Read Part 1 HERE

Adrienne Barbeau: A Bold New Chapter in 70s Television:

In the 1970s, television actors like Adrienne Barbeau faced significant barriers when transitioning to feature films; no one would consider hiring you, as the prevailing mindset was – why would audiences pay the price of a movie ticket to see an actor when they could just turn on their television and see them at home, for free.

Adrienne had a steady job from July through February every year and worked in New York for eight years prior without having had an agent, but once nominated for a Tony, she signed with Marvin Josephson at the Agency for the Performing Arts who negotiated the deal for Maude.

When she moved to L.A., her journey through various agencies was tumultuous and marked by a series of coincidences. She was told that she should be doing other things than Lear’s television series, like the popular viewing experience at that time, for instance, the movie of the week.

Adrienne meets Johnny Carson for the first time in a 1973 guest appearance.

Adrienne, during her 1976 hiatus from Maude, was now working with the Creative Artists Agency (one of the industry’s most powerful firms at the time). She demanded a commission for a gig opening for Roy Clark at Harrah’s, which she secured directly from Clark’s manager despite the fact that singing engagements were not part of her contract. She changed agencies once again.

Mike Ovitz, the cofounder of Creative Artists Agency (Ovitz transformed the negotiation of major deals in film, TV, music, and corporate media from the 1970s to the 1990s), was a major male chauvinist who considered women – “˜chattel.’ This was another reason she didn’t feel comfortable being represented by CAA.“Every time we spoke on the phone, I hung up, enraged or in tears. He didn’t have a clue, of course.”

Adrienne Barbeau on the gameshow in 1974 hosted Dick Clark with Tony Roberts appear on The $10,000 Pyramid New York NY ABC Studio Elysee Theater – Photo by ABC getty images-1231784707.

The Tonight Show – Adrienne Barbeau, John Wayne, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope with host Don Rickles: photo by Fred Sabine 1974 NBC UNIVERSAL via Getty Images.

Adrienne started singing again and appearing on live talk shows. Working on The Tonight Show was a big career boost, and she did many interviews with Johnny Carson. Adrienne recounts in her book how the co-originator working on the pre-interview for Carson’s show would scream and put pressure on Adrienne to show up early. It made her break out in hives. However, all the other cohosts, including Roy Clarke and George Carlin, were wonderful. Singing was the hardest part of her various guest appearances. She hadn’t sung since Maude’s telethon episodes or Grease.

Adrienne Barbeau as Daisy in the television biopic The Great Houdini in 1976.

In 1976, Adrienne Barbeau appeared as Daisy White in her first TV movie, The Great Houdini, which is a slight supernatural dramatization of the life and the rise to fame of the iconic magician and escape artist. The movie starred Paul Michael Glaser (80s television’s sensitive action hero cop Dave Starsky) as Harry Houdini and featured Adrienne as his beautiful assistant. This TV movie included Ruth Gordon and Peter Cushing. Adrienne had no scenes with these two great actors, so she didn’t get to spend any time with them. However, she did know Sally Struthers because of her work as Gloria on Norman Lear’s All in the Family. It also features Vivian Vance, who played Ethel Mertz, Lucy’s loyal and comedic sidekick in the iconic comedy series of the 1950s, I Love Lucy.

“The first job they (Creative Artists Agency) got me was Houdini, a TV movie with Paul Michael Glazer and Sally Struthers; I was to play Houdini’s mistress. After I accepted the offer, the agent called back to say they wanted to do a semi-nude scene for the European release. I was so concerned about being shot only from the waist up and no one seeing my big butt that it never dawned on me to ask for more money. The agent didn’t either. Mike Ovitz was one of the partners in the film. This was the 1970s. I was a strong believer in the Equal Rights Amendment.”

from an interview with The Terror Trap in 2010-“It was the first film I had ever done and I knew nothing about film. I had only done stage and tape up until that time. We did Maude the same way you do a stage play. We just rehearsed for 4 1/2 days and then did it for an audience straight through, no stops or anything. So we did the master…the first establishing shot… on Houdini… and I didn’t know that people did close-ups. I went off and started to change clothes to do the next scene! It was my first film experience and a real learning process.”

