Barbara Rush

Barbara Rush
Rush as part of the Peyton Place cast, 1969.
Born	(1927-01-04) January 4, 1927 Denver, Colorado, U.S.
Years active	1950–present
Spouse(s)	Jeffrey Hunter (1950–1955) 1 child Warren Cowan (1959–1970) 1 child Jim Gruzalski (1971–1973)
Children	Christopher Hunter (b. 1952) Claudia Cowan

Barbara Rush (born January 4, 1927) is an American stage, film, and television actress.

Career

A 1948 graduate of the University of California, Santa Barbara,^[1][2] Barbara Rush performed on stage at the Pasadena Playhouse^[3] before signing with Paramount Pictures. She made her screen debut in the 1951 movie The Goldbergs and went on to star opposite the likes of James Mason, Marlon Brando, Paul Newman, Richard Burton, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra and Kirk Douglas. In 1952 she starred in Flaming Feather with Sterling Hayden and Victor Jory. In 1954 she won the Golden Globe Award for "Most Promising Newcomer – Female" for her performance in It Came from Outer Space.

Rush began her career on stage and it has always been a part of her professional life. In 1970, she earned the Sarah Siddons Award for dramatic achievement in Chicago theatre for her leading role in Forty Carats 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.

In 1962, she guest starred as Linda Kinkcaid in the episode "Make Me a Place" on the NBC medical drama about psychiatry, The Eleventh Hour starring Wendell Corey and Jack Ging. In 1962–1963, she appeared three times as Lizzie Hogan on the short-lived NBC drama about newspapers, Saints and Sinners. In 1965, she appeared in a 2-part episode of The Fugitive entitled "Landscape with Running Figures" as Marie Gerard. In 1967, she guest starred on the ABC western series Custer starring Wayne Maunder.

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) or in the Western drama Hombre (1967), as a rich, condescending wife of a thief who ends up taken hostage and tied to a stake.

She portrayed the devious Nora Clavicle in the TV series Batman. She also guest starred on the television series, Maude, playing Phyllis Nash, a successful old friend of the title character. After appearing in the 1980 disco-themed Can't Stop the Music, Rush returned to television work. She was a regular cast member on the early 1980s soap opera Flamingo Road as Eudora Weldon. She also was a guest star character named Elizabeth Knight in the season 2 debut episode "Goliath" of the 80's TV series Knight Rider. In 1998 she was featured in an episode called "Balance of Nature" on the television series The Outer Limits. Rush continues to make guest appearances on television as recent as 2007 in the recurring role of Grandma Ruth Camden on the series, 7th Heaven. Peter Graves appeared as her husband in the role of the by-the-book Colonel John Camden.

Personal life

Rush married actor Jeffrey Hunter in 1950 and had a son, Christopher. They divorced in 1955. She married publicist Warren Cowan in 1959. They divorced in 1969. Their daughter, Claudia Cowan, is a journalist with Fox News television channel. Rush married Jim Gruzalski in 1970. They divorced in 1973.

Selected filmography

Television

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Barbara Rush.

• Barbara Rush at the Internet Movie Database
• Barbara Rush at the Internet Broadway Database