Barbara Barrie, Tony-Nominated Company Star and Oscar Nominee, Dies at 95

Barbara Barrie, the Tony and Academy Award-nominated whose career spanned more than six decades, died on October 28 at her home in Manhattan. She was 95. Her daughter, Jane Harnick, confirmed her death to The New York Times, saying that Barrie, who had terminal cancer, died with medical assistance.

Barrie earned a 1971 Tony nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for Company, Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s exploration of marriage and modern relationships. Directed by Harold Prince, the production opened in 1970 and won the Tony Award for Best Musical. Looking back on the experience for Broadway.com’s Role Call series, Barrie called Sarah “the role that was a blast.”

Born Barbara Ann Berman in Chicago on May 23, 1931, she grew up in Corpus Christi, Texas. She studied drama at the University of Texas, graduating in 1952, before moving to New York. She made her Broadway debut in the 1955 comedy The Wooden Dish, with later appearances in The Beaux Stratagem and Happily Never After. After Company, her subsequent Broadway credits included The Selling of the President, The Prisoner of Second Avenue and the original production of Neil Simon’s California Suite. She also played Mrs. Beckoff in Torch Song Trilogy, then made her final Broadway appearance in 2017, playing Helene Berman in Joshua Harmon's Significant Other.

Her stage work extended beyond Broadway, with frequest Shakespeare roles at the Delacorte Theater. Those included Helena in All’s Well That Ends Well and Viola in Twelfth Night. Off-Broadway, her performance in The Killdeer at the Public Theater earned her Obie and Drama Desk Awards in 1974.

On screen, she earned an Academy Award nomination for her supporting performance in Breaking Away. When the film was adapted into a television show, she reprised the role and received an Emmy nomination. She won the Best Actress Award at the 1964 Cannes Film Festival for One Potato, Two Potato. Her other films included Private Benjamin and Judy Berlin. She was well known for her television characters on Barney Miller and Suddenly Susan. Barrie also received two Emmy nominations for her guest appearances on Law & Order and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

An accomplished author, Barrie also wrote two young adult novels, Adam Zigzag and Lone Star, and two books about her experiences with cancer and a colostomy, Second Act and Don’t Die of Embarrassment.

Barrie’s husband, TheaterWorks/USA founder Jay Harnick, whom she married in 1964, died in 2007. She is survived by her daughter Jane, her son Aaron and three granddaughters.

Watch Barrie discuss the many roles of her career below.