Man, we seem to be running out of classy damsels nowadays. Dana Wynter, 1950’s starlet, best known for starring as the token distressed heroine in low-budget science-fiction film “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” died May 5 of congestive heart failure in Ojai, California. She was 79.

Born Dagmar Winter in Berlin, 1931, and following a childhood spent between England and Zimbabwe, with a couple of minor stage roles, she moved to Hollywood in 1953. Following the success of the 1956 ‘Body Snatchers,’ Wynter enjoyed a decade of lucrative, if undemanding film roles, as in ‘D-Day the Sixth of June’ and ‘The Man Who Never Was.’

Wynter largely ceded from the camera following the birth of her son, who survives her.

[Washington Post]