Barbara Barrie ABSOLUTELY Ruined Everything

Back to dear ol' BB! She and Paul Dooley were supposed to be the new Hepburn and Tracy.

What part did she play in Giant?

She always came across as one of those people who were precocious on stage in high school and never got past that stage as an adult.

R2 A Mexican child

No wonder she was always miscast.

There's a reason nobody noticed her in Company. She was as vanilla as they come. She just blended into the wallpaper. Almost every single person in Company had an interesting career after that show. Not Babs. She just bumped along pretending to be an actress, but never really getting noticed.

Barbara tried so hard to win my first Oscar, campaigning like a little trouper. After my name was, inevitably, called out and I walked toward the stage, I gave her a sly wink and said, "You get an A for effort, but a D for acting."

She is a two-time Emmy loser

Who are you, R7?

WHO AM I?????

I always confuse her with Barbara Billingsley. And Barbara Bosson.

She makes Jeri Blank look like a moist slice of vagina.

Does anyone confuse her with Barbara Baxley or Berry Berenson?

R13, don’t forget Barbi Benton.

[R11] I always confuse her with Barbara Billingsley. And Barbara Bosson

Mistaking her with Barbara Bosson is understandable. She also ruined everything.

Nia Vardalos ruins everything!

[quote][R13], don’t forget Barbi Benton.

Even Helen Keller wouldn't confuse Barbara Barrie with Barbi Benton.

Why was Barbara Barrie replaced in the Fiddler on the Roof revival? Yente isn't that difficult of a role, is it?

She was a sexual compulsive and was caught numerous times exposing herself to cast mates.

R19, she called it “beavering.”

[quote]She was a sexual compulsive and was caught numerous times exposing herself to cast mates.

I'm not seeing a problem here. Oftentimes, I was asked by cast mates to expose myself so they could believe I wasn't a man.

Is she what ruined Suddenly, Susan?

I saw her in a movie where she kills a bird

She’s a national fucking treasure!

Horrific deviant behavior her entire life, absolutely a sociopath.

Meh. She's no Bonnie Bartlett.

Not nearly as sexy as Barbara Babcock.

No Bonnie Bedelia yet?

Odd, these replies; I actually like her a lot, and will always pause the TV clicker if I see her. She has an odd, wry, low-key charm that I enjoy.

She had a walk on part in Giant. She wasn't even credited.

Ach, if she'd only had Blair Brown's glorious hair.

[quote]I always confuse her with Barbara Billingsley. And Barbara Bosson.

Well, you shouldn't. Billingsley was no Bernhardt, but she was sweet and actually talented. That "Stewardess, I speak jive" scene in the original Airport was written for Jane Wyatt of Father Knows Best. She had numerous film credits and two Emmys. She came in and rehearsed and shot for an entire day and just couldn't do it. They offered it to Billingsley, she came in and with just a couple of runthroughs got it perfect on the first take.

Fuck you all

BB was married to Sheldon Harnick’s brother, so her being cast in Fiddler was sort of a family affair. I think she was ill or became ill during rehearsals and left the show. Or she wasn’t ill and was fired, or she was ill and she was fired.

Miss Barrie was excellent as “Edna”, a mentally ill patient in the movie “The Caretakers”. Joan Crawford stole the movie as the strict head nurse, Lucretia Terry, of course.

Also, Miss Barrie was marvelous as Goldie Hawn’s mother in “Private Benjamin”.

The new Broadway revival of Fiddler on the Roof, now more than half-way through previews, will get a new Yente the Matchmaker on Feb. 17, when Nancy Opel replaces stage veteran Barbara Barrie. The reason given for the switch was "creative differences."

Always felt bad for what happened to her on "Barney Miller." She was great in the pilot/first episode and then the writers didn't know what to do with her. The camaraderie of the station was a big hit, and it became one of the successful "ensemble shows." Nobody cared about the home life.

She was very good in "Breaking Away" as Dennis Christopher's mother and Paul Dooley's wife. She also won some awards for "One Potato, Two Potato" about an interracial marriage, though I haven't seen it.

Barbara Baxley is great on the OCR of "She Loves Me" and is wonderful on quite a few old "Alfred Hitchcock Presents".

Was she worse than Ted McGinley?

Richard Schaal was someone who used to kind of stink up the joint. I think he was the ex=husband of Valerie Harper who remained friendly, and maybe once I laughed at something he did, but he generally registered as a bit of a pain in the butt.

