Barbara Rush, a veteran character actor who was best known for her roles in the original Batman TV series and movies like It Came From Outer Space and Frontier Circus, has died. She was 97 years old. Rush, whose screen career started in 1950 with the film The Goldbergs, would be a consistent presence on the big and small screen for more than 50 years, working consistently until the mid-2000s. Her final screen appearance was in a 2017 short film titled Bleeding Hearts: The Arteries of Glenda Bryant.
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During her long career, Rush played dozens of roles across TV and film, showing up in some of the biggest hits of the era. Besides Batman, she hade appearances on series as varied as Peyton Place, Mod Squad, Mannix, The Bionic Woman, and The Outer Limits. The news came from her daughter, Fox News Channel correspondent Claudia Cowan.
“My wonderful mother passed away peacefully at 5:28 this evening. I was with her this morning and know she was waiting for me to return home safely to transition,” Cowan said (via Variety). “It’s fitting she chose to leave on Easter as it was one of her favorite holidays and now, of course, Easter will have a deeper significance for me and my family.”
Cowan earned a Golden Globe Award for “most promising female newcomer” for her appearance in It Came From Outer Space, in which she played Ellen Fields, a schoolteacher who stumbles into discovering an alien invasion after she witnesses what she believes to be a meteorite crash. Later, she would star as the wife of James Mason’s character in Bigger Than Life, Dean Martin’s love interest in The Young Lions, and Paul Newman’s girlfriend in The Young Philadelphians.
Before moving her career to the screen, Rush was a stage actor, and continued to do so for most of her career. She brought her one-woman play A Woman of Independent Means to Broadway in 1984, and five years later toured the country with Steel Magnolias.
From 1997 until her death, Rush lived in the Harold Lloyd Estate in Beverly Hills. The mansion was commissioned by silent film legend Harold Lloyd and itself has a long history with the entertainment industry, with famous events and parties held there and previous owners that included the owner of a record label.
Rush is survived by two children, Claudia Cowan and Jeffrey Hunter. Our condolences go out to Rush’s family, friends, collaborators, and fans.
