Cindy Robbins

Cindy Robbins, born Cynthia Robichaux in Hammond, Louisiana, is an American actress, producer, and writer whose career spans from the mid-1950s through the 1980s and beyond. Of French descent, Robbins grew up in a household shaped by performance: her mother ran a dancing school in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and Robbins began dancing at age five. When she was eight, her family relocated to California. During her years at Glendale High School, her focus shifted from dance to acting, and in 1952 she represented the school at an annual drama festival. She has four sisters.

Robbins made her entertainment debut at age eleven in Ken Murray's Blackouts. Her Broadway career ran from 1954 to 1959, during which she took on two named roles. She played Molly Belmont in By the Beautiful Sea in 1954 and Janice Dawson in Happy Town in 1959. She also appeared in a lead role in The Vacant Lot at the La Jolla Playhouse.

Her television work began in 1955 with the Brave Eagle episode Moonfire, a western series. The role she became most recognized for on television was Carol Porter, one of the daughters in the single-season situation comedy The Tom Ewell Show, which aired from 1960 to 1961. She made two guest appearances on Perry Mason, portraying Teddi Hart in the 1960 episode "The Case of the Treacherous Toupee" and Mabel Richmond in the 1962 episode "The Case of Melancholy Marksman." In 1960, she appeared as a ballerina in the Tightrope! episode "Bullets and Ballet." Her television credits spanned multiple genres, including comedy series such as Father Knows Best, Leave It to Beaver, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, and Ensign O'Toole; westerns including Wagon Train and The Tall Man; military and action programs such as Steve Canyon, Whirlybirds, and Harbor Command; and dramas including Dragnet and Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse. Her final television acting credit came in 1964 on McHale's Navy.

Between 1957 and 1959, Robbins appeared in several films. She played Pearl, Vic's Girl in I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957), Sylvia in the Sal Mineo drama Dino (1957), Vougette #1 in Rockabilly Baby (1957), and the Bride in the Joel McCrea western Gunsight Ridge (1957). In 1959 she appeared as Buz Dietrick in This Earth Is Mine, a Rock Hudson drama set in California wine country.

In the mid-1980s, Robbins moved into producing and writing for television. She produced and wrote several ABC Weekend Specials, among them an adaptation of Pippi Longstocking, as well as a CBS Schoolbreak Special. In 1984 she worked as a writer on the animated series Heathcliff & the Catillac Cats.

On November 27, 1965, Robbins married New Jersey singer-songwriter Tommy Leonetti in Beverly Hills, California. She has one child, actress Kimberly Beck.