Barbara Harris

She was married to director Paul Sills whom she later divorced. She is a reclusive person who prefers to guard the personal details of her life from the media.

She was born on July 25, 1935, in Illinois, as the daughter of Oscar Graham Harris and Natalie Densmoor. Her mother was a pianist while her father was an arborist turned businessman.

Barbara took an interest in acting from a young age. She began her acting career as a teenager, taking up small parts in the Playwrights Theatre Club in Chicago. There she became acquainted with other aspiring actors like Edward Asner, Elaine May and Mike Nichols.

She became a member of an ongoing improvisational theatre troupe, The Compass Players, which was run by her husband, Paul Sills. The troupe which later closed down served as the springboard for her career.

After the closure of The Compass Players, Sills started another theatre group called The Second City which opened in 1959. By now Sills and Barbara had divorced, but still respected each other as professionals. Thus she was cast in the new theatre troupe too.

The Second City started performing its sketches on the Broadway stage in 1961 and soon Barbara established herself as a very popular stage actress. In fact, she earned a Tony Award nomination for her first performance with the troupe, ‘From the Second City’.

As an actress Barbara was interested in exploring different aspects of the profession and eventually made her foray into television and films. From 1962 to 1964 she appeared on several popular television series as a guest star.

She made her film debut in 1965, playing a social worker, Sandra Markowitz, in the film ‘A Thousand Clowns’. The film revolves around an unemployed comedy writer who struggles to retain custody of his young nephew whom social workers plan to take away from him.

She is best known for her performance in ‘The Apple Tree’, in which she played three different roles in three different acts. The ease with which she transitioned from one character to another in the play earned her critical acclaim from reviewers.