Zina Bethune
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Zina Bethune (born February 17, 1945 in New York City) is an American actress, dancer and choreographer. According to her online biography published by Dance Teacher Magazine [1], Bethune started formal ballet training at age 6 at George Balanchine's School of American Ballet. By age 14 she was dancing with the New York City Ballet. As a child performer, she also appeared in several American daytime television dramas, including a memorable stint as the first Robin Lang on The Guiding Light from May 1956 to April 1958. Later in her career, Bethune starred in a memorable role as "The Girl" alongside the young Harvey Keitel's "J. R." in Martin Scorsese's first feature movie Who's That Knocking at My Door. That movie was commercially released in 1967, although much of it (including Bethune's acting parts) was filmed in 1965 for Scorsese's film project at New York University (NYU). Zina also was featured (with Shirl Conway) on the TV series (CBS) The Nurses, 1962-1965. The program became a soap opera also on daytime TV in 1966. She was also featured on many TV shows in the 1960's, Route 66, Pantomime Quiz, Hollywood Squares, Young Dr. Malone, Dr. Kildare, etc.
Throughout her life, Bethune has worked with disabled students. She herself was diagnosed with scoliosis at age 11 and at 17 she was diagnosed with hip dysplasia.
In 1980 Bethune founded Bethune Theatredanse, a multimedia performance company which has been designated as the official resident company of the Los Angeles Theatre Center. In 1982 she founded Dance Outreach, (now known as Infinite Dreams) which currently enrolls about 1,000 disabled children in dance-related activities throughout Southern California.
