The great Barbara Harris

The last 10 minutes of Nashville featuring Harris is one of my top 3 favourite scenes ever.

Loved her in "Family Plot."

Wasn't she a weirdo/freakazoid? Not being critical....but didn't she become too weird to work with?

I am blessed to have seen her in On a Clear Day and The Apple Tree. She really was stupendous.

I think she said that she didn't enjoy performing that much, but rather the rehearsal process.

Which is bizarre, because for film and television as for theatre you have to give up rehearsing at SOME point and perform.

She also played Kathleen Turner's mother in Peggy Sue Got Married.

I think that's about the time when she decided to stop performing and concentrate on teaching acting.

Some performers love the process of exploring and creating a role and putting it all together more than delivering the results.

Did anybody get the snake?

She was the best thing in Nashville-- especially in the end when she gets to perform "It Don't Worry Me"

I've heard a bootleg of a ON A CLEAR DAY and when Harris transforms from geeky Daisy Gamble to aristocratic Melinda (achieved solely through vocal means), you can hear the audience literally gasp in surprise and delight.

She got an Oscar nomination for this awful Dustin Hoffman movie "Who is Harry Kellerman...."

It is a terrible movie but she is excellent in it.

Icon.

One of the great ladies of musical theater and she only starred in two shows (and a Second City revue).

I love you, R8!!!!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️🍺

From an old DL thread “Most Disasterous Performance Ever”

[quote]Years ago during THE APPLE TREE, Barbara Harris was in the scene with Alan Alda where Eve names all the animals "Lion, lamb, wolf" whatever it is, then she lost it, stopped, paused, and pointed into theatre: "Audience . . . Lights . . . Actor . . . Proscenium." %0D %0D The curtain was quickly drawn.

[quote]Another story about Barbara Harris- During one matinee perf. of THE APPLE TREE, Barbara rushed off stage screaming that she could not continue.... her understudy Carmen Alvarez took over for the end of "The Diary of Adam and Eve" which was Act One. Phyllis Newman, who had been hired to do the Wed. and Sat. Matinees for Ms. Harris was due to go on (start performances) the following week. Phyllis was in the audience taking notes on Harris' performance. She went backstage and told the stage manager she was ready to do the show. Newman went on for the final two acts "Lady or the Tiger" and "Passionella."

She's also wonderful in the mostly forgotten seen b & w late 1960s film A Thousand Clowns opposite Jason Robards in a role created on stage by another DL fave Sandy Dennis.

Sorry not to provide a link.

She was really wonderful, but over time became increasingly unbalanced to the point where no production would risk casting her.

Didn't Bette Midler hire her for Tessie Tura in the T.V. Gypsy, but her behavior on set was so weird that she was fired and replaced with Christine Ebersole? (Another DL Broadway diva fave, albeit no stranger to kookiness, in her beliefs ,at least). I think Barbara Harris only did one movie after that, and that was it.

Is it true that her "off" Tony acceptance speech was because Warren Beatty had broken up with her earlier that day?

I don't know why but yes she was cast in that Midler Gypsy and then left and they moved Ebersole up to the bigger role and brought in Andrea Martin for Ebersole's old part.

Harris did do Prelude to a Kiss in Chicago and appeared in the John Cusack film Gross Pointe Blank in the 90s.

No one knows who the hell she is but Bway fans adore her

she had a pretty good film career in her day r20. Film people know her too.

Wow, r19! I had no idea she'd done a play even as recently as 1991. Lucky Chicago!

She was no Barbara Nichols.

Priceless

Rest In Peace Barbara....

Very sad news. She was a treasure.

This is hilarious. RIP Barbara.

[quote]Ms. Harris played a phony psychic in the 1976 Hitchcock movie ”Family Plot.” She told the Phoenix New Times about Hitchcock’s frustration when another actress took a while to get into character. ”There was a scene in our film where Karen Black was acting, acting, acting — all that Lee Strasberg, human-struggle stuff,” Ms. Harris said. ”And it took her so long to get those tears going, and Mr. Hitchcock turned to the cameraman and said, ‘We will just photograph the actors’ feet in this scene.’ ”

She was great in ‘The Seduction Of Joe Tynan’ with Alan Alda and M.

Miss Nichols wasn't quite as successful in her Broadway musical forays, r23.

From Harry Kellerman...

Harris is wonderful in that scene, R30, and richly deserved her Oscar nomination.

I didn't see anything about her passing in HuffPost. Why the hell not?