Lynda inherited Cinnamon Carter's role as the Impossible Missions Force (IMF) femme fatale, the operative who utilized her sex appeal to fight the evil crooks.
Lesley Ann Warren first succeeded Cinnamon (Barbara Bain) for one season before Lynda stepped in as the lead female secret agent for the final two seasons (1971-73). Casey, as she was always called, was a cosmetologist, a makeup artist who was notorious for performing mask tricks.
Casey was an expert in voice imitation and often impersonated girlfriends of gang members. She was skilled in hand-to-hand combat and picking pockets, and was also known to seduce an enemy agent when she posed as a singer.
When Lynda became pregnant during the filming of the seventh season, the camera often shielded her body so viewers couldn't see that she was carrying a baby, and her absences were explained that she was on assignment in Eastern Europe.
“Mission Impossible” was a popular American drama, airing from 1966-73. The show will always be remembered for its opening: IMF leader Jim Phelps (Peter Graves) listening to an agent on a tape recorder explaining the mission. The voice always told Phelps, “Your mission, should you decide to accept it...” and the agent concluded, “This tape will self-destruct in five seconds. Good luck, Jim.”
.
“I always thought of 'Mission Impossible' as a very Republican show,” Lynda said. “I was more than okay with that, because that's pretty much where I was politically.”
Lynda, who missed the last seven episodes of the final season to take maternity leave, never took herself too seriously.
No. 29
Classic TV Beauties 1970s Countdown
LYNDA DAY GEORGE as Lisa Casey in "Mission Impossible"
“I never kidded myself about what I did as an actress,” she said, according to www.imdb.com. “I never pretended that what I was doing was some great art form.
“When you start thinking you're great, that's when your integrity goes by the wayside...when you start thinking you're bigger and better than the common folk, that's when you lose touch with reality.”
A native of San Marcos, Texas, Lynda modeled for the Eileen Ford Agency in New York before moving to Hollywood to act at age 19.
Known as her maiden name of Lynda Day, she appeared in numerous TV series in the 1960s, including “Mannix,” “The Virginian, “Bonanza,” and the TV pilot for “Cannon” in 1971.
A year before she joined the “Mission Impossible” team, she starred in an “Mission” clone, “The Silent Force.”
After “Mission,” Lynda starred in numerous TV films with actor husband Christopher George, and they worked together on TV episodes of “The F.B.I.,” “McCloud,” and “Love Boat.” Lynda had a memorable role as a Nazi Wonder Woman-type with another Lynda, Lynda Carter, in a “Wonder Woman” episode in 1976.
Lynda worked only sporadically after her husband unexpectedly died of a heart attack at age 52 in 1983.
“I've spent my life working from 12 years old on,” she said in an interview with the Peninsula (Washington) Daily News in 2010. “I really want this part of my life to be about life, not about working, not about glamour.”
