Dayna Gayle Cussler is an American film producer, screen writer, costume designer, and film actress. She is
also the daughter of adventurer and novelist Clive Cussler.
Cussler has worked on several films starting in 1987, mostly on sci-fi productions. Her first films were The Alamo: Thirteen Days to Glory and Barfly, both in 1987. Through the 1990s she worked on numerous film projects, to include Philadelphia Experiment II and Hellraiser: Bloodline. In 2000 she produced her first film, 2 on U, which she wrote, produced, and starred in opposite Micky Levy, Tomas Arana, and Tom Novak.
She also played the role of Kitty Mannock in the 2005 film Sahara, a fictional record breaking Australian pilot of the 1930s who was lost without a trace in the Sahara desert, and whose body and plane were found by Dirk Pitt. That film was an adaptation of her father's novel Sahara, and starred Matthew McConaughey, Penelope Cruz and Steve Zahn. However in the final takes of production her scenes were deleted.
She continues to write, produce and act.