Actress Mia Sara at the 31st Annual Saturn Awards in Los Angeles. (Photo: Vince Bucci / Getty Images)

Possessing a dark Pre-Raphaelite beauty that is both sensual and sweet, Mia Sara landed a succession of leading roles early in her career--unfortunately, few of the films were very good. The Brooklynite began acting in commercials and on the ABC daytime soap "All My Children" at age 13. By 16, she had made her screen debut opposite Tom Cruise in Ridley Scott's fantasy "Legend" (1985) as Princess Lili, the personification of innocence. Her beauty brightened "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" (1986), where she co-starred as Matthew Broderick's girlfriend. Most of her subsequent performances, though, were in a series of forgettable thrillers and actioners like "Apprentice to Murder" (1988) and "By the Sword" (1991). She had a few moments as a lovely young Jewish girl in "A Stranger Among Us" (1992) but her role as the wife of Jean-Claude Van Damme's "Timecop" (1994) required little but to look beautiful. Sara was an elusive prey for ladies' man Adrian Pasdar in "The Pompatus of Love" but again had little to do but be threatened in the little-seen "The Maddening" (both 1996).

TV has also offered Sara many paychecks, but only the occasional chance to show off her acting skills. Some considered her miscast in the title role of the miniseries "Queenie" (ABC, 1987), a thinly veiled biopic of screen goddess Merle Oberon, based on Michael Korda's book. (Sara, who won the role in part because of her resemblance to Oberon, herself later admitted that at age 19 she was too young for the role). In Judith Krantz's sudsy "Till We Meet Again" (CBS, 1989), she fared somewhat better as the daughter whose extraordinary good looks lead to a successful film career. She also turned up in the TV-movies "Big Time" (PBS, 1989, as a frustrated fashion model), in the horror thriller "Daughter of Darkness" (CBS, 1990) and played the Loretta Young role in the remake of "Call of the Wild" (CBS, 1993). Among her more notable guest appearances was as the intelligent, sympathetic transsexual girlfriend of a hard-headed doctor (Peter Berg) on "Chicago Hope" (CBS, 1996), a character, unfortunately, killed off after two episodes. More recently, Sara was paired with her real-life husband Jason Connery as Soviet spies in the uneven thriller "Bullet to Beijing" (TMC, 1997).