Carol Lynley, a stage and screen actress who starred in the “The Poseidon Adventure” and appeared in numerous other film and television series, has died. She was 77.
Lynley’s daughter Jill Selsman said Friday her mother died in her sleep Tuesday in Los Angeles.
The actress had a lengthy Hollywood career, earning a Golden Globe nomination as a newcomer for the 1959 film “Blue Denim” about a teenager seeking an abortion. It was a role she originated on Broadway.
Lynley appeared in more than 100 films and television series, but her best-known role was as pop singer Nonnie Parry in 1972’s “The Poseidon Adventure.” Her character performs the song “The Morning After,” although the vocals were dubbed. The song went on to win an Academy Award.
She also starred in 1961’s “Return to Peyton Place,” playing an author whose book revealing her New Hampshire hometown’s secrets causes her and her family trouble.
She had numerous guest appearances on television series including “Fantasy Island,” ”The Love Boat” and “Hawaii Five-O.”
“She loved working in film and much as she loved going to the movies,” Selsman said in an email. She said her mother took her to all sorts of films when she was a growing up.
Selsman, who has her own video production company, described her mother as “bon vivant” and as someone who “loved to dance, going to the ballet, seeing anything on Broadway.”
Lynley, who was born in New York, started out as a child model and was profiled by Life magazine and appeared on its cover when she was 15 years old and starring in the Broadway production “The Potting Shed.”
