Diana Millay

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Diana Millay (born June 7, 1940 in Rye, New York) is an American actress. She is best known for her work in television, having guest starred in close to 200 primetime TV shows and later played continuing roles on two daytime offerings, Dark Shadows and The Secret Storm.

Diana started her career as a model, first as a child for the Montgomery Ward catalog, and later as a top Conover model for John Robert Powers.

Every year during high school summer vacation, Diana appeared in summer stock productions, playing leading or featured roles in classic stage productions such as Our Hearts Were Young and Gay, The Girl on the Via Flaminia, Come Back, Little Sheba, Time of the Cuckoo, The Seven Year Itch, Ladies in Retirement, Bell, Book and Candle, Time Out for Ginger, Picnic, The Little Foxes, Tobacco Road, Life With Father and many more. In total, Diana appeared in seven seasons of summer stock. In 1957, Broadway came calling and Diana starred opposite Sam Levene and Ellen Burstyn in Fair Game. Subsequently, Diana's Broadway appearances include Drink to Me Only opposite Tom Poston, Roger the Sixth opposite Alan Alda, The Glass Rooster opposite Michael Allinson and Boeing Boeing opposite Ian Carmichael. In addition, Diana spent a year touring the United States and Canada opposite Henry Morgan in The Seven Year Itch.

Diana's first film role was in the United Artist's movie Street of Sinners, opposite George Montgomery. Her other film credits include Paramount's Tarzan and the Great River opposite Mike Henry & Jan Murray and MGM's Night of Dark Shadows opposite David Selby.

Diana began her extensive television career just five days before her 15th birthday when she guest starred on Star Tonight in an episode entitled "Taste". She continued to appear in other "live" productions such as Robert Montgomery Presents, Kraft Television Theatre, Studio One, U.S. Steel Hour, Omnibus, Pond's Theatre, Philco Television Playhouse, Playhouse 90, and many others. Her filmed television credits include guest star roles on most of the major shows that were running during the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, including Father Knows Best, My Three Sons, Gunsmoke, Bonanza, The Virginian, Arrest and Trial, 77 Sunset Strip, Perry Mason, Rawhide, Tales of Wells Fargo, Wagon Train, Laramie, Route 66, Hawaiian Eye, The Rifleman, Thriller, Maverick, The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, Dobie Gillis, The Westerner, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and many others. Diana made three pilot films for prospective new TV series', Slezak and Son, Boston Terrier and Las Vegas Beat.

In November 1966, executive producer Dan Curtis offered Diana the contract role of "Laura Collins" on his ABC-TV daytime series, the cult classic Dark Shadows. She became the show's first supernatural character, playing an immortal phoenix-woman who is burned in a fire and reborn to spend another 100 years on earth. After her present day incarnation was again consumed in a fire, Diana returned during the flashback story which took place in the 19th century, as yet another reincarnarion of "Laura Collins".

In 1970, Diana was offered another daytime role, this time as "Kitty Styles" on the CBS soap The Secret Storm. Her run on this show provided Diana the opportunity to work once again with former Dark Shadows alumni Robert Costello, who was a producer on both shows and Joel Crothers who played "Joe Haskell" on Dark Shadows and "Ken Stevens" on The Secret Storm.

Diana's interests changed from acting to writing and she has published several books, including I'd Rather Eat Than Act, The Power of Halloween and How to Create Good Luck. She has also been successful in the business world, brokering both fine art and commercial real estate.

Diana is divorced from Broadway producer, Geoffrey Jones, lives in New York City and has one son, Kiley Christopher, born on Diana's birthday, June 7, 1967.