, "She continued to appear regularly on television into the 1980s. She co-starred with Robert Lansing in the 1960s series  The Man Who Never Was’ and acted in series including ‘Wagon Train,’ ‘The Love Boat,’ ‘Magnum, P.I.,’ and ‘Cannon.’"

"She most enjoyed acting live on television, she once told an interviewer, as she did for several years in the late 1950s on the program ‘Playhouse 90.’ ‘I can’t begin to describe the adrenaline rush, the excitement. Because there was jeopardy,’ she said. ‘If anything went wrong, there were all those people looking in.’ "

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