Personal info
Known for
Actor
Gender
Female
Birthday
26 July
Location
Maryland, United States
Edit pageLinda Harrison
Biography
A native of Berlin, Maryland, Linda Harrison was Miss Berlin at 16, then a model in New York's Garment Center. Homesickness brought her back to Maryland, where she entered and won the state beauty pageant. During the finals in the Miss International contest (held in Long Beach, California), she was "spotted" by talent scout Mike Medavoy and presented at 20th Century Fox.
Throughout her acting years at Fox, and amidst movie roles in Planet of the Apes (1968), Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970), and others, she dated studio boss Richard D. Zanuck and married him in 1968. They were divorced in 1978, but she's appeared in three of his movies since then.
She was to be the sheriff's (Roy Scheider) wife in Jaws (1975), which her husband Richard D. Zanuck was producing. However, Universal Chief Sid Sheinberg wanted his own wife, Lorraine Gary, to have the part. Since Sheinberg was Zanuck's boss, Gary got it.
As of August 2009, her primary residence--since the late 1970s--has been on the Eastern Shore of her home state of Maryland.
Along with Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter, Maurice Evans, Ricardo Montalban, John Randolph, Natalie Trundy, and Severn Darden, she is one of only nine actors to play the same character in more than one film in the original "Planet of the Apes" series.
She played Nova in both Planet of the Apes (1968) and Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970). Of those nine actors, she is the last one still living as of 2020, with Trundy being the last of the others to die in 2019.
Along with Charlton Heston, she is one of only two actors to appear in both Planet of the Apes (1968) and Planet of the Apes (2001).
Mother, with Richard D. Zanuck, of sons Harrison Zanuck and Dean Zanuck.
