by Nathaniel R
Barbara Harris in The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979)
Sad news yesterday. One of the nation's best and most underappreciated actresses Barbara Harris passed away at 83 from lung cancer. The Chicago native got her start as a teenager on local stages and was an original member of Chicago's famed Second City troupe. Her intermittent screen career sprang initially from her stage successes. Though her filmography is mostly in the 1970s, she made a few 80s movies before retiring including Peggy Sue Got Married, Grosse Point Blank, and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.
Curiously for such a talented thespian of both stage and screen, she seemed somewhat ambivalent about her career, stating that she didn't miss acting after her retirement...
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.”
Four years ago after screening Alfred Hitchcock's final film, Family Plot (1976) I was moved to remind everyone that Barbara Harris was totally underappreciated. But I'd always liked her. One of the first movies I remember seeing in a movie theater as a child was the comedy North Avenue Irregulars (1979) with Harris and Cloris Leachman. The only memory I have of it is Cloris Leachman breaking her fingernails and screaming but still. It's one of the earliest movie memories.
North Avenue Irregulars (1979)
Back then I wasn't clocking actress names yet and definitely not aware that inspired comic instincts might win you Tonys, Globes, or Emmys, but rarely Oscars. Barbara Harris was nominated twice for Best Actress in a Musical at the Tony Awards, winning for The Apple Tree (Barbra Streisand took her other nominated role when it came time for the film version of On a Clear Day You Can See Forever).
She was well liked by the Golden Globes with three lead comedy nominations. Two of them came in the same year, 1976! CONSIDER...
What an amazing lineup of musical or comic divas (+ Jodie)!
The previous year, 1975, the Golden Globes had gone all in for Nashville in Supporting Actress, including Harris, as the Academy also should have. Here was their terrific Supporting Actress list that year:
Sadly the Academy was less kind to Harris. She was nominated for just one Oscar in her career for (deep breath) Who is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? (1971). Like most actors who do a lot of stage work or specialize in comedy, her Oscar record doesn't really hint at the shape of her career. Musical comedy, for instance, was one of her primary gifts but she never made a movie musical other than Robert Altman's Nashville and her role was more tragicomic in that. Either way she's remarkable as Albuquerque in that film, delivering its benediction with transcendent opportunism.
Actors are lucky to have one legit enduring classic on their resume but Barbara Harris has two, so she'll always be with us: Freaky Friday (1976) and Nashville (1975). The former survived in the public consciousness because it's so enjoyable and influential (having been remade once and riffed on a bunch), and the latter because it's simply one of the greatest movies ever made. Barbara Harris's gift was crucial to the entertainment value and artistic success of both classics. May she rest in peace.