Adrienne has appeared in many TV movies, particularly Crash in 1978. One of the little details out of so many I found interesting in reading her memoirs was one of the only things that sticks out about working with director Barry Shear on that film. He was a screamer; he constantly yelled at everyone on the set and cursed up a storm. As Veronica Daniels, the shattered stewardess in a minor disaster flick, Adrienne once again shows that she is a very serious actor

“I think I was hired for a Quincy. If anyone is old enough to remember, Quincy, and I played a dramatic role there. Then suddenly, oh ok, she can do drama. She can do comedy. She’s a TV actress, but in 1978, feature producers did not think that anyone would pay to see a television actor on the big screen. So, no movies were coming my way. You know, because she’s on TV.” (from There Are Worse Things I Can Do)

Adrienne met John Carpenter in 1978 when he was casting his first network television film after Warner Bros hired him to write the screenplay and direct Someone’s Watching Me!

Her agent called and told her that this young, up-and-coming director wanted to meet her. She read the script and thought it was one of the best scripts for television that she had read. Adrienne wound up auditioning for the part of Lauren Hutton’s best friend and was offered the role. Carpenter was funny and relaxed, and she instantly felt at ease. There was an instant attraction. Her memoirs include a colorful description of her first meeting and the intense relationship that ensued with John Carpenter. Again, There Are Worse Things I Could Do is a must-read.

“He watched me in Maude, liked the character I played, and was hoping I had her same sensibilities; It was that kind of character he wrote, the Howard Hawks-type woman. Strong, smart, quick, witty. He was nervous it was his first studio film, and he was having to answer to “˜the suits.'” (Pg 14)

In one of director John Carpenter’s earlier works after his first feature film, Dark Star, in 1974, Someone’s Watching Me! 1978 was his television debut. This TV movie is a well-crafted woman-in-peril TV thriller centered on obsession, voyeurism, and the fragility of safety in urban life. It stars Lauren Hutton as Leigh Michaels, the lead heroine, a TV director who is under surveillance by a voyeur who is stalking her in her L.A. high-rise apartment. Originally titled High Rise and filmed in eighteen days, it was also scripted by John Carpenter; it is a bit of a tribute to Hitchcock’s Rear Window 1954 and would showcase a number of the director’s techniques that would emerge in his subsequent films. In particular, his gliding camerawork, point-of-view shots, and unexpected shock cuts.

Someone’s Watching Me! was based on a Sun-Times story called “Terror in a High-Rise” by Paul Galloway and Basil Talbott Jr. The story was about a woman living in a high-rise apartment who believed she was being spied on in her home and threatened by an anonymous stalker, which led to her suicide.

Adrienne Barbeau’s character is somewhat of a transformational role for a made-for-TV movie in 1978 because she is a lesbian who was treated very matter-of-factly. Adrienne ends up getting thrown off her apartment balcony while Lauren Hutton watches helplessly through her telescope.

Leigh (Lauren Hutton) becomes terrorized by threatening phone calls and letters from a mysterious man who seems to know her every move as she tries to convince the police that she’s in danger.

Adrienne Barbeau plays Sophie, Leigh’s co-worker and friend, who is casually revealed to be a lesbian during a conversation about ex-lovers. Being Leigh’s supportive friend – Sophie steps in to help her deal with the growing threat, and it gets her killed for her trouble.

Adrienne’s performance has been praised for its lack of sensationalism and is considered pretty progressive for a 1978 television. Sophie has been recognized as an early example of positive queer representation in media. “The first scene I did for John Carpenter in Someone’s Watching Me! was a scene where I revealed to Lauren Hutton that I’m gay. John wrote it beautifully.”

Adrienne herself has spoken positively about her role in interviews, acknowledging the significance of playing a casual, positive lesbian character in a 1978 TV movie, especially given the era in which it was produced. This was one of Adrienne Barbeau’s first collaborations with John Carpenter before the couple married, and she would go on to star in her first feature film.

To Adrienne, after years of doing musical theater and a major TV sitcom, the idea that she can “˜do less,’ those two words made all the difference in terms of the work she was now doing

“It wasn’t until I did my first film. It was with John Carpenter, and it was a television film called Someone’s Watching Me! Up until that point, I had done a massive amount of stage work, and I had been on the sitcom Maude. I had been in television movies, which were usually with a director who’s not taking the time to adjust your performance. So, we did the first scene, and John came over and said, “˜That was great. That was great. Let’s do it again and do less.’ I said Do less?” And all of a sudden, it was like, okay, that’s the last piece of the puzzle. That’s the light bulb going off.

