Barbara Parkins

Barbara Parkins
Kevin Norte and Barbara Parkins at a benefit reading of Valley of the Dolls in Hollywood on June 13, 2006
Born	(1942-05-22) May 22, 1942 Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Occupation(s)	Actress, singer, dancer, photographer and artist
Years active	1961–1998
Spouse	Divorced
Children	Christina (born 1986)
Website	barbaraparkins.com

Barbara Parkins (born May 22, 1942) is a Canadian-American former actress, singer, and dancer.

Early life

Parkins was born in Vancouver, British Columbia. At the age of 16, her adoptive mother and she moved to Los Angeles, where she enrolled at Hollywood High School and studied acting, tap, ballet and fencing at the Falcon School, where her mother played the piano.

Parkins worked as an usher in a cinema to pay for drama lessons.

Professional life

Parkins began her career as a backup singer and dancer in the nightclub acts of stars, like comedian George Burns. She made her film debut in the 1961 low-budget crime caper, 20,000 Eyes, and guest-starred in television series, such as Leave It to Beaver, The Untouchables, Perry Mason and The Wide Country.

Parkins in a promotional photo for Peyton Place

Parkins was involved in two of the most highly publicized projects of the 1960s, the ABC primetime serial Peyton Place, and the film adaptation of Jacqueline Susann's best-selling novel, Valley of the Dolls.

In Peyton Place, Parkins received lead billing for her role as small-town bad girl Betty Anderson. The character was scripted to die in a car crash six weeks into the season, but audience reaction to Parkins was overwhelmingly favorable and her character was kept in the story line. In a late-1965 interview, the actress said she was lucky to have the role of Anderson, calling her character the “salt and pepper in the stew.”

Parkins was the only female star in the series through its entire run (1964–1969). In 1966, she was nominated for an Emmy Award as Best Actress in a Lead Role in a Dramatic Series, but lost to Barbara Stanwyck for The Big Valley. Parkins said while losing the award was painful, she was glad to have lost it to Stanwyck instead of Anne Francis, who was also nominated and whose work Parkins thought was “unfeminine.”

Following the close of Peyton Place, producer Paul Monash developed a spin-off series, The Girl from Peyton Place, for Parkins. However, when co-star Ryan O'Neal, who played her husband, declined to participate, the project was shelved.

In Valley of the Dolls, Parkins played Anne Welles, a character based on author Susann. The Welles character was described as "the good girl with a million-dollar face and all the bad breaks." Although the film was trashed by the critics, it was a commercial success and became a cult classic.

After visiting London in 1968 to be a bridesmaid in the wedding of Valley of the Dolls co-star Sharon Tate and director Roman Polanski, Parkins moved to England, where she starred in several productions, including Puppet on a Chain, Shout at the Devil, and The Mephisto Waltz. Parkins said she moved to London because it was relaxed, simple and she loved its traditions.

Parkins posed for nude pictorials in the May 1967, February 1970 and May 1976 editions of Playboy magazine.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Parkins appeared on American television in series that included Jennie: Lady Randolph Churchill, Captains and the Kings and The Testimony of Two Men, Fantasy Island, The Love Boat, Hotel, and Vega$. She also appeared in television movies, including To Catch a King, in which she portrayed the Duchess of Windsor, and opposite Sharon Stone in Calendar Girl Murders.

Parkins returned to the role of Betty Anderson in Peyton Place: The Next Generation (1985), a one-shot sequel to the series.

In 1991, Parkins starred in Canadian mystery series Scene of the Crime. She appeared in two Susann-inspired projects, the biography Scandalous Me and a segment of the Lifetime series Intimate Portrait.

In 2006, Parkins participated with Ted Casablanca on the audio commentary for the DVD release of Valley of the Dolls.

Personal life

In the late 1960s, Parkins was linked to several men, including Omar Sharif, Adam West, David Hedison, and Marcel Marceau, but insisted most of the stories were made up by gossip magazines.

Parkins moved to France in the 1970s where she married, and in the late 1980s adopted her only child, Christina. Parkins and her husband divorced.

