Linda Lawson

Linda Lawson was a singer/actress who enjoyed a busy career from the end of the 1950s until the start of the 1970s. Born in Ann Arbor, MI, in 1936, she was three when her family moved to Fontana, CA, and she began singing while still a child. By the end of her teen years, she'd turned professional and had even managed to land an engagement at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas. Her singing and her memorably dark, voluptuous good looks, coupled with some natural acting ability, led to Lawson getting roles on such series as 77 Sunset Strip, Maverick, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, One Step Beyond, M Squad, The Rifleman, and Sea Hunt in her early twenties, and she made the jump to feature films in 1960 with a role in the thriller The Threat. She also found time to record an excellent jazz-pop album during this period, but eventually acting supplanted singing as the focus of her career. Lawson's best screen role was in her second film, as the doomed, tormented Mora in Curtis Harrington's hauntingly beautiful Night Tide (1961). She remained busy throughout the 1960s, including a regular role on Adventures in Paradise for one season, and on series such as The Virginian, interspersed with occasional feature-film work, and she married producer John Foreman (1925-1992), who subsequently became business partners with actor Paul Newman. Lawson's last major screen role was in Newman's Sometimes a Great Notion (1971). She wasn't seen on the screen for several decades after that, but her daughters, Julie Foreman and Amanda Foreman, entered the movie business during the start of the 21st century; Lawson was seen again onscreen in the made-for-television feature Another Woman's Husband (2000) and in a 2005 episode of ER.

~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide