Diana Lynn

Diana Lynn was an American actress who began as a piano prodigy, taking lessons at four and performing with the Los Angeles Junior Symphony Orchestra while still a child. She first appeared on screen at the keyboard in They Shall Have Music, and Paramount Pictures soon renamed her and handed her parts built around her personality. The comedy she played opposite Ginger Rogers in The Major and the Minor (1942) was well received, and she co-starred with Betty Hutton in Preston Sturges' The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944). She also played Emily Kimbrough in Our Hearts Were Young and Gay. She joined Marie Wilson, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis in My Friend Irma (1949). Later she was Spencer Tracy's daughter in The People Against O'Hara (1951) and the schoolteacher in The Kentuckian (1955), and she took leading television roles. On Broadway in 1964 she replaced Barbara Bel Geddes in Mary, Mary. She died in 1971.