The movie, Mission: Impossible which starred Tom Cruise in the lead role as the secret agent Ethan Hunt was released in the mid-90s and it became an instant commercial success. However, long before Cruise rose to fame, there was a CBS TV series with the same name which ran originally for seven seasons from 1966 to 1973 and was later taken over by ABC.
The original series had actors like Steven Hill, Peter Lupis, Greg Morris, Peter Graves, and Martin Landau as agents of the Impossible Missions Force (IMF) while also featuring just one female lead, Barbara Bain, who played the femme fatale, Cinnamon Carter. A triple-threat fashion model, actress, and IMF agent. Cinnamon quickly rose to become a fan favorite among the viewers and earned her three Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award nomination.
Barbara Bain’s career
The 91-year-old did not start her career as an actress. Instead, she first worked as a dancer before she forayed into modeling. She worked with big names like Vogue, Harpers, and other publications In the early 1950s before leaving to search for a more satisfaction.
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She decided to become an actress thus entering the Theater Studio where she studied acting under Curt Conway and Lonny Chapman before moving to the Actors Studio where she was trained by Lee Strasberg. Bain moved to Los Angeles with her husband, actor Martin Landau, where they started to get acting gigs.
She revealed to NBC in a 2012 interview that the move was the catalyst for her acting career. “We were young actors and work was still very exciting,” Bain told the outlet. “We had come from New York on a tour of a Broadway play and stayed here because all sorts of work offers kept showing up, so we never got back to New York though that was our intention.”
The actress made her debut TV appearance in 1958 playing the role of Mary Owens in the series, Harbourmaster. In 1959, Baine also appeared in many television shows such as Mike Hummer, Philip Marlowe, Richard Diamond, Private Detective, Alcoa Theatre, and Tightrope.
Barbara Bain says that her role in ‘Mission: Impossible’ was made just for her
For almost a decade, Bain continued featuring in small roles in TV series until the mid-60s when she was cast as Cinnamon Carter. The 91-year-old revealed to NBC that her role in the movie, Mission: Impossible was created just for her by the show creator, Bruce Gellar even though she auditioned for the role with many other young actors.
“He wanted her to be terribly sexy and terribly smart, and the combination was not sort of exactly running around in Hollywood at the time,” Bain explained to the outlet. “You were either the dumb blonde or the intellectual nice person that lived next door. He wanted this combination, and, he said, there I was. He never told me that he actually wrote it for me until after I was cast, and I auditioned over and over and over with all kinds of other folks.”
However, in 1969, after three seasons, Bain left the show after a contract dispute with the network.
Where is Barbara Bain now?
Shortly after her departure from the series, Bain went on to star in several made-for-TV movies such as Murder Once Removed (1971), Savage (1973), and The Waltons (1974).
In 1975, the now-91-year-old was once again cast in a lead role on the Sci-fi TV series, Space:1999 where she played the character of Dr. Helena Russell, Chief Medical Officer of Moonbase Alpha. Though the series was short-lived as it lasted for only two seasons, the actress later featured in several other TV movies including, Destination Moonbase Alpha (1979), Journey Through the Black Sun (1982), and Cosmic Princess (1982).
Interestingly, Bain is still acting to date and over the past few decades, she has been featured in several movies, short films, TV shows, and theater productions such as Dry Martini (1998), Panic (2000), Strong Medicine (2003), Nothing Special (2010), Code Black (2016). The actress recently appeared in the 2020 Sofia Coppola film, On the Rocks, playing the role of Gran Keane alongside actors such as Bill Murray and Rashida Jones. At 91 years old, she is now a member of the Actors Studio West, where she continues to teach classes and perform scene work.