Diane McBain died of liver cancer today at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California. McBain rose to fame quickly as a young Warner Bros. contract player in the early 1960s, starring in the A.B.C. series Surfside 6 and co-starring opposite Elvis Presley in 1966’s Spinout. She was 81 years old.
Her buddy Michael Gregg Michaud broke the news of her passing. McBain and Michaud co-authored Famous Enough, her book published in 2014.
Michaud stated on social media, “It is with great regret that I tell Diane McBain lost her battle with liver cancer and died away on December 21, 2022.”
According to Michaud, McBain secured a seven-year deal with Warner Brothers Studios on her 18th birthday in 1959 after being discovered by a talent scout while working as a model. The same year, she made her television debut on the A.B.C. series Maverick, starring James Garner.
The following year, she was cast as yacht-owning socialite Daphne Dutton on A.B.C.’s Surfside 6, a two-season Miami Beach-based crime series starring Troy Donahue, Van Williams, and Lee Patterson.
The actress rose to fame in the 60s
In 1961, she portrayed Claudelle Inglish in the film Claudelle Inglish, which she always recalled as her favourite part — a rare instance of the young actress portraying a decent girl gone evil.
Williams, and in 1966 as a hat store lady collaborating with guest villain Mad Hatter (David Wayne).
Other television appearances include, among others, Sugarfoot, Lawman, Hawaiian Eye, 77 Sunset Strip, Burke’s Law, The Wild Wild West, and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. In Spinout, she played Diana St. Clair, an author who would stop at nothing in her pursuit of profiling the famed racing car driver and singer Mike McCoy (Presley).
“Women have asked me many times what it was like to kiss Elvis,” McBain said in an interview last year with Boomer Magazine, “and I tell them it was just as wonderful as you would imagine! He was charming and a lovely person to work with. He didn’t come on to me, which I appreciated because so many did throughout my career.”
She had to confront dreadful calamity in her lifetime
After appearing in a 2001 episode of Strong Medicine, she withdrew from performing.
McBain spoke openly about a brutal incident in which she was beaten and raped by two guys on Christmas Day, 1982, in West Hollywood. She would later become an advocate for rape victims and begin a second career as a psychotherapist for rape victims. She would subsequently claim that the incident would have a permanent effect on her memory and concentration. In a 1990 interview, she stated, “I’m still disproportionately shocked.”
She detailed the experience, as well as the highs and lows of her Hollywood career, in her candid memoir Famous Enough. She also authored two novels: The Laughing Bear (2020) and The Color of Hope (2019). (2021).
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