Barbara Barrie, Oscar-Nominated Actress of Breaking Away and Broadway's Original Sarah, Dies at 95

Barbara Barrie, the Oscar-nominated actress who played the mother in Breaking Away and created the role of Sarah in Stephen Sondheim's Company on Broadway, died on Wednesday at her home in New York City. She was 95.

Her daughter, Jane Harnick, confirmed the death to The New York Times. Harnick said her mother's death was chosen and medically assisted, after a diagnosis of terminal cancer. Barrie had lived for years with other serious illness. In 2014 she said publicly that she had idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a degenerative lung disease that makes breathing harder.

From Chicago to Cannes

Barrie was born Barbara Ann Berman on May 23, 1931, in Chicago. She moved to New York in the middle of the last century and worked steadily on and off Broadway from then on. Her performance as Elizabeth Proctor in the 1958 Off-Broadway revival of The Crucible drew strong notices, and she won a Drama Desk Award in 1974 for her performance in The Killdeer.

Her film breakthrough came in 1964, when she played Julie in One Potato, Two Potato and won the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival. Fifteen years later she played Evelyn Stoller, the mother in the coming-of-age film Breaking Away, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the 1979 film. She was nominated for an Emmy Award again in 1992, for a guest performance on Law and Order.

Sarah, and a long life on stage

The stage role most closely tied to Barrie is Sarah in Company. She originated the part in the original Broadway production, playing a woman on a diet who is locked in a combative marriage with her alcoholic husband Harry, and the performance brought her a Tony Award nomination. Her Broadway credits also included the original runs of The Wooden Dish, The Prisoner of Second Avenue, California Suite, Torch Song Trilogy and Significant Other, along with revivals of The Beaux Stratagem and Fiddler on the Roof. She left the 2004 Fiddler revival during previews because of health problems.

Television audiences knew her as Elizabeth Miller, the wife of the captain in the police sitcom Barney Miller, a role she played in the 1970s. Her last television appearances were guest spots on Nurse Jackie in 2010 and Enlightened in 2011.

Books and a second act

Barrie also wrote. Her children's books were Lone Star and Adam ZigZag. She wrote two autobiographical books, Second Act and Don't Die of Embarrassment, about living with colorectal cancer, and she spoke for years in favour of early detection of the disease.

Her husband, Jay Harnick, died in 2007. She is survived by her two children, Jane Harnick and Aaron Harnick, and by three grandchildren.