The Return of the Classic Films Obituary Thread

[CBHagman]

54. Actress Gayle Hunnicutt, 80

Stage, screen, and television: Gayle Hunnicutt made her career across media and more than one continent.

She was also part of an ensemble cast in The Legend of Hell House, which might deserve a place on your Halloween film roster.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/sep/03/gayle-hunnicutt-obituary

The acting career of Gayle Hunnicutt, who has died aged 80, could be defined in two acts. As an up-and-coming starlet in Hollywood she was often cast for her stunning beauty. Then, after marrying the British actor David Hemmings, she moved to the UK, where she played big parts in two major television series, The Golden Bowl (1972) and Fall of Eagles (1974).

After a divorce she married the journalist and editor Simon Jenkins, and alongside her acting career became a fixture of the British social scene. She may, though, be best remembered for the final three seasons of Dallas, from 1989 to 1991, in which she played Vanessa Beaumont, an English aristocrat whose long-ago affair with JR Ewing produced a son he had never known existed.

Hunnicutt was born in Texas, not far from Dallas in Fort Worth. Her father, Sam, was a colonel in the army; her mother, Mary (nee Dickerson), gave birth to Gayle while her husband was serving in New Caledonia during the second world war. Her parents did not support her desire to go to college, but she won a scholarship to the University of California, Los Angeles, and paid for her time there with part-time work while studying English and theatre.

IMDB credits:

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0402281/