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Barbara Rush

Barbara Rush built a career that moved easily between science fiction, serious drama, television and the stage. Born in Denver on January 4, 1927, she grew up in Santa Barbara and graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1948. Her acting career began in the university’s theatre program, followed by work at the Lobero Theatre and Pasadena Playhouse. After moving to Los Angeles, she continued her training at the Pasadena Playhouse School for Performing Arts and made her screen debut in The Goldbergs in 1950. Rush quickly found a place in 1950s Hollywood. She co-starred in George Pal’s When Worlds Collide and received the 1954 Golden Globe for Most Promising Newcomer – Female for It Came From Outer Space. In Bigger Than Life, she played Lou Avery, the wife of James Mason’s increasingly unstable schoolteacher. The role gave Rush substantial dramatic ground as a woman watching her family fall into danger. She later appeared opposite Dean Martin in The Young Lions and played the on-again, off-again girlfriend of Paul Newman’s ambitious lawyer in The Young Philadelphians. Her polished presence often led to women of wealth or social standing, though she could turn that composure toward colder characters. In Robin and the 7 Hoods, she played the calculating Marian Stevens, while Hombre reunited her with Newman and cast her as Audra Favor, the condescending wife of a thief who becomes a hostage. Television became an important part of Rush’s work from the 1960s onward. Her credits included The Outer Limits, Batman, Peyton Place, All My Children, The Bionic Woman, Flamingo Road, Knight Rider and 7th Heaven. She was also the only actress to appear in both the original Outer Limits and its later reboot. Stage work remained a constant throughout her career. Rush received the 1970 Sarah Siddons Award for Forty Carats, brought her one-woman play A Woman of Independent Means to Broadway in 1984 and later toured in Steel Magnolias. Her final film appearance came in the 2017 short Bleeding Hearts: The Arteries of Glenda Bryant. She died in 2024.