I had been working on stage for most of my life, It’s a film, not stage, not a four-camer sitcom. Even situational comedy on Maude, we did it like a play. We did it for an audience. And now, John was telling me how to let the camera do the work and keep it small. So, I added that to my education.”

“All I knew about John was that he made horror movies; I’d heard about his ‘Assault on Precinct 13,’ I think. I walked in expecting some kind of hard-boiled guy, and here was this sweet, salt-and-pepper, gentle man… I think I began to fall in love with him right then and there. But I heard that he was seeing somebody else, and so all during the filming of ‘Someone’s Watching Me!,’ I kept my distance, and I tried to discourage my emotional feelings.”

“And then, on the last day of shooting, John said he wanted to have dinner with me and discuss something. I thought maybe it was his next screenplay. He sat down and said, ‘I’ve fallen in love with you.’ Well…we were married Jan. 1, 1979.” (Interview with Roger Ebert)

The couple wed and moved into the Hollywood Hills section of Los Angeles, purposefully remaining “totally outside Hollywood’s social circles.” (Roger Ebert) They remained together for five years but separated shortly after the birth of their son, John “Cody” Carpenter, on May 7, 1984. The couple divorced later that year.

1979 marked a pivotal year in John Carpenter’s career, propelling him to new heights of success. His film Halloween, released on October 25, 1978, became a box office phenomenon in 1979, establishing itself as the most profitable independent production in Hollywood’s history at that time. At the time the couple was starting out, and before his breakthrough, Adrienne had been the more prominent figure because of her Broadway success with Rizzo in Grease and her long-standing role in Maude. Halloween opened new doors for John Carpenter, which led to a lot of industry interest, getting calls and offers, and this newfound recognition translated into tangible opportunities and elevated his status in Hollywood. Now, he was able to secure financial backing for his next project, The Fog, in 1980.

The Fog is based on Carpenter’s idea “”nothing more than that a horror movie could be made with Fog as a leading character””and it provided Adrienne Barbeau with her first major movie role. But first, a year after Someone’s Watching Me! Adrienne appeared in another spooky made-for-TV movie.

Adrienne Barbeau and Robert Foster in the television horror/sci-fi flick The Darker Side of Terror 1979.

In an early foray into horror, before Adrienne Barbeau introduced us to Stevie Wayne in Carpenter’s The Fog, she appeared in the television movie – The Darker Side of Terror, a chilling chronicle of scientific hubris and a potentially intriguing doppelganger scenario, which crept onto television screens on April 3, 1979. At its heart lurks the aging Professor Meredith, played by Hollywood great Ray Milland, who by this time became his own brand of the cantankerous curmudgeon trope in these types of b-horror/sci-fi narratives. In this movie, his unorthodox ambitions lead him down a twisted path; with a daring act of genetic manipulation, he creates a carbon copy of his star pupil, a brilliant young academic Paul Corwin (Robert Forster). The only way you can tell the difference between the two Pauls is when the clone’s eye suddenly turns a ghostly white as sudden, murderous impulses strike him.

After Paul’s clone escapes from the lab, he falls in love with Adrienne, playing Paul’s unsuspecting and neglected wife, Margaret, who becomes seduced by Paul’s doppelganger, unaware that all this newfound passion and attention is coming from the wrong man.

Adrienne Barbeau stars with Greg Mullavey, Jessica Walter, and Ronny Cox in the TV movie Having Babies 1976: photo by ABC via Getty images-1228129255

Adrienne Barbeau in THE LOVE BOAT Hollywood Royalty/The Eyes of Love/ Masquerade 1978 seen here with Juliet Mills ABC Photo Disney via Getty Images.

Adrienne’s other credits: Her appearances in 1970s television movies and series, including the TV movie Having Babies in 1976, the TV movie Red Alert in 1977, and the TV movie Crash in 1978. She also appeared in an episode of Eight is Enough in 1977 and a very intense episode called Let Me Light the Way for Jack Klugman’s popular television series Quincy, ME 1977. On the light side, she appeared in episodes of The Love Boat in 1978 and Battle of the Network Stars in 1978.

