Barbara Barrie, the actress whose face was a fixture on screens for five decades, died Wednesday at her home in Manhattan. She was 95. Her daughter Jane Harnick confirmed to the New York Times that the death was medically assisted following a terminal cancer diagnosis. Barrie had also lived with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis since 2014, and she wrote about her cancer journey in memoirs and children’s books.
The résumé is genuinely wild. Barrie won Best Actress at Cannes in 1964 for the interracial-relationship drama“One Potato, Two Potato,”earned an Oscar nomination for her supporting role in 1979’s“Breaking Away,”and landed a Tony nomination in 1971 for Stephen Sondheim’s“Company.”Add“Barney Miller”and a long list of guest spots, and you’ve got a career most actors would trade anything for.
She’s survived by her children, Jane and Aaron Harnick, whom she shared with her late husband, artistic director Jay Harnick. Her choice to speak openly about a medically assisted death is putting end-of-life care and right-to-die laws back into the conversation. Have you ever talked with your family about this? Tell us in the comments.
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Local Lawton
Local Lawton is a contributor to LocalBeat, covering local news and community stories.