Barbara
Hershey was born Barbara Lynn Herzstein;
February 5, 1948, also known as Barbara Seagull,is an American actress. In a
career spanning nearly 50 years, she has played a variety of roles on
television and in cinema, in several genres including westerns and comedies.
She began acting at age 17 in 1965, but did not achieve much critical acclaim
until the latter half of the 1980s. By that time, the Chicago Tribune referred
to her as "one of America's finest actresses."
Hershey was
awarded an Emmy and a Golden Globe for Outstanding Lead Actress in a
Miniseries/TV Film for her role in A Killing in a Small Town (1990). She has
been nominated for two more Golden Globes: in 1989 for Best Supporting Actress
for her role as Mary Magdalene in Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of
Christ, and for her role in Jane Campion's Portrait of a Lady (1996). For the
latter film, she was also nominated for an Academy Award and she won a Los
Angeles Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress. In addition, she has
won two Best Actress awards at the Cannes Film Festival for her roles in Shy
People (1987) and A World Apart (1988). She also featured in Woody Allen's
critically acclaimed Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), for which she was nominated
for a British Academy Award, Garry Marshall's melodrama Beaches (1988) and she
earned a second British Academy Award nomination for Darren Aronofsky's Black
Swan (2010).
Establishing
a reputation early in her career as a "hippie," Hershey experienced
conflict between her personal life and her acting goals. Her career suffered a
decline during a six-year relationship with actor David Carradine, with whom
she had a child. She experimented with a change in stage name that she later
regretted. During this time her personal life was highly publicized and ridiculed.It
was not until she separated from Carradine and changed her stage name back to
Hershey that her acting career became well established. Later in her career,
she began to keep her personal life private.
Early life
Barbara
Herzstein was born in Hollywood, California. She is the daughter of Melrose
(née Moore) and Arnold Nathan Herzstein.[8] Her father, a horse racing
columnist, was Jewish (his parents emigrated from Hungary and Russia)[9] and
her mother, a native of Arkansas, was a Presbyterian of Irish descent.The
youngest of three children, Barbara always wanted to be an actress. Her family
nicknamed her "Sarah Bernhardt". She was shy in school and so quiet
that people thought she was deaf. By the age of 10 she proved herself to be an
"A" student. Her high school drama coach helped her find an agent and
in 1965, at age 17, she landed a role on Sally Field's television series,
Gidget. She said that she found Field to be very supportive of her in her first
acting role.According to The New York Times All Movie Guide, she graduated from
Hollywood High School in 1966, but David Carradine, in his autobiography, said
she dropped out of high school after she began acting.
Barbara's
acting debut, three episodes of Gidget, was followed by the short-lived
television series, The Monroes (1966), which also featured Michael Anderson,
Jr.. At this point, she had adopted the stage name of Hershey.[14] Although she
said that the series helped her career, she expressed some frustration with her
role saying, "One week I was strong, the next, weak". While on the
series, Hershey garnered several other roles, including one in Doris Day's
final feature film, With Six You Get Eggroll.
Career
Scene from
Last Summer
In 1969
Hershey co-starred in the Glenn Ford western Heaven with a Gun. On the set, she
met and began a romantic relationship with actor David Carradine,who later
starred in the television series Kung Fu (see Personal Life). In the same year,
she acted in the controversial drama Last Summer, which was based on the novel
by Evan Hunter. Hershey played Sandy in this film, the "heavy," influencing
two young men, played by Bruce Davison and Richard Thomas, to rape another
girl, Rhoda, played by Catherine Burns. Even though the film, directed by Frank
Perry, received an X rating for the graphic rape scene, it earned a Best
Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for Burns.
