Diane McBain was born on May 18 1941 in Cleveland, Ohio. Her family moved to Glendale, California in 1944. As a teenager she did modelling for magazine ads and appeared in television commercials. It was not long before she graduated from high school that she was spotted by a talent scout for Warner Bros. She signed the contract with the studio on her 18th birthday. She made her television debut in 1959 on an episode of Maverick. She played Richard Burton's daughter in her film debut in Ice Palace in 1960. In the late Fifties she guest starred on various Warner Bros. shows in addition to Maverick, including The Alaskans, Sugarfoot, Lawman, and Bourbon Street Beat. It was also in 1960 that she began a two year run playing Daphne Dutton on Surfside Six.
In the Sixties Diane McBain continued to star on Surfside 6 as Daphne. She guest starred on Burke's Law four times and guest starred in two episodes of Batman. She also guest starred on Hawaiian Eye; 77 Sunset Strip; Arrest and Trial; Wendy and Me; Valentine's Day; Kraft Suspense Theatre; Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre; Vacation Playhouse; The Wild Wild West; The Man From U.N.C.L.E.; Love, American Style; Mannix; To Rome with Love; and Land of the Giants. She played the title role in the movie Claudelle Inglish (1961), and also appeared in the movies Parrish (1961), Black Gold (1962), The Caretakers (1963), Mary, Mary (1963), A Distant Trumpet (1964), Spinout (1966), Thunder Alley (1967), Maryjane (1968), The Mini-skirt Mob (1968), Five the Hard Way (1969), and I Sailed to Tahiti with an All Girl Crew (1969).
In the Seventies Miss McBain guest starred on the shows The Mod Squad; The Wide World of Mystery; Police Story; Barbary Coast; Marcus Welby, M.D.; The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams; Hawaii Five-O; and Charlie's Angels. She appeared in the movies Temporada salvaje (1971), Huyendo del halcón (1973), Wicked, Wicked (1973), and The Deathbed Virgin (1974).
In the Eighties Diane McBain had a recurring role on the soap opera Days of Our Lives from 1982 to 1984 and the soap opera General Hospital in 1988. She guest starred on the shows Charlie's Angels; Eight is Enough; Dallas; Matt Houston; Airwolf; Crazy Like a Fox; Knight Rider; and Jake and the Fatman. She appeared in the movies Legend of the Wild (1981) and The Red Fury (1984).
In the Nineties she guest starred on the shows Sabrina the Teenage Witch; Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman; and The Young and the Restless. She appeared in the movies Puppet Master 5 (1994), The Christmas Path (1998), and The Broken Hearts Club: A Romantic Comedy (2000). In the Naughts she appeared in the movie Besotted (2001) and guest starred on the show Strong Medicine.
Diane McBain wrote two novels, The Laughing Bear in 2020 and The Colour of Hope in 2021.
Diane McBain was a very fine actress. She played a number of bad girls in her career, a fact about which she complained in the book Fantasy Femmes of Sixties Cinema by Tom Lisanti. In the book she said, "I wanted to play the ingenue. I could never understand why everyone wanted to play the bitch." While in real life Miss McBain was a kind, gentle woman and nothing like those characters, she did do a good job playing them. She played Dean Jagger's spoiled daughter in Parrish, the vixen of the title of the movie Claudelle Inglish, a snobbish society girl in Mary Mary, and the brutal leader of The Mini-Skirt Mob. While Miss McBain did a good job at playing bad girls, she was also quite capable at other roles. After all, among her best known roles is the eccentric Daphne on Surfside 6. She also played socialite Pinky Pinkston, owner of the Pink Chip Stamp Factory and a rare love interest for Bruce Wayne, on Batman. In The Caretakers she played a caring, gentle nurse. She played a farm owner on whose land oil is found in the movie Black Gold. Diane McBain played these roles as well as, enough better than, her many bad girl roles. Diane McBain was a remarkable actress who could play a wide variety of roles and play all of them well.
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