Sonya Wilde

Sonya Wilde is an American former actress born on November 2, 1937, in Candler, North Carolina. She is best known for her starring role in the 1960 film I Passed for White and for her work on Broadway in the original production of West Side Story.

Wilde's Broadway career spanned from 1957 to 1960. Her stage work centered on West Side Story, in which she served as an understudy and replacement in the role of Maria. The production marked her entry into professional performance and established her connection to one of the era's most prominent musicals.

Her film work followed her Broadway tenure. In 1960, Wilde took the lead role in I Passed for White, a film for which she became particularly recognized. That same year, she began appearing on television, with credits including Bonanza, Cheyenne, and Death Valley Days. Her television work continued into 1961, when she appeared in The Americans, Gunslinger, Perry Mason, and Rawhide, the last of which featured her as White Deer in the episode "The Lost Tribe," the fifth episode of the fourth season.

In her personal life, Wilde met banker Jake Butcher on a blind date on New Year's Eve 1961 and married him in 1962. The couple had four children. Butcher later entered politics before receiving a 20-year prison sentence in 1985 for bank fraud, of which he served seven years. In 1986, Wilde pursued legal action in an effort to retain the family's $675,000 home in the Sweetwater Club subdivision outside Orlando.