Victoria Racimo, ‘Dr. Quinn’ and ‘Hawaii Five-0’ Actress, Dead at 69

Actress Victoria Racimo died late last month at age 69. Racimo was best known for her lead roles in John Frankenheimer’s 1969 science fiction film Prophecy and Mike Nichols’ 1973 thriller The Day of the Dolphin. She also starred in episodes of the primetime soap opera Falcon Crest and the drama Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.

Racimo died on Nov. 29 in Williamsburg, Virginia, according to her obituary. A cause of death was not revealed. Racimo was born in New York on Dec. 26, 1950, and studied classical piano at Juilliard. She also attended Columbia University before she moved to Los Angeles in her early 20s to start acting. She made her acting debut in an episode of The Doctors in 1963 before hitting her stride in the early 1970s.

Racimo’s credits included High Velocity (1976) with Ben Gazzara, The Mountain Men (1980) with Charlton Heston and Brian Kieth, Choke Canyon (1986), Ernest Goes to Camp (1987), and White Fang 2: Myth of the White Wolf (1994). She also appeared in Falcon Crest, Fantasy Island, Flamingo Road, Doogie Howser M.D., and Eight Is Enough, Hawaii Five-0, and Lou Grant. Her final appearance in front of the camera came in two 1996 episodes of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.

In recent years, Racimo turned her attention to writing, directing, and producing. She was an executive producer on the 2006 HBO movie Casi Casi, a Spanish-language film about students at a Catholic school in Puerto Rico. In 2015, she executive produced One Day, a documentary about the Our Mims Retirement Haven in Kentucky. She was credited as a theater consultant on Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln in 2012.

Racimo was also an author. She co-wrote the children’s book Blue Moon, which was paired with an interactive app based on a story by Alicia Keys. She also co-wrote All the King’s Horses: The Equestrian Life of Elvis Presley with Kimberly Gatto. She wrote and directed Journey of Destiny, a project commissioned by Virginia’s state to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Jamestown’s founding. In 2007, she told the Daily Press she was hoping to make an original opera based on On The Waterfront, even getting writer Bud Schulberg’s rights.

“I love putting things together,” Racimo told the Daily Press. “Music and film are all related. When you cut a film, it’s all about rhythm. It’s really all about if it has something really important to say.”