Posted: 8/21/18 at 2:53pm
Very sad news today...
https://chicago.suntimes.com/?post_type=cst_article&p=1307882
Posted: 8/21/18 at 3:03pm
Awwwww......RIP
Posted: 8/21/18 at 3:13pm
This really makes my heart hurt. Truly. An immensely talented woman and I hope that this current news will circulate her name so that younger generations will look into her brilliant work on film and album. God Bless Barbara.
Posted: 8/21/18 at 8:00pm
Posted: 8/21/18 at 8:00pm
Posted: 8/21/18 at 8:08pm
Ah, so sad. What a wonderful, sublime talent she had.
I never tire of this:
Posted: 8/21/18 at 8:25pm
I'm devastated. I never got to see Miss Harris live, but her performances through cast recordings, film and television, and these special live performances show just want a brilliant and singular performer she was. I've always held it out in my heart that I would one day get to experience her talent - even with her reclusiveness in her final years. In my wildest dreams, she would have come out of retirement to play Hattie in a film version of Follies. For some reason, Harris, who is such a charismatic and funny performer, always makes me a little sad. I can't seem to shake her Tony acceptance from my head. Hopefully whatever she was going through at that time passed and she had a wonderful 50 years. She will truly be missed.
Posted: 8/21/18 at 8:56pm
Barbara, taking the mic at the finale of NASHVILLE, was just amazing. I will never forget it.
Posted: 8/21/18 at 10:13pm
Posted: 8/21/18 at 11:32pm
Posted: 8/22/18 at 12:11am
This was such sad news for me. I was fortunate enough to see her in The Apple Tree at least three times for the entire show, and at least four or five times for Acts 2 and 3. Since I was 15 at the time, I much preferred Acts 2 and 3 to Act 1, and took advantage of lax intermission controls at the Shubert to sneak in for those comic acts. Eventually, I realized that, without Act 1, the show would not have existed.
Fifty-two years later, I still believe that her performance in The Apple Tree was arguably the greatest musical performance I have ever seen (IMO, her competition for the top slot would be Angela Lansbury for Mame and Gypsy, Glenn Close for Sunset Blvd, and Nathan Lane in The Producers (Patti Lupone would probably be on the list for Anything Goes, had the role of Reno Sweeney not been given such short shrift in Act 2).
The prior season, I saw her in On A Clear Day, and fell in love immediately.
Those two performances provide an important place in my personal theatre history. I was devastated that she stopped performing live, at least in NYC. I have always wondered what shows were not produced because her unique talents were not available, or what roles were played by people not as talented as her. For example, (not to dis Dorothy Loudon), I think she would have been a great Miss Hannigan; I think she would have been a great Norma Desmond, a great Dolly Levi, a great Desiree Armfeldt, a great witch in Into the Woods, a great Reno Sweeney, and etc. Based on some of her excellent film performances -- her performance in Nashville was wonderful low comedy, and the ending of the movie with her singing "It Don't Worry Me' remains one of the great movie endings of all time to me -- you could add a lot of non-musicals to the list as well.
i have never understood why she gave it all up, but I hope it was for good personal reasons, since it deprived several generations of theatergoers of seeing one of the greats.
Posted: 8/22/18 at 2:13am
Peggy Sue, you know what a penis is? STAY AWAY FROM IT!
Posted: 8/22/18 at 4:37am
Saw her years ago in The Apple Tree- in the 60's- she was unforgettable- RIP
Posted: 8/22/18 at 11:10am
She came to NY in the fall of 1961 in a revue brought in from Chicago called From the Second City. The evening was a series of extended skits, each around 20 minutes long. The highlight was Barbara and Alan Arkin in a scene taking place in a museum. She played a repressed young woman he a weird beat poet--their interaction was truly hilarious.
.jpg?format=auto&width=365)
