An actress who spent more than six decades moving between Broadway stages and American living rooms chose to end her life under a New York law she had openly championed.

Barbara Barrie, the Oscar-nominated actress whose career ran from Broadway to “Barney Miller,” died Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026, at her home in Manhattan. She was 95. Her daughter, Jane Harnick, confirmed to The New York Times that her mother’s death was medically assisted.

Barrie had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. A representative for the actress said her death “was medically assisted in accordance with the New York State Medical Aid in Dying law, of which she was a proponent and advocate.” Gov. Kathy Hochul signed that law in February.

Her decision followed the terminal diagnosis in conjunction with significant medical issues she had navigated over the past two decades or so, Jane Harnick said. In 2014, Barrie had publicly disclosed that she had idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.

From a Bit Part to Cannes

Barrie made her film debut in an uncredited bit part in 1956’s “Giant,” which starred James Dean, Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor. Her breakthrough came in 1964 with “One Potato, Two Potato,” in which she played a divorced white mother whose marriage to a Black man becomes the subject of a custody fight. The performance won her best actress at the Cannes Film Festival.

Her best-known screen role arrived as Evelyn Stohler, the mother of a young cycling obsessive, in the 1979 film “Breaking Away,” directed by Peter Yates. The movie collected five Oscar nominations, and Barrie’s came for best supporting actress at the 1980 Academy Awards. She played the same character again in the 1980-81 television series and earned an Emmy nomination for that, too.

Television kept her working for decades. She appeared in 11 episodes of “Barney Miller” as Elizabeth, wife of the title character played by Hal Linden, and on NBC’s “Suddenly Susan” as Helen, or “Nana,” grandmother to Brooke Shields’ Susan Keane. Two more Emmy nominations followed for guest roles on “Law & Order” in 1992 and “Law & Order: SVU” in 2003.

In 1980 she played Harriet Benjamin, mother to Goldie Hawn’s title character in “Private Benjamin.” Years later she drew an Independent Spirit Award nomination as the mother of Edie Falco’s character in “Judy Berlin.” Her early television credits included “The Defenders,” “Route 66,” “Naked City,” “Dr. Kildare,” “The Twilight Zone,” “The Alfred Hitchcock Hour” and “The Fugitive”; the later ones included “Dead Like Me,” “Pushing Daisies,” “Army Wives,” “Nurse Jackie” and “Enlightened.”

Sondheim’s Score Gave Her Trouble

Barrie made her Broadway debut in 1955 in “The Wooden Dish” and originated the role of Sarah in the 1970 premiere of Stephen Sondheim’s “Company,” which brought her a Tony nomination in 1971. Sondheim’s score gave her trouble. Her husband, Jay Harnick, sat with her and helped her work through the music.

Her other stage work included “The Beaux Stratagem” in 1959, “Happily Never After” in 1966, “California Suite” and “Significant Other.” In 2004 she appeared in the Broadway revival of “Fiddler on the Roof,” with music by her brother-in-law, Sheldon Harnick.

Barrie once described a performance of “Twelfth Night” on the PBS series “How Art Changed Me,” recalling the moment she realized the audience stayed with her even when she stopped speaking. “I just think it’s connection between human beings,” she said. “You’re on the stage and they’re in the audience and you’re connecting.”

Three Generations of Family Cancer

Doctors diagnosed Barrie with rectal cancer in 1994, a disease that ran in her family. She later recalled cousins telling her the disease had run in the family for three generations. “No, I didn’t know this was in our family because in those days you didn’t say rectum, or cancer,” she said in a 1997 interview.

She survived that cancer, though treatment left her with a permanent colostomy.

The diagnosis gave her a second line of work. Barrie campaigned for colon and rectal cancer awareness, prevention and detection, and pushed against the stigma that kept people from talking about the disease. She wrote two books on the illness, “Second Act: Life After Colostomy and Other Adventures” in 1997 and “Don’t Die of Embarrassment” in 1999, along with fiction for young readers.

A Boyfriend Brought Her to New York

Born Barbara Berman in Chicago in 1931, she grew up in Corpus Christi, Texas, and gave her first performance at about 11 or 12 at the Corpus Christi Little Theater. She studied journalism at Del Mar College and graduated from the University of Texas.

She moved to New York after graduation because of a boyfriend, she recalled in a 1963 interview. The two expected to marry but could not do so right away. Once in New York, she turned to acting.

Barrie married Jay Harnick, an actor, director and producer, in 1964, and the couple had two children, Jane in 1965 and Aaron in 1969. Jay Harnick founded Theatreworks USA to bring live theater to young audiences. He died in 2007.

Her daughter, Jane Harnick, her son, Aaron Harnick, and three granddaughters survive her.