In Adrienne’s autobiography, she said: “I actually thought CBS asked me to be on Battle of the Network Stars because they thought I was athletic. My husband clued me in: Who cared if I won the race, as long as I bounced when I ran?”

Adrienne Barbeau: The 1980s and The Rise of a Horror Icon:

Adrienne at Avoriaz le 20 Janvier 1980: photo by Jean-Louis URLI/Gamma-Rapho Getty images-1753991732.

Lighthouse Legends: The Haunting Role of Antonio Bay’s Stevie Wayne in The Fog 1980:

Stevie Wayne: {on the radio} It’s twelve midnight and we just started into the witching hour. This is Stevie Wayne, on top of the world tonight.”

John Carpenter’s atmospheric, initially misunderstood cinematic masterpiece has become part of a cherished Halloween tradition in our house. Each year, as the leaves turn, the air grows crisp, and the whisper of my favorite holiday calls to me that it’s time to celebrate. It begins on Oct. 1st, kicking off with the animated short Mysterious Mose. On the night of Halloween, our ritual festivity includes eating an entire bowl of candy (we have no trick-or-treaters, but we pretend we do and buy bags of the stuff) and watching Carpenter’s classic horror film, The Fog, an amazing mix of moody settings and ingrained terror. We can’t wait for John Houseman to snap shut his stopwatch and scare the hell out of those kids sitting around the campfire. Once the town of Antonio Bay (filmed in gorgeous Inverness, just north of San Francisco) goes bonkers, I know we’re in for a serendipitously creative and visual haunt! Having gained such a broad cult following, The Fog transcends a simple ghost story, though much of its unblemished spirit is that it is a simple ghost story.

It is at this time that we all start to honor the alluring presence of Adrienne Barbeau as Stevie Wayne. I’m very excited about doing one of my full-blown overviews of this classic cult coming up here at The Last Drive-In. It’s a long time overdue. So… look out for the fog.

Aside from its haunting quality, Adrienne Barbeau’s charismatic presence as Stevie Wayne is the aural imagery that makes The Fog so effective. There are two major driving forces of the film: the threatening fog and Stevie Wayne’s inviting voice. For me, having grown up in and nostalgic for – New York – in the sixties and seventies, Adrienne/Stevie’s voice is reminiscent of DJ Alison Steele, known as “˜The Nightbird,’ whose “˜mystically beautiful’ articulations beguiled the airwaves of WNEW-FM in New York City, showcasing the best of progressive rock.

[Adrienne on horror films]: “I love doing them — well, the suspenseful, tense, well-written ones; not the slasher, senseless violence, let’s get as much blood on the screen as possible ones — but I don’t enjoy watching them. So I can’t speak to what sets The Fog 1980 apart from the other films of that era, but I do think that one of the reasons The Fog 1980 is so successful is that John wrote fully realized, quirky characters that the audience cares about and identifies with. People remember Stevie Wayne. They love her voice, they love the lighthouse where she works, and they love her heroism.”

UNSPECIFIED – CIRCA 1980: Adrienne Barbeau and John Carpenter circa 1980. Photo by Sonia Moskowitz/IMAGES/Getty Images.

Adrienne has said that she and her husband, John Carpenter, had different approaches to movies. “I’m not especially a movie buff. When I left home, I went to New York to become a stage actress. I thought of Hollywood as a flesh market – and, for that matter, it is a flesh market. I like movies that explore the human condition and deal with issues.”

Growing up, John Carpenter was captivated by science fiction and horror films from the 1950s. He had a particular fondness for black-and-white classics, especially Howard Hawks’ defining moment of the genre with The Thing from Another World, released in 1951. Carpenter would later pay homage to Hawks’ film with his own 1982 remake, The Thing. Notably, in Hawks’ landmark sci-fi masterpiece, actress Margaret Sheridan plays a tough cookie.

About being cast in The Fog: from her memoirs There Are Worse Things I Could Do – “And I said, oh, it’s a ghost story?! This was the height of the women’s movement; I was championing Coming Home (the film about Vietnam). I wanted him to write a film about socially significant episodes like we had been doing on Maude – but- then I read it, and I said, yeah, I’d love to do this.”

