{"id":26517,"date":"2026-10-29T09:54:50","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T09:54:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/10\/29\/barbara-barrie-breaking-away-star-and-actor-who-was-not-just-any-on-screen-mom-dies-at-95-los-angeles-times\/"},"modified":"2026-10-29T09:54:50","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T09:54:50","slug":"barbara-barrie-breaking-away-star-and-actor-who-was-not-just-any-on-screen-mom-dies-at-95-los-angeles-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/10\/29\/barbara-barrie-breaking-away-star-and-actor-who-was-not-just-any-on-screen-mom-dies-at-95-los-angeles-times\/","title":{"rendered":"Barbara Barrie, 'Breaking Away' star and actor who was not just any on-screen mom, dies at 95 – Los Angeles Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Actor Barbara Barrie, best known for films in which she elevated the role of Mom \u2014 including her Oscar-nominated turn in \u201cBreaking Away\u201d (1979) \u2014 died Wednesday in her Manhattan home. She was 95.
Barrie\u2019s death was confirmed to the L.A. Times by the actor\u2019s representatives, who said it was medically assisted. Her daughter, Jane Harnick, told the New York Times<\/a> that her mother\u2019s death followed a terminal cancer diagnosis.
Barrie\u2019s representatives said in a statement to the L.A. Times that the actor was a proponent and advocate of New York\u2019s Medical Aid in Dying Act, a law that took effect on Aug. 5.
Born Barbara Berman in Chicago in 1931, Barrie and her family moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, where she attended Del Mar College. She would later transfer to the University of Texas, where she received multiple awards for drama.
After graduation, she took her acting dreams to the Big Apple, where she made her Broadway debut in the 1955 play \u201cThe Wooden Dish.\u201d Throughout her career, Barrie starred in various Broadway productions, among them \u201cThe Selling of the President\u201d (1972), \u201cCalifornia Suite\u201d (1976) and, most notably, the 1970 musical \u201cCompany,\u201d by Stephen Sondheim, for which she received a Tony Award nomination for featured actress in a musical.
Her last Broadway stint was in 2017 in the original role of Helene Berman in the Joshua Harmon play \u201cSignificant Other.\u201d
Barrie extended her acting expertise beyond the stage, however, making her first television appearance on \u201cKraft Television Theater\u201d in 1955. A year later, she made her film debut, albeit uncredited, in the western epic \u201cGiant\u201d while she was in Texas visiting her family.
With more than 120 credits<\/a> to her name, Barrie began appearing in popular TV shows in the 1950s and \u201960s, such as \u201cNaked City,\u201d \u201cThe Twilight Zone,\u201d \u201cThe Alfred Hitchcock Hour,\u201d \u201cThe Nurses\u201d and more. Later TV credits included \u201cBarney Miller\u201d and \u201cSuddenly Susan,\u201d where she played an on-screen grandmother to Brooke Shields.
Her first major film role came in 1964, when she played divorc\u00e9e Julie Cullen Richards in \u201cOne Potato, Two Potato.\u201d She portrayed a white woman who falls in love with a Black man, Frank Richards (played by Bernie Hamilton). The film was released during a time when interracial marriage was not yet legalized nationwide. Barrie earned a Cannes Film Festival Award for the performance.
The actor went on to star as the mom Evelyn Stroller in the 1979 coming-of-age comedy-drama \u201cBreaking Away,\u201d which earned her an Academy Award nomination for supporting actress, and later an Emmy nomination when she reprised the role for the 1980 television series.
Other film credits include 1980\u2019s \u201cPrivate Benjamin,\u201d 1997\u2019s \u201cHercules\u201d (where she voiced Alcmene, Hercules\u2019 mortal mother) and 1999\u2019s \u201cJudy Berlin.\u201d According to her IMDb profile, her last credit was in 2025 for the queer romantic comedy \u201cThings Like This.\u201d
In 1994, Barrie was diagnosed with rectal cancer, prompting her to raise awareness about the disease. She published two books on the matter, including \u201cSecond Act,\u201d a 1997 memoir about resolute optimism and acceptance, and \u201cDon\u2019t Die of Embarrassment: Life After Colostomy and Other Adventures,\u201d a 1999 memoir where she dives deep into her diagnosis and experience with a colostomy procedure.
Barrie married actor, director and producer Jay Harnick in 1964. He died in 2007. The two are survived by their children, Jane and Aaron.
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Andrea Flores is a reporter with De Los covering the many contours of Latinidad for the Los Angeles Times. She has both her bachelor\u2019s and master\u2019s degrees from Stanford University and is originally from Waukegan, Ill.
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This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here. See more from the L.A. Times in Google Search. Set us as preferred Actor Barbara Barrie, best known for films in which she elevated the role of Mom \u2014 including her Oscar-nominated turn in \u201cBreaking Away\u201d (1979) \u2014 died Wednesday in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26518,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}