DANA WYNTER, who starred in “Invasion of the Body Snatchers" has died at age 79 in Southern California.
The raven tressed beauty actress died Thursday in Ojai of congestive heart failure, her son told the LA Times.
Wynter, was best known for her role as Becky Driscoll in director Don Siegel's classic about people being replaced by duplicates grown from extraterrestrial plant-like pods.
The film was a often cited as a parable about the dangers of McCarthyism of the 1950s and the rapidly encroaching dehumanization of modern life, a metaphoric disintegration into soulless, emotionless automatons devoid of imagination and love.
After fleeing with Kevin McCarthy from the outbreak, Dana's character falls prey to the horror when she falls asleep. In a heartwrenching sequence, McCarthy kisses Dana as she awakes- only to discover that she too, has become an emotionless pod.
Dana was a regular with Robert Lansing in two ABC series "Twelve O'Clock High” and “The Man Who Never Was” and was all over the TV landscape of the 1960s and 1970s appearing on “The Invaders”, "Hawaii Five-O, "Wagon Train," "Cannon" and "The Rockford Files"among others.
Feature films included “Sink the Bismark!”, “Airport” and "D-Day, The Sixth of June”.
Au revoir, Dana.