In casting Adrienne as Stevie Wayne, it gave John Carpenter another chance to write the Hawksian heroine into his script. That’s what he saw in Adrienne, and that’s what he wrote.

8th International Fantastic Film Festival Of Avoriaz 1980. Avoriaz – 21 January 1980 – John Carpenter and  Adrienne (Photo by Jean-Claude Deutsch/Paris Match via Getty Images).

The Fog, Adrienne’s first appearance in a feature film, was released on February 1, 1980. The film was a theatrical success, grossing over $21 million in the United States alone and establishing Adrienne Barbeau as a genre film superstar. Carpenter loved to orchestrate people’s fear;

“He wants his movies to manipulate people, pure and simple. He talks about his first movie-going experience, which was when he was 4 or 5 years old. He was taken to a 3-D movie, and something exploded out of the screen, and he was so scared he ran down the aisle, and then he stopped short, turned around, came back and sat back down and said to himself, ‘This is for me!’ He isn’t concerned with deep psychological dramas. He knows what he’s doing. ‘Halloween’ was so frightening that I don’t want to see it again. Once was enough.” (from an interview with Roger Ebert)

The coastal backdrop of The Fog serves as a haunting tableau, enhancing the film’s surreal atmosphere. Sitting atop her lighthouse, Stevie Wayne becomes a lone sentinel, confronting an otherworldly threat to guide and protect her community. This striking visual composition not only amplifies the tension but also underscores Stevie’s unwavering resolve. Adrienne conveys beautifully a solitary figure who faces danger against the vast, mist-shrouded seascape, creating a powerful metaphor for the unknown. As she selflessly confronts the invading supernatural assault on the town, Stevie becomes a beloved heroine amidst her sense of isolation that resonates throughout the story.

“It’s strange to realize that there’s a role I’m so identified with that its ownership is attributed to me, and second, to realize that so much time has passed since I did it that I’m too old to do it again. I didn’t have any inkling at the time John was writing it that The Fog would become a classic of the genre and that twenty-five years later, fans would be clamoring to have me sign their copy of the DVD. I’d never seen a horror film until John showed me Halloween, not Pyscho, not Night of the Living Dead, not Texas Chainsaw Massacre. And I haven’t seen many since. I love doing them, I don’t like watching them. So when John gave me The Fog to read, I was disappointed. I knew it was well-written, but I just didn’t get it. I wanted him to use his artistry to write important films like The China Syndrome and Coming Home. John wanted to make them jump”¦ “ (pg 167 There Are Worse Things I Could Do)

While Jamie Lee Curtis is another iconic Scream Queen launched by the success of John Carpenter’s Halloween, both billed as leads, Adrienne didn’t share any scenes with her. However, Adrienne and Jamie Lee Curtis had already been friends since the filming of Halloween. She used to spend time at the couple’s Malibu house, so they knew each other. Adrienne had only seen her performance in the film once. when he showed her Halloween at the end as he was putting it all together. Once was quite enough for her. Ruggedly handsome actor Tom Atkins, who plays Nick Castle in The Fog, was also a friend of the couple and has remained a dear friend of Adrienne’s to this day.

“If my manager ever calls and says, “˜There’s a convention they’d like you to appear at,’ my first question is always, “Is Tom gonna be there?” Because if Tom’s not gonna be there, there’s not any reason for me to go. It’s the only way I get to see him anymore. Unless I’m going to Pittsburgh for something, and then I go and spend a couple of days with him and his wife. Tom writes the greatest handwritten letters and also the greatest emails you could ever imagine. So we keep in communication. I love Tom. I actually used him as a character in my second vampire novel in 2012. I actually sued Tom Atkins, the actor as a character in that novel, because HE IS such a character and he is so great. He’s just so much fun.”

Adrienne loved working on The Fog not only for its beautiful location but also because the entire cast and crew were like family. The couple ended up buying a home close to where it was filmed.

The Fog was shot by Carpenter’s regular cameraman, who also worked on Escape from New York. Dean Cunday. Cunday is known for his work on Jurassic Park and Apollo 13.  Adrienne was really happy with the way the cinematographer photographed her in the film.