[quote]Always felt bad for what happened to her on "Barney Miller." She was great in the pilot/first episode and then the writers didn't know what to do with her. The camaraderie of the station was a big hit, and it became one of the successful "ensemble shows." Nobody cared about the home life.

Kind of exactly the opposite of what happened on The Dick Van Dyke Show. The original intent was that the show would be centered around Rob's life at the office and his home life with Laura and Richie would be in the background. But as soon as the show started shooting and then airing it was obvious that chemistry between DVD and MTM and MTM's talent was so strong that the home life was going to predominate.

It was very uncomfortable for Maury Amsterdam and Rose Marie initially -- this was not what they had signed on for -- but at least they were in a huge, hit, well paying show with with respectful and friendly co-stars and other appreciative creatives.

[quote]Was she worse than Ted McGinley?

When Ted came, he may have stunk it up a bit, but the show still went on, Happy Days, Love Boat, Married With Children

[quote]She had a walk on part in Giant. She wasn't even credited

And she STILL managed to ruin it.

[quote]Rose Marie initially -- this was not what they had signed on for --

Rose Marie pushed her way into that show and then demanded they cast her friend Maury Amsterdam, who was better than she was.

[quote]I always confuse her with Barbara Billingsley. And Barbara Bosson

When I was cast on "It's A Living," my fellow cast members were outraged, till they realized I was not her.

I liked her as the mother in this production of Barefoot in the Park.

Michael's mother. Ugh.

alwys love her

brilliant character actress

wtf is wrong wit da op????

R38, she is excellent in One Potato, Two Potato. It's an independent film that was released in 1964. It handles the interracial relationship issue in a far more real and subtle and sophisticated way than Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?, which came a few years later. Barrie won the best actress award at Cannes for her performance. It was difficult to see the film for many years but it was released on DVD two years ago and it's shown up on TCM recently.

[quote]She also won some awards for "One Potato, Two Potato" about an interracial marriage, though I haven't seen it.

Her performances weren't as good in "Engine Engine Number Nine", or "My Mother and Your Mother Were Hanging Out Clothes".

[quote]Or she wasn’t ill and was fired

Oh, she was definitely fired. I saw her final performance, and it was very clear why they were letting her go (and everyone knew about it, it wasn't a secret).

o mary

ur sadly mistaken...

Sadly mistaken about what?

r49, what was it about her performance that was so bad? How do you mess up in a role like Yente?

By playing her as a WASP maybe? Like casting Blythe Danner as a Jewish mother? oops, that was done!

Barrie was Jewish.

But not in a Barbra Streisand way.

No, in a Neil Simon way.

r53 Blythe Danner is half-fourth-Jewish or so; and her husband was Jewish, so her children are part Jewish, so she has that as well.

Her perf in Breaking Away is exactly the kind of monologue by a respected older actress in a nominated movie that could win (hello Beatrice Straight) ... it just shows how much is determined by who your competition is in your year

Did she play Yente like she was matchmaking in a California suite not Anatevka?

"Have I got a blond surfer dude for you, Chava!!!"

But B.D. sucked at playing a Jewish mother in Brighton Beach Memoirs. It was like some Jewish propaganda film saying, "This is what it will be like if you marry a Shiksa."

Or Mary Page Keller, R39?

R58 I always thought Paul Dooley playing opposite Barrie, in a really funny performance, should have at least gotten an Oscar nomination for "Breaking Away", a wonderful movie.

You mean that delightful actress who portrayed me in "Backstairs at the White House"?

The funny thing was that they let Barrie go in that revival of Fiddler, then hired Rosie O'Donnell as a replacement for the mother when Andrea Martin left. Rosie was terrible in the role. It was like she was thinking, "I'm going to play it like an Irish mother, because we know that Irish mothers and Jewish mothers are exactly the same. You seen one immigrant mother, you've seen them all." Truly, Rosie was awful as Golde. Her acting should be shown in every drama school as an example of indicating vs real acting. And Rosie had the nerve to talk about the people in the chorus and act like she was a mother to them all while still chiding them for unprofessional behavior. Girl's got nerve, that's for sure!

I love the story about the little girl being asked at intermission by her father at "Fiddler on the Roof" when Harvey Fierstein was starring in it opposite Rosie. She said that she was enjoying the show, but she felt like the man playing Tevye gave the impression he constantly needed to clear his throat!

