Early life and education

Rush was born in Denver, Colorado, on January 4, 1927. Her father, Roy, was a lawyer for a Midwest mining company. She grew up in Santa Barbara, California. She would ultimately attend the University of California, Santa Barbara and graduate in 1948.

Career

Barbara Rush performed on stage at the Pasadena Playhouse before signing with Paramount Pictures. She made her screen debut in the 1951 movie The Goldbergs and went on to star opposite the likes of James Mason, Marlon Brando, Paul Newman, Richard Burton, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, and Kirk Douglas. In 1952 she starred in Flaming Feather with Sterling Hayden and Victor Jory. In 1954 she won the Golden Globe Award for "Most Promising Newcomer - Female" for her performance in It Came from Outer Space.

Rush starred as the wife of James Mason in the acclaimed 1956 drama Bigger Than Life, in which a school teacher's use of an experimental drug results in his threatening harm to his family. She was the love interest of reluctant soldier Dean Martin in the war story The Young Lions and of ambitious lawyer Paul Newman in The Young Philadelphians.

Rush began her career on stage and it has always been a part of her professional life. In 1970, she earned the Sarah Siddons Award for dramatic achievement in Chicago theatre for her leading role in Forty Carats and brought her one-woman play A Woman of Independent Means to Broadway in 1984. She began working on television in the 1950s. She later became a regular performer in TV movies, miniseries, and a variety of other shows including Peyton Place and the soap opera All My Children.

In 1962, she guest-starred as Linda Kinkcaid in the episode "Make Me a Place" on the NBC medical drama about psychiatry, The Eleventh Hour starring Wendell Corey and Jack Ging. In 1962-1963, she appeared three times as Lizzie Hogan on the short-lived NBC drama about newspapers, Saints and Sinners. In 1965, she appeared in a 2-part episode of The Fugitive entitled "Landscape with Running Figures" as Marie Gerard. In 1967, she guest starred on the ABC western series Custer starring Wayne Maunder.

She often played a willful woman of means or a polished, high-society doyenne. Rush also was cast in an occasional villainess role, as in the Rat Pack's gangster musical Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964) or in the Western drama Hombre (1967), as a rich, condescending wife of a thief who ends up taken hostage and tied to a stake. She portrayed the devious Nora Clavicle in the TV series Batman.

After appearing in the 1980 disco-themed Can't Stop the Music, Rush returned to television work. She was a cast member on the early 1980s soap opera Flamingo Road as Eudora Weldon. She also was a character named Elizabeth Knight in the Season 2 debut episode "Goliath" of the 80's TV series Knight Rider. In 1998, she was featured in an episode called "Balance of Nature" on the television series The Outer Limits.

In 1989, Rush toured on stage in the national company of Steel Magnolias as the character "M'Lynn."

Rush continues to make guest appearances on television. In 2007, she played the recurring role of Grandma Ruth Camden on the series 7th Heaven. Peter Graves appeared as her husband in the role of the by-the-book Colonel John Camden.

Personal life

Rush married actor Jeffrey Hunter in 1950 and divorced in 1955. She married publicist Warren Cowan in 1959, but divorced in 1969. Rush married sculptor Jim Gruzalski in 1970 after meeting at an Engelbert Humperdinck concert at the Greek Theatre. They would later divorce in 1973.

Rush has two children, Christopher Hunter (with Hunter) and Claudia Cowan (with Cowan). The latter is a journalist with the Fox News television channel.

As of May 1997, Rush lived in the Harold Lloyd estate in Beverly Hills, California, where her next door neighbor was David Geffen.

Selected filmography

• Quebec (1951)
• When Worlds Collide (1951)
• Flaming Feather (1952)
• It Came from Outer Space (1953)
• Magnificent Obsession (1954)
• Taza, Son of Cochise (1954)
• The Black Shield of Falworth (1954)
• Captain Lightfoot (1955)
• Kiss of Fire (1955)
• Flight to Hong Kong (1956)
• Bigger Than Life (1956)
• No Down Payment (1957)
• Harry Black and the Tiger (1958)
• The Young Lions (1958)
• The Young Philadelphians (1959)
• The Bramble Bush (1960)
• Strangers When We Meet (1960)
• Come Blow Your Horn (1963)
• Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964)
• Hombre (1967)
• Strategy of Terror (1969)
• Peege (1972)
• The Eyes of Charles Sand (1972)
• The Man (1972)
• Moon of the Wolf (1972)
• Superdad (1973)
• The Last Day (1975)
• The Seekers (1979)
• Death Car on the Freeway (1979)
• Can't Stop the Music (1980)
• Summer Lovers (1982)
• The Night the Bridge Fell Down (1983)
• Web of Deceit (1990)
• Widow's Kiss (1996)

Television

• Lux Video Theatre (1954-56, 4 episodes)
• Playhouse 90 (1957-60, 2 episodes)
• The Eleventh Hour (1962, 1 episode)
• Saints and Sinners (1962-63, 4 episodes)
• The Outer Limits (1964, 1 episode: "The Forms of Things Unknown")
• Dr. Kildare (1965, 2 episodes)
• The Fugitive (1965, 2 episodes)
• Custer (1967, 1 episode)
• Batman (1968, 2 episodes)
• Peyton Place (1968-69, 68 episodes)
• Mannix (1968-75, 2 episodes)
• Marcus Welby, M.D. (1969-72, 2 episodes)
• Medical Center (1969-74, 4 episodes)
• Love, American Style (1970, 1 episode)
• The Mod Squad (1971, 1 episode)
• Ironside (1971-72, 2 episodes)
• Night Gallery (1971, 1 episode)
• Maude (1972, 1 episode)
• Moon of the Wolf (1972 TV Movie)
• The Streets of San Francisco (1973, 1 episode)
• The New Dick Van Dyke Show (1973-74, 3 episodes)
• The Bionic Woman (1976, 1 episode)
• The Eddie Capra Mysteries (1978, 1 episode)
• Fantasy Island (1978-84, 3 episodes)
• The Love Boat (1979, 2 episodes)
• Flamingo Road (1980-82, 38 episodes)
• Knight Rider (1983, 1 episode)
• Magnum, P.I. (1984, 1987 2 episodes)
• Hearts Are Wild (1992, 1 episode)
• All My Children "Nola Orsini" (1992, recurring)
• The Outer Limits (1998, 1 episode)
• 7th Heaven (1997-2007, 10 episodes)

[ Source: Wikipedia ]