Monday, February 24, 2025, 5:45PM |  48°
MENU
SECTIONS
OTHER
CLASSIFIEDS
CONTACT US / FAQ
Advertisement
Barbara Rush, who co-starred in films with Frank Sinatra, Paul Newman and other leading men of the 1950s and 1960s and had a thriving TV career later in life, died Sunday. She was 97.
2
MORE

Barbara Rush, Golden Globe-winning actor of 'It Came from Outer Space' and 'Peyton Place,' dies at 97

Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP

Barbara Rush, Golden Globe-winning actor of 'It Came from Outer Space' and 'Peyton Place,' dies at 97

LOS ANGELES — Barbara Rush, a popular leading actor in the 1950 and 1960s who co-starred with Frank Sinatra, Paul Newman and other top film performers and later had a thriving TV career, died Sunday. She was 97.

Ms. Rush’s death was announced by her daughter, Fox News reporter Claudia Cowan, who posted on Instagram that her mother died on Easter Sunday. Additional details were not immediately available.

Ms. Cowan praised her mother as “among the last of “Old Hollywood Royalty” and called herself her mother’s “biggest fan.”

Advertisement

Spotted in a play at the Pasadena Playhouse, Ms. Rush was given a contract at Paramount Studios in 1950 and made her film debut that same year with a small role in “The Goldbergs,” based on the radio and TV series of the same name.

She would leave Paramount soon after, however, going to work for Universal International and later 20th Century Fox.

“Paramount wasn't geared for developing new talent,” she recalled in 1954. "Every time a good role came along, they tried to borrow Elizabeth Taylor.”

Ms. Rush went on to appear in a wide range of films. She starred opposite Rock Hudson in "Captain Lightfoot” and in Douglas Sirk’s acclaimed remake of “Magnificent Obsession,” Audie Murphy in “World in My Corner” and Richard Carlson in the 3-D science-fiction classic “It Came From Outer Space,” for which she received a Golden Globe for most promising newcomer.

Advertisement

Other film credits included the Nicholas Ray classic “Bigger Than Life”; “The Young Lions,” with Marlon Brando, Dean Martin and Montgomery Clift and “The Young Philadelphians” with Newman. She made two films with Sinatra, “Come Blow Your Horn” and the Rat Pack spoof “Robin and the Seven Hoods,” which also featured Martin and Sammy Davis Jr.

Ms. Rush, who had made TV guest appearances for years, recalled fully making the transition as she approached middle age.

“There used to be this terrible Sahara Desert between 40 and 60 when you went from ingenue to old lady,” she remarked in 1962. “You either didn't work or you pretended you were 20.”

Instead, Ms. Rush took on roles in such series as “Peyton Place,” “All My Children,” “The New Dick Van Dyke Show” and “7th Heaven.”

“I’m one of those kinds of people who will perform the minute you open the refrigerator door and the light goes on,” she cracked in a 1997 interview.

Her first play was the road company version of “Forty Carats,” a comedy that had been a hit in New York. The director, Abe Burrows, helped her with comedic acting.

“It was very, very difficult for me to learn timing at first, especially the business of waiting for a laugh,” she remarked in 1970. But she learned, and the show lasted a year in Chicago and months more on the road.

She went on to appear in such tours as “Same Time, Next Year,” “Father's Day,” “Steel Magnolias” and her solo show, “A Woman of Independent Means.”

Born in Denver, Ms. Rush spent her first 10 years on the move while her father, a mining company lawyer, was assigned from town to town. The family finally settled in Santa Barbara, California, where young Barbara played a mythical dryad in a school play and fell in love with acting.

Ms. Rush was married and divorced three times — to screen star Jeffrey Hunter, Hollywood publicity executive Warren Cowan and sculptor James Gruzalski.

First Published: April 1, 2024, 7:56 p.m.

RELATED
SHOW COMMENTS (0)  
Join the Conversation
Commenting policy | How to Report Abuse
If you would like your comment to be considered for a published letter to the editor, please send it to letters@post-gazette.com. Letters must be under 250 words and may be edited for length and clarity.
Partners
Advertisement
President Donald Trump speaks at the Governors Working Session in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, Feb. 21, 2025.
1
opinion
Bruce Ledewitz: The Supreme Court will step up and Trump will back down
Texas wide receiver Matthew Golden catches a pass against Ohio State during the second half of the Cotton Bowl College Football Playoff semifinal game, Friday, Jan. 10, 2025, in Arlington, Texas.
2
sports
Which positions are strong and weak at NFL combine? And how will Steelers approach this draft?
Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback Cory Trice Jr. (27) intercepts a pass during a failed two-point conversion by the Kansas City Chiefs at Acrisure Stadium on Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2024, in the North Shore. The Kansas City Chiefs won 29-10.
3
sports
Brian Batko's Steelers chat: 02.24.25
A clerk at the Venango County Sheriff’s Office reviews Rachel Powell’s application for a gun permit, in Franklin, Pa, Feb. 4, 2025. Powell is one of hundreds of prisoners granted amnesty for their role in the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as President Donald Trump has sought to alter the record of that day, but her life, like her nation, is deeply changed. (Meridith Kohut/The New York Times)
4
news
Pardoned for Jan. 6, 'Pink Hat Lady' came home to a new reality in Western Pa.
Pirates first-round pick Konnor Griffin hits against the Twins at LECOM Park in Bradenton, Florida, on Sunday, Feb. 23, 2025.
5
sports
Pirates top pick Konnor Griffin has raised eyebrows at spring training. Next step is learning to be a pro
Barbara Rush, who co-starred in films with Frank Sinatra, Paul Newman and other leading men of the 1950s and 1960s and had a thriving TV career later in life, died Sunday. She was 97.  (Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)
FILE - Frank Sinatra, left, appears with Barbara Rush in a scene from the film "Come Blow Your Horn" in Los Angeles on Sept. 11, 1962. Rush, who co-starred in films with Frank Sinatra, Paul Newman and other leading men of the 1950s and 1960s and had a thriving TV career later in life, died Sunday, March 31, 2024 at age 97. (AP Photo/Don Brinn, File)  (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP
Advertisement
LATEST news
Advertisement
TOP
Email a Story