Veteran Actress Barbara Barrie Dies at 95 with Medically Assisted Death
Oscar-nominated actress Barbara Barrie died at her Manhattan home at age 95, with her daughter confirming the death was medically assisted following a terminal cancer diagnosis.
Veteran actress Barbara Barrie died on Wednesday at her Manhattan residence, according to a report by the New York Times. Her daughter, Jane Harnick, said the 95-year-old’s death was medically assisted after she was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
Barrie had previously battled idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a degenerative lung disease diagnosed in 2014, which made breathing increasingly difficult.
She earned a Cannes Film Festival award for best actress in 1964 for her role in One Potato, Two Potato and received an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress for Breaking Away in 1979. The film also won the Academy Award for best original screenplay that year. Barrie reprised her role in the television adaptation of the movie and earned an Emmy nomination in 1981.
Her stage work included a Tony nomination in 1971 for best featured actress in a musical for her performance as Sarah in Stephen Sondheim’s Company. On television, she was known for playing Elizabeth Miller on Barney Miller (1975-1978) and Goldie Hawn’s mother in Private Benjamin (1980). From 1996, she portrayed the grandmother of Brooke Shields’s character on Suddenly Susan, appearing in every episode across four seasons.
Barrie also authored two children’s books, Lone Star (1990) and Adam Zigzag (1994), and two nonfiction works about her cancer experience, Second Act (1997) and Don’t Die of Embarrassment (1999).
She is survived by her children, Jane and Aaron Harnick, and her late husband, artistic director Jay Harnick, who died in 2007.
"Her death was medically assisted after she had been diagnosed with terminal cancer," Jane Harnick said.