Biography

Diana Hyland, a striking, knowing beauty with a confident air about her, was born Joan Diana Gentner on January 25, 1936, in Ohio and appeared on stage in summer stock, as a teen, before graduating from Cleveland Heights High School. Moving to New York in 1955, aged 19, to test her acting mettle, the slim-faced, honey-blonde actress began to find TV roles almost immediately (one of her first being a Robert Montgomery Presents (1950) episode) in-between supplementing her income as a switchboard operator. Initially billed as Diane Gentner, she changed it to Diana Hyland.

Following a tour of the play, "Look Back in Anger", she broke through quite impressively on the Broadway boards as the damaged (by a long-ago tryst with the lead male character) ingénue of a dangerously powerful Southern politician in the acclaimed 1959 Tennessee Williams production of "Sweet Bird of Youth", starring Paul Newman and Geraldine Page. Her role of "Heavenly Finley" could have made her a film star, had she been allowed to take it to the big screen, but Shirley Knight was given the role in the somewhat sanitized film version.

In the early 1960s, she focused on the small screen with strong, emotional roles on such soaps as Young Dr. Malone (1958) and Peyton Place (1964) (in a particularly showy role as a minister's alcoholic wife). She also scored well in a series of guest parts, notably The Twilight Zone (1959), The Fugitive (1963), The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1962) and Alcoa Premiere (1961), the last for which she received an Emmy nomination. She was a particularly sought-after presence on medical shows, as well, spicing up such popular tearjerkers as Ben Casey (1961), Dr. Kildare (1961), Marcus Welby, M.D. (1969), The Doctors (1963), The Nurses (1962), and Medical Center (1969).

She made noticeably few films during her career, her best showcase being that of the unconventional minister's wife opposite Don Murray's Rev. Norman Vincent Peale in One Man's Way (1964). In addition to a small, downbeat supporting turn in The Chase (1966) starring Marlon Brando, Robert Redford and Jane Fonda, she also co-starred with Fess Parker in the routine western yarn, Smoky (1966). Remaining focused on television, she continued to brightened up that medium into the 1970s, the last decade of her too-short life, with an emphasis on crime dramas (Kojak (1973), Harry O (1973), Cannon (1971), Mannix (1967), etc).

In 1969, Hyland married actor Joseph Goodson. The couple had one son, Zachary Goodson (born 1973). The couple eventually split. A highly independent, intelligent and outspoken woman in real-life, she subsequently began a May-December affair with actor John Travolta in 1976. Travolta, who was 18 years Diana's junior, had just come into his own in the sitcom, Welcome Back, Kotter (1975). The two met while appearing together in the TV-movie, The Boy in the Plastic Bubble (1976). John played the special-needs title role and Diana, along with Robert Reed, were cast as his parents. Interestingly, around that time, Diana was cast as a sophisticated wealthy woman who has designs on the much younger "Fonz" in the early 1977 Happy Days (1974) episode, Fonzie's Old Lady (1977).

Around that time, she won the regular role of Dick Van Patten's wife, "Joan Bradford", mother to a large brood (of 8 children), in the upcoming family series, Eight Is Enough (1977). Career-wise, things couldn't have looked more promising for the actress. Sadly, it would be a short-lived celebration. A couple of years earlier, Diana had been diagnosed with breast cancer. Despite undergoing a mastectomy, the cancer returned around Christmas time of 1976 and the disease spread rapidly. The 41-year-old actress died a few months later, on March 27, 1977, having shot just four episodes of her new series. The rest of the episodes during that first season explained her absence as her character being "away". When the series returned that fall, it was revealed that her character ("Joan Bradford") had also died. The second season was then devoted to having Dick Van Patten's widower character return to the dating scene and eventually remarrying.

With her terribly untimely death, Hollywood lost a truly superb actress. In a most fitting tribute, the actress was awarded a posthumous Emmy for her touching supporting performance in The Boy in the Plastic Bubble (1976). John Travolta accepted on her behalf at the awards ceremony.
- IMDb mini biography by: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net