Cinnamon was the beautiful female secret agent who lured and disarmed unsuspecting evil males with her sultry appearance and seductiveness. Pretending to be a "woman in distress" who played easy to get to the bad guys was one of Cinnamon's fortes.
Cinnamon's cover job was as a model and actress, not a stretch for the blue-eyed blonde with full lips and high cheekbones. Barbara brought an elegant sex appeal to her role.
Cinnamon also had superior intelligence and an incredible memory. She was a skilled pick-pocket and was capable of overpowering large men in hand-to-hand combat.
Working with co-star and husband Martin Landau, Barbara became the first actress in television history to win three consecutive Emmys (1967-69) -- an Emmy for Best Dramatic Actress for every season she appeared in "Mission Impossible."
In PBS's "Pioneers of Television" series, Barbara said, "I had the best possible role for a young actress on television. I got to look great, wear wonderful clothes and then be thrown in a prison camp and beg for my life. What more could you want?"
"Mission Impossible," created by producer Bruce Geller, revolved around secret government agents known as Impossible Missions Force (IMF), and was an agency which formed covert operations against foreign governments and enemy organizations.
Geller specifically wrote the Rollin Hand role -- an escape artist, magician, and master of disguise -- for Landau, and "inadvertently wrote The Girl for me," Barbara said. "He didn't realize it until he started testing for it."
"She had to be intelligent," Barbara told interviewer Skip E. Lowe in 1992, describing Cinnamon. "She was not at home stirring a pot and saying 'Yes dear.' Bruce wanted a certain kind of sex appeal mixed with the girl next door.
"It was a hard thing to cast at a time in Hollywood as women were streamed to be either-or and [Geller] wanted this combination."
After the series was aired, the producers were so impressed with Barbara the writers expanded Cinnamon's role.
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Classic TV Beauties 1960s Countdown
BARBARA BAIN as Cinnamon Carter in "Mission Impossible"
However, after the third season Landau became involved in a contract dispute with the show's producers, and the husband and wife team left "Mission Impossible."
Born Millicent Foget in an automobile en route to the hospital in Chicago, Barbara moved to New York as a teenager to become a fashion model and dancer. She took dance classes at Martha Graham's school and studied acting with Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio.
"I was a model, but though I had appeared in 'Vogue' and 'Harpers Bazaar,' I couldn't see modeling leading me anywhere," she told interviewer Jerry Bauer in 1976. "I was fascinated by acting and I enrolled in acting classes" where she met Landau.
"I never dreamed I would become an actress. I was either going to teach or save the world."
In the late 1970s Barbara again teamed up with Landau in the sci-fi series "Space: 1999."
