Barbara Baxley

Barbara Baxley
Barbara Baxley
	Baxley in 1960.
Born	Barbara Angie Rose Baxley; January 1, 1923; Porterville, California, U.S.
Died	June 7, 1990 (aged 67); New York, New York, U.S.
Occupation(s)	Film, stage, television actress
Years active	1950–1990

Barbara Angie Rose Baxley (January 1, 1923 – June 7, 1990) was an American actress and singer.

Early life

Barbara Baxley was born in Porterville, California, the daughter of Emma (née Tyler) and Bert Baxley.^[1] She acted for six years in productions of schools and Little Theaters before she had her first professional role.^[2]

Career

A life member of the Actors Studio,^[3] Baxley also studied acting under the tutelage of Sanford Meisner at the prestigious Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theater in New York City. Her first film was East of Eden, where she portrayed Adam Trask's obnoxious nurse at the end of the film.

In 1961, she was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actress (Dramatic) for her performance in the Broadway production of Tennessee Williams' comedy Period of Adjustment. She appeared in Chekhov's The Three Sisters and Neil Simon's Plaza Suite as well as the 1960s Broadway musical She Loves Me, which co-starred Jack Cassidy, Barbara Cook and Daniel Massey. She also starred in the 1976 Broadway play Best Friend.

Baxley appeared in supporting roles in many television series of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. She played a wife having her rodeo-performing husband, played by Lee Van Cleef, murdered in the crime drama series Richard Diamond, Private Detective, starring David Janssen. She appeared in a 1958 Perry Mason episode, "The Case of the Gilded Lily", as Enid Griffin and she played the role of Cora Wheeler in the original Twilight Zone episode of "Mute".

Baxley played two different characters in two episodes of Have Gun – Will Travel, starring Richard Boone. She also played roles on Where the Heart Is and Another World, two daytime soap operas.

She is perhaps better known for the role of Lady Pearl, the feisty wife of country music icon Haven Hamilton in Robert Altman's film Nashville (1975) and as the mother of Sally Field's character in Norma Rae (1979).

Death

Baxley died at age 67 at her home in Manhattan of an apparent heart attack.^[4] She is buried at Umpawaug Cemetery in Redding, Connecticut^[5].

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1955	East of Eden	Nurse	Uncredited
1958	The Badlanders	Diane	(scenes deleted)
1960	The Savage Eye	Judith McGuire
1962	All Fall Down	Schoolteacher
1967	Countdown	Jean
1968	No Way to Treat a Lady	Belle Poppie
1972	Images	Telephone	Voice, uncredited
1975	Nashville	Lady Pearl
1979	Butterflies in Heat
1979	Norma Rae	Leona
1982	A Stranger Is Watching	Lally
1989	Sea of Love	Miss Allen
1990	A Shock to the System	Lillian
1990	The Exorcist III	Shirley	(final film role)

References

^ Barbara Baxley profile, filmreference.com; accessed May 18, 2015.
^ Bodin, Walter (June 1, 1948). "Tallulah, Cast Acclaimed in Suave 'Private Lives'". Oakland Tribune. California, Oakland. p. 28. Retrieved August 12, 2018 – via Newspapers.com.
^ David Garfield (1980). "Appendix: Life Members of the Actors Studio as of January 1980". A Player's Place: The Story of the Actors Studio. New York: MacMillan Publishing Co. Inc. p. 277. ISBN 0-02-542650-8.
^ "Barbara Baxley, 67, Who Acted In Theater, Movie and TV Roles", The New York Times, June 9, 1990.
^ Wilson, Scott (16 September 2016). "Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons, 3d ed". McFarland – via Google Books.