Barbara Harris, a Timeless Actress

Remember Disney's original "Freaky Friday" (1977) with Jodie Foster? How about "Grosse Point Blank" (1997)?

And what would those two movies have in common?

Actress Barbara Harris was in both.

And who is Barbara Harris, you may ask?

Why, she's the actress that many of today's contemporary actresses should model themselves after.

She grew up in Evanston, Illinois, just a stone's throw from Chicago. As a teenager, Harris joined the Playwrights Theatre in Chicago to begin her acting career, rubbing elbows with the likes of Edward Asner, Elaine May and Mike Nichols.

The Compass Players were the originators of improvisational theater and predecessors of The Second City. Harris was a member of both, receiving critical acclaim for her performances. Performances which drew the attention of Richard Rodgers (of Rodgers and Hammerstein) and Alan Jay Lerner, two of Broadway's biggest composers.

Though she didn't work with Rodgers, Harris did go on to work with Lerner and Burton Lane, another big Broadway composer. The two had written a musical specifically for Barbara Harris: "On a Clear Day You Can See Forever." Harris received a 1966 Tony nomination for Best Actress in a Musical, even though Barbra Streisand went on to play Daisy Gamble in the big screen version.

In her next theatrical endeavor, Harris starred alongside Alan Alda in "The Apple Tree." A play based on three stories by Mark Twain, Frank R. Stockton and Jules Feiffer, Harris played Eve in "The Diary of Adam and Eve," a temptress in "The Lady and the Tiger" and two roles in "Passionella." This was the performance which earned Harris her 1967 Tony award for Best Actress in a Musical.

Yes, Harris can sing, as can Alan Alda. "The Apple Tree" soundtrack is actually available on CD at CD Universe where you can also download tracks to an MP3 player.

Harris didn't stick around Broadway much longer after "The Apple Tree" which ran on Broadway for over a year. A private person, Harris didn't much like the fame aspect of acting.

In a rare interview with the Phoenix New Times, Harris stated, Who wants to be up on the stage all the time? It isn't easy. You have to be awfully invested in the fame aspect, and I really never was. What I cared about was the discipline of acting, whether I did well or not."[1]

So she was off to Hollywood.

Harris did guest star appearances on shows such as "Naked City," "The Defenders" and "The Nurses," popular shows during the sixties. Her first big screen break came in "A Thousand Clowns" (1965) opposite Jason Robards.

Always playing the supportive and, more often than not, quirky roles, Harris was in a string of movies with equally quirky titles: "Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mama's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad" (1967) with Rosalind Russell, "Who Is Harry Kellerman And Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?" (1971) with Dustin Hoffman (she received an Oscar nomination for that role), and "The War Between Men and Women" (1972) with Jack Lemmon.

One of her most memorable roles and one for which she received a Golden Globe nomination, was that of "Albuquerque" a ditzy country-singing hopeful in "Nashville" (1975), alongside Lily Tomlin who is a big Barbara Harris fan.

Harris currently teaches acting in Arizona. She's more interested in the acting process, which is the inquiry into the human condition. Everyone gets acting mixed up with the desire to be famous, but some of us really just stumbled into the fame part, while we were really just interested in the process of acting." [1]

A rundown of other works of Harris are:

Family Plot (1976)
Freaky Friday (1976)
Movie Movie (1978)
The North Avenue Irregulars (1979)
The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979)
Second-Hand Hearts (1980)
Peggy Sue Got Married (1986)
Nice Girls Don't Explode (1987)
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988)
Grosse Pointe Blank (1997)

Not everything Harris was in made for good viewing, but Harris was always praised for her performances. But since Grosse Pointe Blank in 1997, Harris has not done any big screen acting, although she has done some voice acting on radio.

Said Harris, "...all I really wanted to do back then was rehearsal. I was in it for the process, and I really resented having to go out and do a performance for an audience, because the process stopped; it had to freeze and be the same every night. It wasn't as interesting."[1]

However, in that rare interview with the Phoenix New Times, Harris did comment that "if someone handed me something fantastic for 10 million dollars, I'd work again."[1]

So who has a fantastic role and 10 million dollars?

[1] The Phoenix News Times
October 24, 2002
Nation Master