McBain made her television acting debut in 1959 in two episodes of
Maverick, March 8 with
Jack Kelly and November 22, with
James Garner, as well as the October 16 episode of
77 Sunset Strip. Her first director, at the helm of the March 8 installment,
"Passage to Fort Doom", was veteran actor
Paul Henreid. Having received a positive reaction to McBain's initial performances, the studio realized it had a potential star under contract. She was given a prominent
ingenue role in her first feature, the $3.5 million
Ice Palace (1960) alongside
Richard Burton and
Robert Ryan. The filmed-on-location
Technicolor epic was released on January 2, 1960, to mixed reviews, but McBain's notices were generally favorable. in
Maverick (1960)
Warner Bros. Television continued to keep McBain busy during 1960 with numerous appearances on its TV shows. She returned to
77 Sunset Strip on February 26, then nine days later found herself in Alaska with a guest role in the March 6 installment of
The Alaskans, starring
Roger Moore. Eight days later, she was in
Bourbon Street Beat and the following day on
Sugarfoot. Another episode of
Bourbon Street Beat followed two weeks later on March 28, and still another
77 Sunset Strip on May 6. In eight more days, she was in an episode of
Lawman, and three weeks thereafter, on June 6, a third episode of
Bourbon Street Beat in as many months. On March 1 and 2, 1967, during the second season of the ABC series
Batman, she played socialite Pinkie Pinkston, a friend of Batman's alias Bruce Wayne. Warners gave McBain a regular role on
Surfside 6 (1960–62), supporting
Troy Donahue,
Van Williams, and
Lee Patterson.
Surfside 6 ran for two seasons. ,
Troy Donohue,
Lee Patterson, Diane McBain and
Van Williams McBain had a banner year in 1960. In addition to appearing in a top feature film and guest-starring in eight TV episodes, she was assigned two more theatrical features. The first offered her one of three ingenue roles in a major "A" film,
Parrish (1961), supporting Troy Donahue; the others were
Connie Stevens and
Sharon Hugueny. The film was a hit and made over $4 million. Warners then gave McBain the star part in her own "B"-film vehicle,
Claudelle Inglish (1961) when she replaced the original choice for the lead,
Anne Francis, in the title role. It was based on a novel by
Erskine Caldwell. Warners gave her another lead role in a feature,
Black Gold (1962). She returned to guest starring on shows like
Hawaii Five-O. Producer
Hall Bartlett borrowed McBain for a role in
The Caretakers (1963) with
Polly Bergen and
Joan Crawford. When
77 Sunset Strip kicked off its sixth and final season in 1963 with a special five-part story called 'Five', McBain played opposite
Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. as "Carla Stevens". She then supported
Debbie Reynolds in
Mary, Mary (1963). Her last film for Warners was
A Distant Trumpet (1964) with Donahue and
Suzanne Pleshette, the final film of director
Raoul Walsh. In a 1964 interview she said she had "mostly been cast as the spoilt rich girl". Warners announced her for
Sex and the Single Girl (1964) in the role of a secretary. She turned down the role and Warners elected not to renew her contract. McBain guest-starred in
Arrest and Trial,
Wendy and Me,
Kraft Suspense Theatre,
Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre, ''
Burke's Law (a number of times), The Wild Wild West, The Man from UNCLE, and Vacation Playhouse''. She was announced for the films
Spring Is for Crying and
Halcyon Years but neither was made. She made
Five from the Hawk in Spain. "I was very stupid about money," McBain said later. "My mother had always made my clothes, and I was embarrassed about it. I became a
shopaholic and spent a fortune on store-bought clothes.
Tammy Bakker probably copied the way I did my shopping and eyelashes." Work began to dry up. "We were going through a revolution in society with the
civil-rights movement and the
Vietnam War," she said. "Now, white
Anglo-Saxon, pretty people were low on the totem pole. We were thought to be on the other side, conservatives who were the cause of the war and the civil-rights problem.
Dustin Hoffman, yes. Troy Donahue, no. Nobody wanted beautiful people on the screen. They wanted people like them, average. I didn't get much work." She was Elvis Presley's leading lady in
Spinout (1966) alongside
Shelley Fabares and
Deborah Walley, and later that year she guest-starred on
Batman. McBain made two films with
Fabian Forte at
American International Pictures,
Thunder Alley (1967), directed by
Richard Rush, and
Maryjane (1968), directed by
Maury Dexter. Dexter then put McBain in the lead of AIP's
The Mini-Skirt Mob (1968), a hit at the box office. McBain supported
Gardner McKay in
I Sailed to Tahiti with an All Girl Crew (1968) and went to
Crown International Pictures for
Five the Hard Way (1969) aka
The Sidehackers. She toured Vietnam in 1968 with
Tippi Hedren and
Joey Bishop. During the 1970s, McBain slowed her career somewhat to care for her son Evan, though she continued to make guest appearances in a number of television series. "I never really cared about superstardom, I only cared about the roles that were available to those who were superstars," she later said. "I was motivated to continue on in the face of total failure because I had a child to rear on my own with little help from his father. Acting was the best way for me to make money and the best way for me to be a more present mom in my son's life. Full-time jobs brought in money but kept me away from the day-to-day life of my child." McBain also guested on the TV series
The Wide World of Mystery,
Police Story,
Barbary Coast, and
Marcus Welby, M.D.. Towards the end of the 1970s and in the early 1980s McBain was in
Donner Pass: The Road to Survival (1978),
The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams,
Hawaii Five-O, ''
Charlie's Angels, Eight Is Enough, Days of Our Lives, Dallas, Matt Houston, Airwolf, The Red Fury
, Crazy Like a Fox, and Knight Rider''. She also worked steadily in regional theatre. McBain appeared in
Jake and the Fatman,
Puppet Master 5 (1994),
Sabrina, the Teenage Witch,
Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman,
Invisible Mom II,
The Young and the Restless,
The Broken Hearts Club: A Romantic Comedy (2000),
Besotted (2001), and
Strong Medicine. She was in a TV movie,
Cab to Canada (1998), which she said "was enough to make me never want to act again". In 1990 she was seeking financing for her screenplay
The Spilling Moon about the first woman to trek along the
Colorado River through the
Grand Canyon. ==Personal life==