The actress of 1980 TV movie 'Haywire' dies at the age of 59 at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles after a year of battle against the deadly disease.
- Nov 24, 2012
AceShowbiz - Hollywood is in sorrow as one of its actresses, Deborah Raffin, passed away on Wednesday, November 21 at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles. She was 59 years old. According to her brother, William, the actress had been battling leukemia for a year.
Some of the Dove Books-on-Tape founder's friends pay tribute to her on Twitter. Book author Dakota Cassidy tweeted on Friday, November 23, "Deborah Raffin died? Damn. Blessings to her family."
Actor Bruce Boxleitner wrote down on Twitter on the same day, "Good morning, I am saddened today the news of my friend Deborah Raffin's passing away .I worked with her in 'the last convertible'.RIP:-(."
A school counselor in Northern California and Educational Activist, JP De Oliveira, also grieved her death, saying, "Deborah Raffin passed on Wednesday. Prayers to her family. May she rest in peace."
Deborah made her acting debut when she starred in TV movie "Of Men and Women" in 1973. She then played in other 70s and 80s movies such as "40 Carats", "Once Is Not Enough", "The Ransom", and "Touched by Love". She was best known as actress Brooke Hayward in 1980's TV movie "Haywire".
In mid-1980s, together with former husband Michael Viner, she began Dove Books-on-Tape in their garage as a hobby. It turned out to be a very successful audio book industry. Among the audio books they published were "The Naked Face", "You'll Never Make Love in This Town Again", Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" as well as Faye Resnick's book about Nicole Brown Simpson.
The publisher also published best-selling non-fiction books such as "Anatomy of an Illness" and "The Healing Heart" by Norman Cousins. Jason Robards and William Conrad lent their voice for the books. The likes of Burt Reynolds, Elliot Gould, Roger Moore, and Ruby Dee also became the voice on other Dove's audiobooks.
Aside from her career as an actress, she kept challenging herself to do other things. "I enjoy acting," Deborah stated to the Riverside Press-Enterprise in 1996. "But I've never been driven to just act. I've always had a desire to produce, to be in control of my own destiny, to be able to find material and develop it," she added.
