Celebrity Biographies
Linda Lawson
She gave life to an enigmatic woman who could hide her status as a mermaid in “Night Tide” from 1961. Actress Linda Lawson has died at the age of 86 of natural causes at the Los Angeles Film and Television Retirement Home, the May 18.
Born Linda Spaziani on June 5, 1936, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, to Italian immigrant parents, Linda Lawson was the youngest of three children. After attending high school in California, she moved with her sister Diana to Las Vegas, where she debuted as a ballroom dancer and singer at The Sands Hotel, opening for stars like Frank Sinatra .
After moving to Los Angeles a few years later, Linda Lawson took a low-paying job as a courier for the MGM studio before taking up acting on screen. Her early credits in the late 1950s and ’60s included episodes of Tales of the Texas Rangers , the adventure series Border Patrol , the comedy western Maverick , and the thriller Mr. Lucky . She gradually landed her recurring roles on Adventures in Paradise and The Aquanauts .
Linda Lawson married producer John Foreman in 1958. The couple had two daughters, fellow actresses Amanda Foreman and Julie Foreman, and they were together until his death in 1992. In 1960, she released the album Introducing Linda Lawson . As a singer, she has also appeared on several compilation albums.
In 1961, Linda Lawson starred in her best-known film, Night Tide , by writer-director Curtis Harrington . Lawson played Maura, a mysterious mermaid, opposite Dennis Hopper . She later appeared in the series Bonanza and Alfred Hitchcock Presents , and in films such as the thriller Let’s Kill Uncle and the comedy-drama Sunset Strip .