Cristina Raines

Raines got her start in front of the camera with Hex (1973), an independent horror film that cast her opposite Keith Carradine and Scott Glenn — not a bad debut lineup, honestly. She also picked up a minor part in The Stone Killer (1973), the Charles Bronson thriller, and took the lead in the television film Sunshine, playing a young mother facing terminal cancer (TMDB). Early range. Real range. The mid-1970s were when things got genuinely interesting. Cast in a supporting role in Robert Altman's Nashville (1975) as a folk singer navigating that film's chaotic, overlapping world of country music and American ambition, Raines held her own in one of the most competitive ensemble casts of the decade. Then came a remarkable double in 1977: she starred as a model tormented by supernatural forces in Michael Winner's The Sentinel, and co-starred in Ridley Scott's directorial debut, The Duellists — a visually meticulous adaptation of a Joseph Conrad story set against the Napoleonic Wars. That she appeared in both films the same year, one a horror film and one a prestige period piece, says something about her versatility that I don't think gets mentioned enough. Television became her primary arena through the 1980s. She took on the role of Lane Ballou in NBC's primetime soap Flamingo Road (1980–1982) and had a substantial part in the twelve-part miniseries Centennial (1978), playing the daughter of a fur trapper in 1800s Colorado. Later TV credits include the anthology horror film Nightmares (1983), the miniseries Quo Vadis? (1985) — in which she played Poppea — and guest appearances on Riptide (1985), Hotel (1987), Highway to Heaven (1988), and The Highwaymen (1988) (TMDB). Hard to say if the transition from film to TV was a choice or just how the work flowed, but she stayed consistently employed throughout the decade. In 1991, she stepped away from the industry entirely to become a registered nurse specializing in kidney dialysis patients — a second career she has continued since (Wikipedia).