Suctde
Granny

Barbara Barrie plays a hip sitcom grandma.
She may not be a grandma, but she's
certainly hip.

SUZANNE CHESSLER SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

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PHOTOS BY CHRIS HASTON

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ow many white-haired persons do you see taking
karate?" asks actress Barbara Barrie, whose spirited
character does just that in the NBC sitcom "Sudden-
ly Susan."
Barrie, who remains just as spirited away from the camera,
portrays the grandmother of Brooke Shields' character (Susan),
and the two complement each other in nontraditional ways.
"My character is a pioneer as far as feminism is concerned, and
she speaks her mind," said Barrie, who plays Nana. "Susan has
all kinds of hangups and pruderies, and I think that my charac-
ter is there to be a counterpoint to her.
"The old-fashioned idea would be to have the grandmother very
stuffy and proper and the girl hip and outgoing, but it's exactly
the opposite. While Susan is just learning how to live, the grand-
mother always has known."
Barrie, in reality the mother of two grown children and not yet
a grandmother, brings experience from numerous TV series to
her current role.
She was Elizabeth Miller, wife of Hal Linden's character, Bar-
ney Miller, in the sitcom of the same name, and her guest-star-
ring appearances include roles on "Law & Order," 'The Commish"
and "thirtysomething."
"Everything on today's sitcoms seems to be written by 20-year-
olds," said Barrie, whose career also has traveled between Broad-
way and Hollywood. "They have a different sensibility from the
way sitcoms were first conceived by 30- or 40-year-olds.
"We used to have a very firm format, and it isn't that way any-
more. The whole construction is really more loose, fantastical and
rippled at the outer edges. Actually, I think it's a lot better now."
Barrie, born in Chicago and raised in Texas, began perform-
ing as a child in civic productions. After earning a fine arts degree
at the University of Texas, she moved to New York and started
winning parts within the first year.
The actress appeared on stage in plays as diverse as Neil Si-
mon's Prisoner ofSecond Avenue and Shakespeare's Twelfth Night
and has received an Obie and a Drama Desk Award. Her feature
film credits indude BreakingAway, One Pota-
The cast of "Suddenly
to, Two Potato and Private Benjamin.
Susan" (Barrie is
I go where the work is and still do plays
second from left).
on and off Broadway," said Barrie, who is mar-
ried to Jay Harnick, artistic director of Theatreworks(USA, which
tours productions for children. "I still do movies. Television came
early on, and you keep going back and forth if you're lucky."
The animated Disney film Hercules will be released this sum-
mer with Barrie cast as Hercules' mother.
"We started the film over a year and a half ago, and I did two
scenes," she said. "I'm in a scene where we find [Hercules] and
bring him home, and then there's a scene where he leaves to go
out into the world.
"Hercules is like Moses in that he's found. The mother does not
give birth to him. She really doesn't know what hit her."
Three years ago, Bathe was hit with the bad news that she
had cancer. The actress' triumph over the disease motivated her
memoir, Second Act, a book which will be released in September
and follows her writing of two experienced-based novels for young
adults.
Lone Star is about growing up Jewish in Texas during World
War I; she was a Jewish girl growing up in Texas during
World War II. Adam Zigzag is about a dyslexic child and
how the family is affected by his struggles; her son, Aaron, a

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