WHERE IN THE WORLD IS MAGGIE THRETT?

One of the 60s starlets I get most asked about is brunette beauty Maggie Thrett whom I profiled in my book Film Fatales (co-written with Louis Paul). Some guys preparing a Whatever Happened to...? about guest stars from the original Star Trek are looking for her as Maggie appeared with Karen Steele (at left) and Glamour Girl Susan Denberg (at right) as "Mudd's Women" along with Roger C. Carmel as the devious Mudd.


Maggie Thrett was born Diane Pine on Nov. 18 in New York City. She began working as a model, gracing the pages of many magazines including the cover of Harper Bazaar to help finance her singing career. Thrett made her Off-Broadway debut in Out Brief Candle in 1962 and had a modest hit record with “Soupy” produced by Bob Crewe. The song rose to #36 on MCA’s Fabulous 57 in June of 1965 and Thrett headlined at a few clubs including the Basin Street East.

Soon after Maggie Thrett headed West and made her film debut in a very small role as “the second sister” in Dimension 5 (1966) starring Jeffrey Hunter and France Nuyen. She landed a contract at Universal when she accompanied a male friend to his audition. She got in but he didn’t. Her first film for the studio was the beach/spy spoof Out of Sight (1966) in which she played the karate-chopping F.L.U.S.H. assassin Wipeout who arrives in Malibu on a surfboard from Hawaii.

Due to her stunning dark ethnic look, Maggie was able to play Mexicans or American Indians and was a frequent guest star on TV westerns including Dundee and the Culhane, Cimarron Strip, and two episodes of The Wild Wild West including “The Night of the Running Death” (12/15/67) where she excelled playing a dancer named Dierdre (a.k.a. Topaz) who has a passion for molasses-covered Cherries Jubilee and is the girlfriend of assassin Enzo (played by female impersonator T.C. Jones). She fakes her death in order to aid Enzo, masquerading as a female British schoolteacher, in killing a princess. As a disguised Dierdre goes to shoot her, agent Artemus Gordon (Ross Martin) comes up from behind her and grabs her arm, deflecting the shot. He then says to his partner James West (Robert Conrad), “Let me present our dear friend Topaz to you James. We know her better as Dierdre.” Artemus then rips off her veil and quips, “And we gave you such a nice funeral.”


Reportedly, Maggie Thrett withdrew her life savings to buy out her contract with Universal. Her most memorable role thereafter was in the box office hit Three in the Attic (1968) playing a Jewish hippie who is making it with college Lothario Christopher Jones, along with coeds Yvette Mimieux and Judy Pace. When they all discover that Jones is having sex with them simultaneously, they tie him up in their dorm’s attic and try to drain him of his virility. After playing a prostitute in the feature film Cover Me Baby (1970) starring Robert Forster and a guest stint on TV's Most Deadly Game in 1970, she disappeared from the Hollywood scene.

If anyone has information on how to contact her, please let me know.