Барбара Раш: Американская актриса (1927–2024)

American actress (1927–2024)

Barbara Rush (January 4, 1927 – March 31, 2024) was an American actress. In 1954, Rush won the Golden Globe Award as most promising female newcomer for her role in the 1953 American science fiction film It Came from Outer Space. Later in her career, Rush became a regular performer in the television series Peyton Place, and appeared in TV movies, miniseries, and a variety of other programs, including the soap opera All My Children and family drama 7th Heaven, as well as starring in films, including The Young Philadelphians, The Young Lions, Robin and the 7 Hoods, and Hombre.

Rush was born in Denver on January 4, 1927. Her father, Roy, was a lawyer for a Midwest mining company. She grew up in Santa Barbara, California. Rush attended the University of California, Santa Barbara and graduated in 1948, starting her career in the university's theatre program.

Rush performed on stage at the Lobero Theatre and the Pasadena Playhouse before signing with Paramount Pictures. and brought her one woman play A Woman of Independent Means to Broadway in 1984. She began working on television in the 1950s. She later became a regular performer in TV movies, miniseries, and a variety of other shows including Peyton Place and the soap opera All My Children. She often played a willful woman of means or a polished, high society doyenne. Rush also was cast in an occasional villainess role, as in the Rat Pack's gangster musical Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964). In the 1967 Western drama Hombre, she played a rich, younger, condescending wife of a thief and ends up taken hostage and tied to a stake. She portrayed the devious Nora Clavicle in the TV series Batman. In 1976, Rush played the role of Ann Sommers/Chris Stewart, the mother of female sci fi action character Jaime Sommers in The Bionic Woman. After appearing in the 1980 disco themed Can't Stop the Music, Rush returned to television work. She was a cast member on the early 1980s soap opera Flamingo Road as Eudora Weldon. In 1998, she was featured in an episode titled "Balance of Nature" on the television series The Outer Limits. In 1989, Rush toured on stage in the national company of Steel Magnolias as the character M'Lynn. She continued to make guest appearances on television. In 2007, she played the recurring role of Grandma Ruth Camden on the series 7th Heaven. Thereafter, she made occasional appearances for the Theatre Guild in Orange County, CA.

Rush married actor Jeffrey Hunter in 1950; they divorced in 1955. She married publicist Warren Cowan in 1959, but they divorced in 1969. Rush married sculptor Jim Gruzalski in 1970 after they met at an Engelbert Humperdinck concert. The latter is a journalist with Fox News. Rush was also the aunt of actress Carolyn Hennesy. Rush lived in the Harold Lloyd Estate in Beverly Hills, California. She died of dementia at a care home in Westlake Village, California, on March 31, 2024, at the age of 97.