Filmography

Sources:

Films

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1961	20,000 Eyes	High School Girl
1967	Valley of the Dolls	Anne Welles
1970	The Kremlin Letter	B.A.
1971	The Mephisto Waltz	Roxanne Delancey
	The Deadly Trap	Cynthia
	Puppet on a Chain	Maggie
	A Taste of Evil	Susan Wilcox	TV movie
1972	Asylum	Bonnie
1973	Snatched	Barbara Maxvill	TV movie
1974	Christina	Christina/Kay
1976	Law of the Land	Jane Adams	TV movie
	Shout at the Devil	Rosa O'Flynn/Oldsmith
	Captains and the Kings	Martinique	TV miniseries
1977	Testimony of Two Men	Marjorie Ferrier/Hilda Eaton	TV miniseries
	Young Joe, the Forgotten Kennedy	Vanessa Hunt	TV movie
1978	Ziegfeld: The Man and His Women	Anna Held	TV movie
	The Critical List	Angela Adams	TV movie
1979	Bear Island	Judith Rubin
1981	The Manions of America	Charlotte Kent	TV miniseries
1982	Breakfast in Paris	Jackie Wyatt
1983	Uncommon Valor	Dr. Margaret Houghton	TV movie
1984	To Catch a King	Duchess of Windsor	TV movie
	Calendar Girl Murders	Cleo Banks	TV movie
	Katy	Narrator	Voice
1985	Peyton Place: The Next Generation	Betty Anderson	TV movie
1986	Perry Mason: The Case of the Notorious Nun	Ellen Cartwright	TV movie
1998	Scandalous Me: The Jacqueline Susann Story	Annie Laurie Williams	TV movie

TV series

Year(s)	Title	Role	Seasons	Notes
1964-69	Peyton Place	Betty Anderson	1-5	Nominated for an Emmy Award
1974	Jennie: Lady Randolph Churchill	Leonie	1
1991	Scene of the Crime	Various characters	1

TV appearances

Title	Season	Year	Role	Episode title	Notes
The Untouchables	2	1961	Girl (uncredited)	The Lily Dallas Story	Episode 21
The Tall Man	2	1961	Sue Wiley	Shadow of the Past	Episode 5
Leave It to Beaver	5	1961	Judy Walker	No Time for Babysitters	Episode 2
87th Precinct	1	1961	Mary	Lady Killer	Episode 3
Wagon Train	5	1961	Eve	The Mark Miner Story	Episode 6
General Electric Theater	10	1961	Betty	We're Holding Your Son	Episode 11
General Electric Theater	10	1961	Ruth	A Friendly Tribe	Episode 15
My Three Sons	2	1962	Bobbie	Coincidence	Episode 30
The Wide Country	1	1962	Sharon Crosley	Our Ernie Kills People	Episode 7
Perry Mason	6	1962	Paula Durham	The Case of the Unsuitable Uncle	Episode 7
Dr. Kildare	2	1962	Annie	The Soul Killer	Episode 9
Laramie	4	1963	Marilee Bishop	The Wedding Party	Episode 17
The Wide Country	1	1963	Billie Kidwell	The Lucky Punch	Episode 2
Ghost Story (TV series) (a.k.a.Circle of Fear)	1	1972	Eileen Travis	The New House	Pilot episode
Born Free	1	1974	Opal Vanek		Episode 13
Gibbsville	1	1976	Jenny	"All the Young Girls"	Episode 4
Vega$	3	1980	Lani	"Aloha, You're Dead" (Part 1 & Part 2)	Episode 1 & 2
Fantasy Island	4	1980	Lorna Hendricks	The Love Doctor/Pleasure Palace/Possessed	Episode 5
Hotel	1	1983	Eileen Weston	Faith, Hope & Charity	Episode 8
The Love Boat	8	1984	-	Only the Good Die Young/The Light of Another Day/Honey Beats the Odds	Episode 5
Jake and the Fatman	1	1988	Candace Morgan	But Not for Me	Episode 14
Murder, She Wrote	6	1989	Kay Weber	The Error of Her Ways	Episode 4
Picket Fences	4	1996	Lucy Wanamaker	Forget Selma	Episode 20
Superman: The Animated Series	2	1998	Mother Box (voice)	"Apokolips... Now!" (Part 1 & Part 2)	Episode 25 & 26

References

• Brooks, Tim and Marsh, Earle. The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows, 1946-Present (2007). Random House, Inc., ISBN 0-345-49773-2, pp 220, 1077, 1201
• Newcomb, Horace. Encyclopedia of Television (2004). CRC Press. ISBN 1-57958-411-X, pp. 1754–1756

External links

• Barbara Parkins at IMDb
• Barbara Parkins at the TCM Movie Database
• Barbara Parkins at AllMovie