Zina Bianca Bethune was an American actress, dancer, and choreographer.
Early years
Bethune was born on Staten Island, the daughter of Ivy, an actress, and William Charles Bethune, a sculptor and painter who died in 1950 when Zina was 5 years old.
Theater and Dance
Bethune began her formal ballet training aged 6 at George Balanchine's School of American Ballet. By age 14 she was dancing with the New York City Ballet as Clara in the original 1954 Balanchine production of The Nutcracker. Bethune's first professional acting role was at age 6, with a small part in the off-Broadway play Monday's Heroes, produced by Stella Holt at the Greenwich Mews Theater.
Television
As a child performer, Bethune appeared in the original cast of The Most Happy Fella as well as several American daytime television dramas, including a stint as the first "Robin Lang" on The Guiding Light from May 1956 to April 1958. Bethune played President Franklin D. Roosevelt's daughter in Sunrise at Campobello in 1960. Newspaper columnist Dick Kleiner described Bethune's performance in a 1958 television production as a "shatteringly beautiful portrayal of Tennessee Williams' young heroine in This Property Is Condemned." In October 1958, she portrayed Amy March in the CBS musical adaptation of Little Women. She portrayed nurse Gail Lucas on The Nurses, and appeared in other series, including Kraft Television Theatre, Route 66, The Judy Garland Show, Pantomime Quiz, Hollywood Squares, Young Dr. Malone, Dr. Kildare, The Invaders and Emergency!
Film
Bethune starred as "The Girl" alongside Harvey Keitel in Martin Scorsese's first feature film, Who's That Knocking at My Door, released in 1967, although much of it was filmed in 1965 for Scorsese's student film project at New York University.
Other work
Throughout her life, Bethune worked with disabled students. She herself was diagnosed with scoliosis at age 11, and at 17 she was diagnosed with hip dysplasia. Bethune founded Bethune Theatredanse in 1981, a multimedia performance company which has been designated as the official resident company of the Los Angeles Theatre Center. She founded Dance Outreach, now known as Infinite Dreams, in 1982, which currently enrolls about 1,000 disabled children in dance-related activities throughout Southern California.
Death
On February 12, 2012, five days before her 67th birthday, Zina Bethune was killed in an apparent hit and run accident while she was trying to help an injured opossum in Griffith Park, Los Angeles. She was survived by her husband, Sean Feeley, and her mother.
