Actress Deborah Raffin dead at 59

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LOS ANGELES, Nov. 23 (UPI) -- Actress Deborah Raffin has died of leukemia at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, her family said. She was 59.

She was diagnosed with the disease about a year ago, her brother, William, told the Chicago Tribune.

The California native appeared in the films "40 Carats" and "Once is Not Enough," as well as the TV miniseries "Haywire" and "Noble House."

She and her then-husband, music producer Michael Viner, also started the successful Dove Books on Tape company in 1985. They later expanded into book publishing, and movie and television production, then sold Dove in 1997, the Tribune noted.

"I've never been driven to just act," Raffin told the Riverside Press-Enterprise in 1996. "I've always had a desire to produce, to be in control of my own destiny, to be able to find material and develop it."

Viner and Raffin met in 1974 and divorced in 2005. Viner died in 2009, the Tribune said.

Raffin is survived by her sister, Judy Holston, and a daughter, Taylor Rose Viner, both of Brentwood, Calif.