Barbara Barrie, whose career ranged from Broadway to television to Oscar-nominated film work, has died at 95. According to a report, her death took place at her home in New York City after a terminal cancer diagnosis and was medically assisted.
Barrie became familiar to television audiences as Liz Miller, the wife of the title character on the police series “Barney Miller,” which aired from 1975 to 1982. She later played Brooke Shields’s grandmother on “Suddenly Susan.”
On film, she earned an Academy Award nomination for “Breaking Away” in 1979. The Oscar that year went to Meryl Streep for “Kramer vs. Kramer.” Barrie had previously won the best actress prize at the Cannes Film Festival for “One Potato, Two Potato” in 1964. She also appeared as Goldie Hawn’s mother in the 1980 comedy “Private Benjamin.”
Barrie was equally accomplished on Broadway. She was nominated for a Tony for her performance in the original 1970 cast of Stephen Sondheim’s “Company.” Her Broadway debut came in 1955 with “The Wooden Dish,” after she moved to New York following college in Texas.
In a 1963 interview with the Akron Beacon Journal, she said her initial reason for moving was a boyfriend who already lived in New York. They had planned to marry but could not do so right away, she recalled, and since she had already gone to the trouble of relocating, she decided she might as well try acting.