- Born
- Died
- Birth nameDagmar Winter
- Height1.69 m
- The daughter of a noted surgeon, Dana Wynter was born Dagmar Winter in Berlin, Germany, and grew up in England. When she was 16 her father went to Morocco, reportedly to operate on a woman who wouldn't allow anyone else to attend her; he visited friends in Southern Rhodesia, fell in love with it and brought his daughter and her stepmother to live with him there. Wynter later enrolled as a pre-med student at Rhodes University (the only girl in a class of 150 boys) and also dabbled in theatrics, playing the blind girl in a school production of "Through a Glass Darkly", in which she says she was "terrible."
After a year-plus of studies, she returned to England and shifted gears, dropping her medical studies and turning to an acting career. She was appearing in a play in Hammersmith when an American agent told her he wanted to represent her. She left for New York on November 5, 1953, "Guy Fawkes Day," a holiday commemorating a 1605 attempt 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."
Wynter had more success in New York than in London, acting on TV (Robert Montgomery Presents (1950), Suspense (1949), Studio One (1948), among others) and the stage before "going Hollywood" a short time later. The willowy, dark-eyed actress appeared in over a dozen films, worked in "Golden Age" television (such as Playhouse 90 (1956)) and even co-starred in her own short-lived TV series, the globe-trotting The Man Who Never Was (1966). Married and divorced from well-known Hollywood lawyer Greg Bautzer, Wynter, once called Hollywood's "oasis of elegance", divided her time between homes in California and County Wicklow, Ireland until her death.- IMDb mini biography by: Tom Weaver <TomWeavr@aol.com>
- SpouseGreg Bautzer(June 10, 1956 - January 28, 1981) (divorced, 1 child)
- ChildrenMark Ragan Bautzer
- ParentsJutta Oarda WynterPeter Wynter
- Lived in Southern Rhodesia in the post WWII era and attended Rhodes University in South Africa where she studied medicine.
- In the mid-1980s, she took up journalism and earned her own byline in "The Guardian", an English newspaper. She has since written articles for National Review, Country Living, Image, The Irish Times and other publications.
- Ex-husband Greg Bautzer (1911-1987) (ne Gregson Edward Bautzer) was a hot-shot entertainment divorce lawyer for such stars as Lana Turner and Ingrid Bergman. Prior to his marriage to Dana in 1956, he dated many Hollywood screen stars, including Joan Crawford. Her husband (called "Uncle Greg" in the movie) is actually represented in the cult film Maman très chère (1981).
- Started her career working in the English theater. She was discovered there by an American agent who brought her back to the States to work.
- She pronounced her first name, "Dana", the same as the more familiar name "Donna".
- In my opinion, there aren't as many originals today. Everyone looks the same to me. Where are the Katharine Hepburns, Spencer Tracys, Clark Gables and Bette Davises of today? Those actors were instantly recognizable. Nowadays I have trouble separating one actor from another.
- There seems to be a wide-spread concern among women that they dare not have a line or crease in their face. If they do, they run to the plastic surgeon and their faces wind up looking like dinner plates...Life is an adventure, and time brings change. But women are terrified of aging for some reason. Everyone clings to blonde hair and white teeth. I think that undermines womanhood.
- A lot of actors tend to be careless with women, they treat them just like another Joe. But Chad [Everett] is always very courteous and civilized.
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