{{short description|American actress}} {{Infobox person | name = Sonya Wilde | image = | image_size = | caption = | birth_name = | birth_date = {{birth date and age|1937|11|2}} | birth_place = | death_date = | death_place = | occupation = Former actress | known_for = | spouse = {{Marriage|Jake Butcher|1962}} | children = 4 | parents = | relatives = | years_active = 1960-1962 }}

'''Sonya Wilde''' (born November 2, 1937) is an American former actress, best known for her starring role in the 1960 film ''I Passed for White''. She started her career as Maria on Broadway with the original cast of ''West Side Story''.<ref name="Bogle2001">{{cite book|author=Donald Bogle|title=Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films, Fourth Edition|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Sz7K1c9QSoMC&pg=PA192|accessdate=5 June 2017|date=24 October 2001|publisher=Bloomsbury Academic|isbn=978-0-8264-1267-6|page=192}}</ref><ref name="Riley2010">{{cite book|author=Sam Riley|title=Star Struck: An Encyclopedia of Celebrity Culture|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RvvWCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA298|accessdate=5 June 2017|year=2010|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=978-0-313-35813-5|page=298}}</ref>

==Career== On Broadway, Wilde was an understudy and replacement in the role of Maria in ''West Side Story'' (1957).<ref>{{cite web|title=Sonya Wilde|url=http://www.playbill.com/person/sonya-wilde-vault-0000098102|website=Playbill|access-date=27 October 2017|archive-url=https://archive.today/20171027024055/http://www.playbill.com/person/sonya-wilde-vault-0000098102|archive-date=27 October 2017|url-status=dead}}</ref>

==Selected filmography== *''I Passed for White'' (1960)

==Selected television== *''Bonanza'' (1960) *''Cheyenne'' (1960) *''The Americans'' (1961) *''Gunslinger'' (1961) *''Perry Mason'' (1961) *''Rawhide'' (1961) – White Deer in S4:E5, "The Lost Tribe" *Death Valley Days (1960)

==Private life== In 1962, Wilde married the banker Jake Butcher, having met him on New Year's Eve 1961 on a blind date.<ref>{{cite web|author=W Bruce Wheeler, University of Tennessee |url=https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entry.php?rec=166 |title=Jacob F. Butcher &#124; Entries |publisher=Tennessee Encyclopedia |date= |accessdate=2017-06-05}}</ref> He later became a politician, before spending seven years in prison for fraud.<ref>{{cite web|author=W Bruce Wheeler, University of Tennessee |url=https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entry.php?rec=166 |title=Jacob F. Butcher &#1detail as24; Entries |publisher=Tennessee Encyclopedia |date= |accessdate=2017-06-05}}</ref> They had four children.<ref name="orlandosentinel1986">{{cite web |author=United Press International |url=https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-1986-02-22-0200200184-story.html|title=Jake Butcher's Wife Fights To Keep Florida Home|publisher=Orlando Sentinel |date=1986-02-22 |accessdate=2020-06-17}}</ref>

Following her husband's 1985 20-year jail term for bank fraud (he served seven years), Wilde went to court in 1986 to try to keep the family's $675,000 home in the exclusive Sweetwater Club subdivision just outside Orlando.<ref name="orlandosentinel1986"/>

==References== {{Reflist}}

==External links== * {{IMDb name|0928507}} * [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abU6ilTKfzo Trailer for ''I Passed for White'', featuring Sonya Wilde] * {{IBDB name|107829}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilde, Sonya}} Category:Living people Category:1939 births Category:20th-century American actresses Category:American film actresses Category:American stage actresses Category:American television actresses Category:21st-century American women