Shooting on location was a challenge for the cast and crew. Aside from the brutal winds and the 360-odd steps leading down to the lighthouse, the process of creating the foggy substance was noxious. It was smelly, sticky stuff, permeating everything and everyone breathing it in. They also couldn’t make the fog evaporate on cue. “It was the easiest thing in the world to get the fog into a scene, but it was almost impossible to get it out.”

“Is all that we see or seem/But a dream within a dream” – Edgar Allan Poe

“”¦The most horrifying episodes are often uncannily beautiful, and the movie is beautiful in moments of peace, too”¦ a genuinely poetic horror film”– David Denby, New York, February 18, 1980.

“Working with John was like slicing through room-temperature butter – easy. He kept a happy set, peopled with the cast and crew he wanted to be working with, and he knew he could trust. He knew what he wanted, and he knew how to convey that to everyone. I trusted him completely. Working on The Fog, we had one difference of opinion: in a scene where Stevie was anxious about something that had just happened, he asked me to sit down to get the scene started. I said I thought she was too upset to sit. So, he told me to stand. As I said – easy.” – Adrienne on John Carpenter’s directing

The coastal town of Antonio Bay, California, descends into chaos once the eerie, amorphous glowing fog rolls in from the sea as the town prepares to celebrate its 100th anniversary. But it’s also the anniversary of a dark betrayal, when the vengeful ghosts of sailors of the Elizabeth Dane – deliberately shipwrecked a century ago, are lured to the rocks by a treacherous fire. The spectral figures emerge from the fog, seeking revenge on the descendants of the town’s founders who murdered them. Those who deceived them, who led them to their watery graves, will make their descendants pay for the sins of their forefathers. As the clock strikes twelve, the witching hour, it plunges the town into a night of terror and reckoning, and the past comes back to haunt the present. It features a mix of some of the most atmospheric set pieces and Carpenter’s signature style of building tension through aural and poetic visuals.

“11:55, almost midnight. Enough time for one more story. One more story before 12:00, just to keep us warm. In five minutes, it will be the 21st of April. 100 years ago, on the 21st of April, out in the waters around Spivey Point, a small clipper ship drew toward land. Suddenly, out of the night, the fog rolled in. For a moment, they could see nothing, not a foot in front of them.”

Old Mr. Machen (John Houseman) concludes his ghostly tale of the Elizabeth Dane, a clipper ship that was lured to its doom against the rocks of Spivey Point. As the group of children sitting on the beach rapt around the campfire in the sleepy coastal town of Antonio Bay, the preparations for the centennial celebration are set in motion the following day. An eerie calm descends like a shroud, yet at the stroke of midnight, everything in the town takes a brief sojourn from quiet into askew-land. The townsfolk don’t know that their quaint streets harbor a century-old secret that’s about to emerge from the depths of the Pacific. A peculiar mist creeps in from the sea, becoming a glowing blanket with an otherworldly light. This is no ordinary fog but a vessel for long-dormant vengeance. Within its ghostly embrace lurk the restless spirits of leperous sailors, victims of a heinous act of treachery committed by the town’s founding fathers a hundred years ago.

John Carpenter’s The Fog unravels this chilling tale, peeling back layers of the small-town facade to reveal the rot beneath and the decaying specters close in, seeking retribution against the unsuspecting descendants of their murderers. As the fog seeks to claim 6 as payment, there are inescapable consequences of past sins; Antonio Bay inhabitants find themselves trapped in a nightmarish reckoning with history as the malevolent fog sweeps through the town to collect its victims. The fog becomes both a shroud of mystery and a mirror, reflecting the town’s buried guilt and the relentless nature of karma. Jamie Lee Curtis and Tom Atkins meet each other – one a traveler and one a rugged seaman who find themselves caught in the midst of the supernatural assault.

When Adrienne Barbeau debuted on the silver screen, she set pulses racing as the sultry DJ Stevie Wayne in Carpenter’s atmospheric horror classic. Her smoky voice and commanding aura elevated John Carpenter’s film to another level, as the guardian angel whose radio voice acts like a vital lifeline against the supernatural threat, as the air is obscured by the sinister cloud that envelops Antonio Bay. Stevie is the owner and DJ of the local radio station KAB, literally the voice of Antonio Bay, as she broadcasts from a lighthouse. Stevie is also a single mother who is balancing her career while caring for her young son, Andy.

