Born Dagmar Wynter, 8 June 1931 Berlin, Germany
Died 5 May 2011 (aged 79) Ojai, California, U.S. Years active 1951–1993
Spouse Greg Bautzer (1956-1981; divorced) 1 child
Personal life
Wynter divorced her only husband, celebrity attorney Greg Bautzer, in 1981. She and Bautzer had one child — Mark Ragan Bautzer, born on 29 January 1960. Wynter, once called Hollywood's "oasis of elegance", divided her time between her homes in California and Glendalough, County Wicklow, Ireland. In the late 1980s Wynter authored the column "Grassroots" for the newspaper The Guardian in London. Writing in both California and Ireland, her works concentrated mainly on life in both locations leading her to use the titles Irish Eyes and California Eyes for a number of her publications.July 2008 saw Wynter involved in a legal dispute over the proceeds of the sale of a €125,000 Paul Henry painting, "Evening on Achill Sound". The painting, which hung in the family home in County Wicklow, was said to have been bought for her in 1996 by her son, Mark Bautzer, as a gift.The dispute was resolved in the High Court in 2009.Wynter began her cinema career in 1951, playing small roles, often uncredited, in British films. One such was Lady Godiva Rides Again (1951) in which other future leading ladies, Kay Kendall, Diana Dors and oan Collins played similarly small roles. She was appearing in the play Hammersmith when an American agent told her he wanted to represent her. She was again uncredited when she played Morgan Le Fay's servant in the MGM film, Knights of the Round Table (1953). Wynter left for New York on 5 November 1953, Guy awkes Day (which commemorates a failed attempt in 1605 to blow up the Parliament building). "There were all sorts of fireworks going off", she later told an interviewer, "and I couldn't help thinking it was a fitting send-off for my departure to the New World".
1951 Lady Godiva Rides Again
1952 The Woman's Angle
1952 The Crimson Pirate
1952 It Started in Paradise
1953 Knights of the Round Table
1955 The View from Pompey's Head
1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers
1956 D-Day the Sixth of June
1957 Something of Value
1958 Fräulein
1958 In Love and War
1959 Shake Hands with the Devil
1960 Sink the Bismarck!
1961 On the Double
1963 The List of Adrian Messenger
1968 Companions in Nightmare
1970 Airport
1973 Santee
Dana Wynter, best known for her role in "Body Snatchers," appeared in numerous TV and film projects. The science-fiction film became a cult classic partly because of its "McCarthy-era subtext," film critic Leonard Maltin wrote. Her son, Mark Bautzer, told the Los Angeles Times the actress died Thursday in Ojai of congestive heart failure. "Wynter is quite attractively English, and very different from the 'average' sci-fi leading ladies of the '50s, many of whom were pinup girl-types none too convincingly playing scientists or biologists," Tom Weaver, a science-fiction film expert, told The Times on Saturday in an email. "She's chic and smart, and yet has a bit of a girl next door quality — provided you live next door to Windsor Castle."