Carol Lynley of Another World and ‘The Poseidon Adventure’ Dead at 77

Popular disaster film actress passes away.

Soaps.com is sad to report that Carol Lynley passed away at her Pacific Palisades home Tuesday September 3 after suffering a heart attack. She died peacefully in her sleep. Lynley’s friend and actor Trent Dolan (Baxter Kirby, Dallas) broke the news of her death. She was 77.

Lynley was married to actor and producer Michael Selsman from 1960 until 1964. The marriage produced her only child, her daughter Jill. She also had a long term relationship with English television host, media personality, journalist, comedian, and writer David Frost.

Born in New York, Lynley began her career as Carolyn Lee, a successful child model for the Sears & Roebuck department store in New York. At age 15 she forayed into and discovered there was already an actress going by Carolyn Lee, so she fused the names Lyn and Lee to come up with the last name Lynley. Her first break came when she was cast in the Disney film The Light in the Forest in 1958 after Walt Disney saw her on the April 22, 1957 cover of LIFE magazine. In 1959 she reprised her Broadway role of a naive girl who becomes pregnant and faces the dilemma of confronting her father or having an illegal abortion in the film Blue Denim. Her performance in the film earned her a Golden Globe Award nomination for Most Promising Newcomer in 1959. In 1961 she landed the lead in the film Return to Peyton Place playing best-selling novelist Allison MacKenzie who reveals the town’s darkest secrets and scandals. She also appeared on television shows like Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. However she is best known for the 1972 disaster film The Poseidon Adventure, in which she played singer Nonnie Parry, who is remembered for performing the song The Morning After. She continued to act in smaller roles on television through the seventies and eighties, making several appearances on Fantasy Island. In 1989 she played Judge Martha Dunlay in two episodes of the NBC soap opera Another World. Lynley retired from acting in 2006. Her final role was in Sylvester Stallone’s 2006 short-film Vic.

Lynley is survived by her daughter Jill Selsman and her ex-husband Michael Salesman. Soaps.com sends our condolences to her friends and family. Additionally we invite you to look through a gallery of other soap opera stars we have lost in 2019.