What happened to her character on Barney Miller? Was she mauled by a bear?

r66, no SHE mauled a bear.

Some very clever replies.

I think she's tremendous!

Was she one of the Barrie sisters? They used to sing in the Catskills a lot and apparently on Ed Sullivan.

I stood next to her once on a Madison Avenue bus. She was so nice she didn't push me.

Her sister is Barrie Chase.

This bitch is still alive! And starring in some movie opposite Sean Young!

Definition of cuntface.

Bitch stole my look.

I liked her very much in the original cast of “Company,” which I saw twice, both times with Dean Jones.

I also saw her when she replaced Estelle Getty for 2 weeks in the original production of “Torch Song Trilogy.” She was a friend of a woman with whom I was doing a production of “Primary English Class.” Barrie was very good, and friendly when I met her afterwards.

I saw Getty a month or so later, who was wonderful.

And they both were far better than Ann Bancroft in the movie.

Any truth to the stories of her sucking off Jack Soo while Ron Carey fucked her in the ass?

This is the camp classic where she squeezes a little canary to death.

Holy shit - it looks epic!

The Queen of the Double B's, Miss Bea Benaderet, could have taught her a thing or two.

"Well, maybe we could strangle him while he's asleep."

Abe Vigoda - alive or dead?

Bea Benaderet had one of the great laughs, and could sometimes upstage Gracie Allen with it, though Gracie was quite adorable too.

Something about her always made me grit my teeth, and not in a good way.

But what was actually wrong with her performance as Yente?? That post is so vague

R74, isn’t that Leslie Jordan?

Aaron Harnick, Barbara's son, was a producer of that revival of "Fiddler". For what it's worth, Michael Riedel wrote this in 2004:

The firing of Barrie, a respected stage veteran (“Company,” “The Prisoner of Second Avenue” ), television actress (“Suddenly Susan”) and the best-selling author of a memoir about life after her colostomy, was not a surprise. Her demise had been rumored ever since the first preview in January. Production sources said Barrie, who usually plays well-heeled urban sophisticates, did not fit into the world of a 19th-century Russian shtetl. Indeed, at the performance I saw, the actress seemed as if she’d just glided into the theater after dinner at Café Luxembourg, dropped her sable off in her dressing room and put on her Yente hat.

“She felt a little contemporary,” admitted Joe Stein, the show’s book writer. “But she’s a wonderful actress, and I wouldn’t hesitate to use her in a role in which she felt more comfortable.”Barrie’s firing would seem to present something of an awkward situation backstage at “Fiddler,” since she is the sister-in-law of the show’s lyricist, Sheldon Harnick, and the mother of one of the show’s co-producers, Aaron Harnick.

Barrie could not be reached for comment.

But Sheldon Harnick said the firing was a “professional” decision that was made by the director, not by the authors.“In this case, she is not my sister-in-law but an actress,” he said.

He did not learn that Barrie had been let go from the show until Monday afternoon.

Ouch, that had to have made Thanksgiving uncomfortable that year ^

I don't if she was Emmy-nominated for her single scene on Enlightened (a run-in with Diane Ladd at a grocery store), but she should have been.

An excellent, idiosyncratic American actress.

Yes, Miss Barrie was excellent as Mamie Eisenhower in “Backstairs - The White House.” She’s a gifted character actress.

This cunt gesture in the credits opening of every single episode during Seasons One and Two.

How did Barbara Barrie get almost 100 replies?

I like her...and she was open and honest about her colostomy when she didn’t have to. It helped a great many people who live with ostomies. And liked her on Barney Miller too.

The funniest Barbara Barrie colostomy story involved an outing to the Carnegie Deli with her son, Aaron Harnick. It was high noon and the place was crowded. As they stood waiting to be served, Barbara's colostomy bag broke—exploded, actually—drenching her and a couple of other customers in a veritable sea of poo. I guess if you don't empty those things often enough, pressure can build up and they can go off. According to eyewitnesses, Aaron Harnick made gagging sounds and fled out the door, grabbing a cab that was standing in traffic, leaving his poor mother to deal with the terrible mess.

Nah. Not really. While a variation on that story is true, it never happened to Barbara Barrie. It actually happened to my friend, Georgia's, father whose colostomy bag exploded while he was standing in front of the butcher counter at a Southern California supermarket. Georgia, who was 12 at the time, fled in embarrassment and walked three miles home, rather than deal with the colostomy mishap.

