Miscellaneous

Barney Miller actress Barbara Barrie dies at 95

Cannes best actress for One Potato Two Potato and Oscar-nominated for Breaking Away, daughter says death was medically assisted after terminal cancer

Images

Barbara Barrie and Hal Linden in a scene from Barney Miller. Barbara Barrie and Hal Linden in a scene from Barney Miller. foxnews.com
Barbara Barrie in a scene from the TV series Barney Miller. Barbara Barrie in a scene from the TV series Barney Miller. foxnews.com
Barbara Barrie and Brooke Shields stand together in a scene from Suddenly Susan. Barbara Barrie and Brooke Shields stand together in a scene from Suddenly Susan. foxnews.com
Barbara Barrie and cast members of Significant Other stand on stage at Booth Theatre. Barbara Barrie and cast members of Significant Other stand on stage at Booth Theatre. foxnews.com

Barbara Barrie has died at her home in New York, aged 95. Her daughter says the death was medically assisted, after a terminal cancer diagnosis.

Her career was long enough to run from 1950s theatre to Brooke Shields' grandmother. Barrie won best actress at Cannes in 1964 for "One Potato, Two Potato" and was nominated for an Academy Award for "Breaking Away" in 1979. Television made her a fixture in American living rooms: she played Barney Miller's wife for the police sitcom's full run, from 1975 to 1982, later Shields' grandmother on "Suddenly Susan," and Goldie Hawn's mother in "Private Benjamin."

Broadway held her longest. She made her debut there in "The Wooden Dish" in 1955 and was nominated for a Tony as part of the original 1970 cast of Stephen Sondheim's "Company." In 2024 she told her neighbourhood paper, the Westside Rag, that she had been acting for 55 years — a modest count, given the debut.

She had moved to New York from Texas after college because of a man, she told the Akron Beacon Journal in 1963. What lasted was the work.