Twelve-year-old Samantha Smith became famous after she wrote a 1982 letter to Soviet Primere Yuri Andropov asking, "Why do you want to conquer the whole world, or at least our country?" Andropov, moved by Samantha's innocence, invited her and her family to Moscow in 1983. In 1985, Samantha was chosen to play Robert Wagner's daughter in his new ABC TV series "Lime Street." However, after only shooting four episodes, tragedy struck when she died in a plane crash with her father on August 26, 1985. The news of her death lead the Soviet Union newspaper Pravda to print, "Frightening, scalding news
… More has come across the ocean: Samantha is no more." Samantha's co-star Robert Wagner was quoted, "She was so enduring, so loving, and full of life."
Samantha was memorialized with a statue near Maine's capitol, Augusta. The Soviet Union also issued a postage stamp in her honor.