But it COULD have happened to Barbara Barrie.

She shits in a bag? Now I feel guilty for every bad thing I said about her.

[R93] How did Barbara Barrie get almost 100 replies?

Because she ruined everything.

Kathy Griffin wrote that after David Strickland killed himself, Barbara was pissed off at him and flippant about his death.

I found Barbara just delightful, although I did tire of people mistaking her for me on occasion. Such is the way with the alliteratively endowed. Fannie Flagg and I go way back, and she used to get so frustrated with all the Fannie Flagg/Farrah Fawcett confusion in the press, or when checking into hotels. Lay people simply don't realize the burdens of celebrity.

You know what I don't care for about Barbara? She's very competitive, even among her friends. You would think that having both earned an Oscar nomination in the same category, that she would be thrilled to share a certain type of sisterhood with me. But oh no, she was always reminding me that while waiting in traffic one day on Doheny she did the math, and realized that her nomination came from a performance that was seven minutes shorter than mine. She'd bring it up, over and over again--when we were post-holiday shopping at Loehmann's, catching a matinee at the Laemmle's Fairfax, or playing bridge with Debbie and Brenda V.--until finally one day I just had to say, "Barbara, why on Earth do you keep mentioning that? It's neither here nor there." And do you know she had the audacity to say? "Well, darling, I think it would seem to suggest that I made a much stronger impression on the voting members, given the limited amount of time I was on the screen." Our friendship was never the same after that. When I told Beatrice Straight about this, she said, "Bets, fuck that slag. She's got the ears of an elf, and I can guarantee you she has never had a man as sublime in Gene in her bed, let alone for sixteen years." Recently I met a young man named Lil Peep and when I told him the story and Beatrice's take on things, he said "True dat!"

<-- "as Gene," not "in Gene."

Blythe Danner and Judith Ivey as Brooklyn Jewish sisters were kind of ridiculous in Brighton Beach Memoirs, even with Blythe's 1/4 Jewish blood and 1/2 Jewish kids.

It is now November 4, 2018 and Barbara Barrie is STILL ruining everything.

No wonder she's got the face of a sociopathic hamster.

Barbara Barrie succeeded Estelle Getty in Torch Song Trilogy on Broadway

Spunk?

Barbara Barrie ruined spunk.

I mix her up with Barbara Harris, and Rosemary Harris.

They were all stage actresses from roughly the same time that I’ve barely seen onscreen (except for in FAMILY PLOT). So I have very few visual associations with them.

I think Barbara Harris was also in PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED. (Or, maybe that was Barbara Barrie...)

r105

That's actually well thought out and clever. You must be on the wrong site.

barrie remains one of the most respected ladys in the biz

the best

How many things has she ruined so far this year?

She gave an amazing and brave performance in One Potato, Two Potato. TCM usually shows it on MLK day.

I love her, ever since Breaking Away - which is an amazing movie.

Just stand there.

Never cared for her nor her weird birdlike features. In THE CARETAKERS, I always thought we finally saw the real Barbara when she played Edna.

I'm delighted somebody else agrees with me. Having to endure all that crap about Barbara Barrie and Paul Dooley being the new Hepburn and Tracy, it is most refreshing.

She was one of the 1st women to admit she'd had an abortion - for career reasons. I was reading a magazine and there it was. Never thought it hurt her career.

Did it help, r115? She's no megastar.

Congrats to r110 on the mention of "One Potato Two Potato." I stumbled across it on TCM about a year ago and was startled by how good it was.

Barbara Barrie certainly didn't ruin the original production of Company. That was Elaine Stritch.

Love her. Fuck You OP

r115

OH please I had more career abortions long before she did

[quote] Richard Schaal was someone who used to kind of stink up the joint. I think he was the ex=husband of Valerie Harper who remained friendly, and maybe once I laughed at something he did, but he generally registered as a bit of a pain in the butt.

I can't agree. He is so great during one of the funniest scenes ever in the history of "The MTM Show"--the party mary give sin "Today I am a Ma'am," where he's the stalkerish, smothering former boyfriend Mary mistakenly invites--and also in the funniest scene ever from "Phyllis" (a scene which is much beloved on Datalounge), the "Bess wants to marry a boy whose parents are dwarfs" scene.