Watching the fog bank roll in through the panorama of her lighthouse window, Stevie becomes a central figure as she witnesses and warns the townspeople as the air begins to creep and roll with an eerie mist. At first, her nightly program, like a lullaby with its string of cool jazz and chill-out music, acts as an escape for her listeners. But, as the fog creates an otherworldly tension as a vengeful force emerges from the sea, it transforms the ordinary landscape into a ghostly realm/world. In this chaotic fog, isolated in the lighthouse, Stevie’s voice cuts through with a warning tone. These moments serve as a testament to Adrienne’s ability to take on her role seriously, even within, at times, its campy context. Allowing her to embody a strong heroine, especially while she fends off the ghoulish attackers – with their rotting faces crawling with maggots who push her up to the top of the lighthouse at the heart-pounding climax.

Stevie’s cautionary prophetic final warning, “Look for the fog,” aligns itself with Howard Hawks’ famous coda in The Thing From Another World 1951: “Keep watching the skies!”

American actress, singer, and author Adrienne Barbeau poses for a portrait at her home in Los Angeles, California, circa 1985. (Photo by Donaldson Collection/Getty Images)

After Adrienne had not spoken to Burt Reynolds in over six years after they split, the actor called her to be in his film The Cannonball Run 1981. He had already asked her to direct Grease at his dinner theater in Florida, but she turned him down. The film centers around an array of characters all trying to win a high-stakes cross-country race. Reynolds wanted her to play a girl in a purple or pink spandex jumpsuit who wins the race driving her black Lamborghini. “That I could do.”

In Hal Needham’s road trip action comedy The Cannonball Run 1981, Adrienne Barbeau is featured in a supporting role as one of the main racers Marcie Thatcher, a glamorous beauty who drives a sleek black Lamborghini Countach along with her co-driver Jill Rivers (portrayed by Tara Buckman). The duo is known for their eye-catching satin and spandex outfits, which they use to distract police officers during the illegal cross-country race. The zany, often off-script meandering antics include a star-studded cast.

Although none of the characters are deeply developed, Marcie and Jill are a perfect representation of sexy, playful avatars that embody the fun and flamboyance of the era, making them memorable participants in the chaotic race. Overall, Marcie Thatcher is a quintessential symbol of the fun-loving, adventurous spirit of the contestants in The Cannonball Run, contributing to the film’s status as either a beloved or hated cult classic.

“I really didn’t enjoy working on the film, at least not as much as fans of the film expect. I should have. I loved meeting Roger Moore, and Dean Martin and Dom were both great fun to work with, but the whole thing was put together in sort of a slapdash manner and I wasn’t terribly comfortable with it. Plus, we had a couple of tragic accidents on the set, that colored the whole experience for me. One such involved stunt woman Heidi Von Beltz, who was left a paraplegic after crashing her car during a stunt.” (Page 175)

While Adrienne was there to work, the rest of the cast and crew, Hal Needham and Burt Reynolds, did not take the project seriously. And people either love the film or hate it. Aside from the fact that it doesn’t have a very cohesive narrative, much of the content is mean-spirited, misogynistic, and completely racist. I am one of those people who hated it.

One of the things that bothered me was Burt Reynold’s unamusing bullying of Dom Deluise. It’s just not funny. Neither is casting Jackie Chan, who was already a star in China, playing an offensive Japanese stereotype. This was his second appearance in an American film, and he wasn’t even told about his character until he arrived on the set. Needless to say, he wasn’t happy, nor should he be.

“Needham just wanted to party instead of work, and Burts attitude was, “It doesn’t matter what we do, we can just screw around, and the audience will buy it.” He improvised most of his scenes with humor that bordered on being vicious. At one point, he struck Dom across the face, supposedly in character, but he was out of control, and he slapped him hard. It took a second before Dom made the decision to laugh, and then the ass-kissers on the set followed suit. If you look at the outtakes at the end of the movie, you’ll see him do this again and again. And you’ll see me not laughing. “ (pg 175)

Escape from New York 1981: Maggie””Badass in a Dystopian Wasteland:

John Carpenter’s third film, Escape from New York, is perhaps one of his most energetic, quirky, vivid, and campy endeavors. Escape from New York is set in a dystopian 1997, where Manhattan has been transformed into a maximum-security prison due to rampant crime. Air Force One, carrying the President, is hijacked and crashes into this lawless, cutthroat island. A former Special Forces soldier turned bank robber – Snake Plissken, is given 24 hours to rescue President – Donald Pleasance in exchange for his freedom. Blackmailed into rescuing the President, the government implants an explosive vile in his arm that is set to dissolve unless he can retrieve the President from the clutches of a violent militant group of thugs who rampage the city ruled over by Isaac Hayes. In the fight for survival, the film is a darkly humorous and ironic critique of authority and societal decay.

