Barbara Barrie: Oscar-nominated actress ends her life with assistance at 95 after terminal illness diagnosis
The 95-year-old earned Emmy, Oscar and Tony Award nominations during a seven-decade entertainment career.
Oscar-nominated actress Barbara Barrie has died at the age of 95.
The family of the theatre, television and movie veteran confirmed on Wednesday, local time, that she passed away at her home in Manhattan, New York, with medical assistance following a battle with a degenerative health condition.
Daughter Jane Harnick’s announcement capped off Barrie’s 12-year health battle that started in 2014 when she announced her diagnosis of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a degenerative disease that attacks the lungs.
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By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.She was probably best known to big screen fans as the supportive mother of an Indiana teen in 1979 movie Breaking Away, with Barrie scoring an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress. She also earned an Emmy nomination for the same role when she filled it again for a television adaptation in 1981.
Her movie promise was evident 15 years earlier when she was named best actress at the Cannes Film Festival in 1964 for drama One Potato, Two Potato.
On the small screen, she scored roles in long-running sitcom series such as the wife of Hal Linden’s police captain on Barney Miller as well as the grandmother to Brooke Shields’ titular character on Suddenly Susan.
She also earned a Tony nomination for her work on Broadway as Sarah in Stephen Sondheim’s lauded 1970 musical Company.
Barbara Ann Berman was born in Chicago on May 23, 1931, the second child and only daughter of Louis Berman, an insurance salesman, and Frances (Boruszak) Berman, The New York Times reports.
After the family’s move to Texas during her childhood, she grew up in Corpus Christi and graduated as a drama major at the University of Texas in 1952.
She moved to New York that same decade, eventually scoring television jobs before focusing on theatre productions and making her Broadway debut in the 1955 comedy The Wooden Dish.
She went on to a number of Broadway and off-Broadway roles, including Elizabeth Proctor in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, Hermia in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Helena in All’s Well That Ends Well.
Her first credited film role was in 1963’s The Caretakers, as a mental patient. Apart from Breaking Away, she filled a number of roles on the Big Screen, including as the mother of Goldie Hawn’s titular character in 1980 hit comedy Private Benjamin.
She tol The Times in 1964 that she had fallen in love with filmmaking early, while shooting One Potato, Two Potato.”
“I thought — boy, this is exciting! This is what I want,” she told The Times eagerly in 1964. “It is, too.”
In addition to her daughter Jane Harnick, she is survived by her son, Aaron Harnick from her 43-year marriage to Jay Harnick, who passed away in 2007. She is also survived by three granddaughters.
