Diana Hyland

Diana Hyland, born Diane Gentner on January 25, 1936, in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, was an American actress whose work spanned stage, film, and television. She was the daughter of John Theodore and Mary Gentner and had one sibling, a brother named John Gorman Gentner. She died on March 27, 1977, in Los Angeles, at the age of 41.

Hyland began her professional acting career in 1955 at age 19, making her debut in an episode of Robert Montgomery Presents. Television work occupied much of the following decade, during which she appeared in guest and supporting capacities on series including Naked City, The Eleventh Hour, The Fugitive, The Invaders, The Green Hornet, and The Twilight Zone. From 1958 to 1963, she held a regular role on the NBC daytime soap opera Young Doctor Malone, playing Gig Houseman, the wife of the younger Dr. Malone.

Her Broadway career began in 1959, when she originated the role of Heavenly Finley in Tennessee Williams' Sweet Bird of Youth, appearing alongside Geraldine Page and Paul Newman. Her feature film debut came in 1963 with One Man's Way, in which she played the wife of Norman Vincent Peale. In 1966, she appeared in Smoky, playing Julie Richards, owner of the Rockin' R Ranch, opposite Fess Parker, and that same year she was cast in The Chase alongside Marlon Brando, Jane Fonda, and Robert Redford. Also in 1966, she appeared in two episodes of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., titled "The Candidate's Wife Affair" and "The Nowhere Affair."

Hyland joined the cast of the prime-time soap opera Peyton Place from 1968 to 1969, playing the recurring character Susan Winter. In 1976, she appeared in the television movie The Boy in the Plastic Bubble, a role for which she received a posthumous Emmy Award. That same project brought her into contact with actor John Travolta, who was 18 years her junior and whom she had played opposite as his mother; the two began a romantic relationship following the production. She subsequently joined the cast of the series Eight Is Enough, co-starring with Dick Van Patten, but appeared in only five episodes before her death. Her character, Joan Bradford, was written out of the series after she died.

In her personal life, Hyland married actor Joe Goodson on April 24, 1969. The couple had one son, Zachary, born in July 1973, and divorced in August 1974. Hyland had been diagnosed with breast cancer in 1975 and underwent a mastectomy and chemotherapy, but the disease continued to spread. She died on March 27, 1977, with Travolta, Dick Van Patten, and Van Patten's wife Patty present at her side.