Melissa Newman is an American actress who, as a teen, made her Hollywood film debut in The Undefeated (1969) American Civil War and Western film, starring John Wayne, Rock Hudson, Ben Johnson, Bruce Cabot, Edward Faulkner, Roman Gabriel, Lee Meriweather, Paul Fix, Robert Donner, Jan-Michael Vincent, Merlin Olsen, among others.
She becomes enamored of Larry Hagman's character Fred Clark, and swims out to the island to give him and his wife Helen (Barbara Feldon) a tour of the property they have purchased.
[9] Also in the 1972 episode of the long-running Western series Gunsmoke (1955-1975), of "The Wedding", she portrays 20-year old Donna Clayton who wants to marry Corey Soames (played in one of his early roles by Sam Elliott).
Newman (as Karen Guilfoyle) would again appear with co-star guest Sam Elliot (as Luther Wilkes) a year later in a 1973 episode of the legal drama series Hawkins which starred James ("Jimmy") Stewart, a rare TV role for him, however not as a love-interest.
Three years later, in 1976 she plays Amy, a cafe waitress, who tips off wild car-driving detectives Starsky & Hutch that a regular patron who is a security guard on an armored truck is late, and that she is worried enough to call the police.