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- Maureen Hingert, Former Miss Universe Runner-Up and "King and I" Actress, Dies at 88</p>
<p>Tommy McArdleJuly 4, 2025 at 12:24 AM</p>
<p>ANL/Shutterstock</p>
<p>Maureen Hingert, undated</p>
<p>Sri Lankan actress and former Miss Universe contestant Maureen Hingert died at the age of 88</p>
<p>Hingert death was first reported by a fellow actress and pageant alum on July 1 and was confirmed by her daughter Marisa Zamparelli the following day</p>
<p>As an actress, HIngert was credited with 11 roles before stepping back from the industry in the '60s</p>
<p>Maureen Hingert, a Sri Lankan actress and former Miss Universe contestant who appeared in movies like The King and I and Gunmen from Laredo, has died. She was 88.</p>
<p>Hingert's death was first announced on Facebook by another Sri Lankan actress and former pageant contestant, Angela Seneviratne, on Tuesday, July 1. As Seneviratne wrote in her post, Hingert won the Miss Ceylon pageant in 1955 and went on to represent Sri Lanka — then known as Ceylon — at the Miss Universe pageant in 1955, where she was a second runner up.</p>
<p>"May her soul rest in peace," Seneviratne added in her post, which featured a black-and-white photo of Hingert.</p>
<p>The Hollywood Reporter reported news of Hingert's death on Wednesday, July 2, noting that her daughter Marisa Zamparelli confirmed that Hingert died of liver failure at Huntington Hospital in Pasadena, Calif., on Sunday, June 30.</p>
<p>"It was a beautiful and peaceful passing," Zamparelli told the outlet.</p>
<p>ANL/Shutterstock</p>
<p>Maureen Hingert, undated</p>
<p>Hingert made her first appearances on the screen in 1954 with uncredited roles in Circus Girl and Elephant Walk, which were produced in her home country, according to THR. She competed in the first-ever Miss Universe pageant that was broadcast on television — Sweden's Hillivi Rombin won the title that year — and was noted for winning "the crowd with her long, black hair and wide smiles" in The Pittsburgh Gazette's reporting on the event back in 1955.</p>
<p>According to THR, Hingert remained in California after the Miss Universe pageant and picked up more uncredited roles in Pillars of the Sky and in 1956's The King and I, an adaptation of the musical of the same name that starred Deborah Kerr, Rita Moreno and Yul Brynner.</p>
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<p>TV Guide / Courtesy Everett Collection</p>
<p>Maureen Hingert and Maxwell Reed in 'Dangerous Search,' 1959</p>
<p>Hingert is only credited with 11 acting roles throughout the 1950s. She made her first credited appearance in a 1957 episode of The Adventures of Hiram Holliday and appeared in six more roles under the name Jana Davi, including in the movies Gun Fever, The Rawhide Tail, Fort Bowie, Gunmen from Laredo and last appeared on the screen in an episode of the series Captain David Grief. According to THR, Hingert retired from acting in the early 1960s after she welcomed the first of her three daughters, Gina. She was married to American artist Mario Zamparelli from 1958 until they divorced in 1970. Mario himself died in September 2012 at 91 years old; the couple's oldest daughter Gina died in 2018 at age 59 of a brain tumor, and another daughter, Andrea, died in 2009 at 42, as THR reported.</p>
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