Kyra Petrovskaya Wayne (December 31, 1918 – June 3, 2018) was a Russian-American author, actress and a sniper during World War II.

Among her various activities in America, she made many appearances on television programs, gave lectures on literature and history on cruise ships, and sang on concert stages.

Because Kyra spoke several foreign languages fluently, she was invited to various diplomatic receptions as a representative of the Young Soviet Intelligentsia.

Perhaps because the wedding was attended by the whole diplomatic corps stationed in Moscow at that time, she was given permission to leave Russia with her husband.

After nine years of marriage, she and her husband divorced, and Kyra moved to Los Angeles, where she became a contestant on Groucho Marx’s show You Bet Your Life.

They traveled extensively, leading to Kyra becoming an enrichment lecturer on Royal Viking Line cruises, which she pursued for 10 years.

In a special after-school playwriting program, she was part of a group of 10 students who created a Russian version of Huckleberry Finn for children’s theater, which, she believed, continued to be performed in Russia.

After the success of her autobiography, Kyra wrote 13 more books on various subjects from Greek mythology to Russian cooking and from Russian-American history to young adult novels.

She was president of the UCLA Medical Faculty Wives, a member of the board of ISOMATA, an international school of music and the arts, an affiliate of USC, and several other Los Angeles-based cultural organizations.