Deborah Raffin

American actress (1953–2012)

Deborah Iona Raffin (March 13, 1953 – November 21, 2012) was an American actress, model and audiobook publisher.

Raffin was born in Los Angeles to actress Trudy Marshall and Phillip Jordan Raffin, a restaurateur and business executive. Her father was Jewish, and her mother was Christian.

Like her mother, Raffin appeared as a model on numerous magazine covers including 'Teen, Seventeen and Good Housekeeping in the 1970s and 1980s and acted in several 1970s Hollywood films. She co starred with Joseph Bottoms in the Gregory Peck produced film The Dove (1974). Her 1976 television movie, Nightmare in Badham County, became a theatrical hit in mainland China, making Raffin a star there and leading to her later becoming the first Western actress ever to undertake a movie promotion tour in that country. She was nominated for both a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress and a Razzie Award for Worst Actress for her performance in Touched by Love in 1981. That same year, she starred in the TV series adaptation of the hit 1978 film Foul Play, in which she and Barry Bostwick took over the roles played by Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase. In 1988, she starred in James Clavell's Noble House with Pierce Brosnan. In 1991, she appeared as Julie Vale, a telepath, in the cult film Scanners II: The New Order alongside actor David Hewlett. She later appeared as Julie Camden Hastings on the television show 7th Heaven from 1996 to 2005, and as Dr. Hightower in the ABC Family series The Secret Life of the American Teenager from 2008 to 2010.

Raffin married film producer Michael Viner in 1974. The couple later became audiobook publishers.

On November 21, 2012, Raffin died from leukemia at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, one year after being diagnosed with cancer. She was 59 years old.