A death at home in Manhattan
Barbara Barrie died on Wednesday at her home in Manhattan at the age of 95, according to The New York Times. Her daughter, Jane Harnick, told the newspaper that her mother had terminal cancer and that her death was medically assisted. Outlets including Variety, Deadline, People and Extra reported the death, and the news was carried under matching headlines by IMDb and That Eric Alper.[S1][S2][S3][S4][S5][S6][S7][S8]
Born Barbara Ann Berman in Chicago on May 23, 1931, she grew up partly in Texas after her family moved there when she was 9. She finished Corpus Christi Senior High School and then the University of Texas at Austin, where her fellow students included Rip Torn, Jayne Mansfield and Liz Smith. She traveled to New York by train with an actor boyfriend and supported herself as a typist.[S1]
Cannes, Broadway and a Sondheim landmark
Her breakthrough came with One Potato, Two Potato in 1964, directed by Larry Peerce. Barrie played a white mother with a young daughter who, after her husband abandons them, marries an African-American office worker played by Bernie Hamilton. The film, shot in black and white on location in Painesville, Ohio, is regarded as the first American movie to depict such a relationship, arriving three years before Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. The role brought her the best actress prize at Cannes.[S1]
On stage she created the dieting foodie Sarah, spouse of a man with a drinking problem played by Charles Kimbrough, in the original 1970-72 run of Stephen Sondheim's Company, and she was among the show's then record 14 Tony nominees. She also appeared in the first Broadway productions of Neil Simon's The Prisoner of Second Avenue and California Suite and in Harvey Fierstein's Torch Song Trilogy, and in 2017 she played a Jewish grandmother in Joshua Harmon's Significant Other.[S1]
An Oscar nod, Barney Miller and later roles
Barrie received a supporting actress Oscar nomination for Breaking Away in 1979, playing the reassuring mother of a son, played by Dennis Christopher, who is consumed by Italian bicycle racing. She recalled that after reading a revised script she asked director Peter Yates for a scene connecting mother and son, which became the moment she shows her passport and urges him to chase his dreams. She lost the Oscar to Meryl Streep of Kramer vs. Kramer, and later earned an Emmy nomination for a 1980-81 ABC adaptation of the film that ran eight episodes.[S1]
On the ABC sitcom Barney Miller, which aired from 1975 to 1982, audiences saw her as the spouse of Hal Linden's character, the captain of a Greenwich Village police precinct. From 1996 to 2000 she took another recurring role on NBC's Suddenly Susan, playing the grandmother and trusted companion of Brooke Shields' character. Her résumé also featured Private Benjamin, Judy Berlin, a 1979 miniseries in which she portrayed Mamie Eisenhower, and guest spots on Law & Order and Law & Order: SVU that earned her two additional Emmy nominations.[S1]