Isaac Hayes, Harry Dean Stanton, and Adrienne Barbeau via Getty Images.

Once inside, Snake navigates through a chaotic landscape filled with gangs, freaks, and crazies, ultimately confronting the Duke (Isaac Hayes), who drives a Liberaci-style Cadillac with chandeliers on the hood of his car. Duke is a powerful crime lord who has taken the President hostage.

Kurt Russell, Adrienne, Harry Dean Stanton, and Ernest Borgnine in Escape from New York.

In Escape from New York, Adrienne Barbeau once again proves how charismatic she is in holding her own with Kurt Russell’s Snake Plissken and the violent forces around her. Adrienne plays one of the standout characters in Escape from New York, the formidable and unforgettable Maggie. She’s tough and resourceful, aiding Snake in navigating the dangerous, dystopian landscape of a walled-off Manhattan.

Adrienne is perfect as she embodies the captivating paradox of Maggie, who inhabits the harsh apocalyptic world with unwavering principles and exceptional combat skills. Her pragmatism and unwavering moral compass make her a compelling protagonist. I still hold that Adrienne Barbeau would have made a remarkable woman cop in her own television series or film franchise.

Sharp and unyielding, blow for blow, her Maggie emerges as a resilient, hardened survivor amidst the urban decay of the apocalyptic Manhattan prison, whose steely resolve transcends mere action hero tropes and tempers her with a sense of convictions and fidelity that resonates with audiences.

Adrienne Barbeau embodies the strong, irreplaceable female heroine in action cinema, and with Maggie, she can be seen as a formidable protagonist, challenging long-held genre conventions. Adrienne not only elevated the film, as with all the films she inhabited, but also contributed to cinema’s broader cultural shift in strong female leads. Adrienne’s emergent strong heroines helped break free from reductive stereotypes in male-dominated action films, proving that women can be equally compelling in high-stakes, adrenaline-fueled scenarios. Ground that was broken by actresses like Pam Greer, who pushed the envelope for ‘lead-lady’ tropes in cinema. She paved the way for more diverse storytelling that included women capable of stirring up powerful waves and making a significant impact on the action genre.

“I really do not think of Escape from New York as a science fiction film. It is an action picture. I enjoy action pictures. And maybe that is one reason why I had so much fun on Swamp Thing”¦ they handed me a special effect M-16, I had a really good time lugging that thing around, but with that weapon in my hands, I felt like I was born for it.”

“One of the best parts about filming Escape”¦ was getting to know Donald Pleasance. He was so witty and so funny; there were times I couldn’t start a scene because he had me laughing so hard. He often did this whole running commentary while we were filming, and I was on the floor.”

Back in the days of performing on stage in Fiddler on the Roof, Donald Pleasance shared a wall while he was doing Man in the Glass Booth.

The one thing I’ll always remember about Donald, who was one of Britain’s most popular television stars, had done close to 200 films and telefilms, and starred on Broadway seven times, was the comment he made to John about his career. “I could have had a totally different career,” he said, “a prestigious career, George C Scott’s career, if I hadn’t had three ex-wives to support.” (pg 186)

This was the third film working together with John. Shot in St Louis and LA, only one scene was actually shot in New York. The opening dolly shot passes the Statue of Liberty. The abandoned bridge in St Louis was perfect for the exteriors. John needed a set for his fight scene, which takes place in a massive wrestling ring in the ravaged Union Station. Maggie and her boyfriend, Brain (Harry Dean Stanton), live inside a giant library that was shot at USC.

“I think that girls who insult people are very attractive.” – Howard Hawks

Once again, John had written a Hawksian-type woman’s role for Adrienne. This time, she’s serving a life sentence in prison. Included in her post-apocalyptic fashion sense”¦ she’s dressed in great-looking rags and stiletto boots, and she knows how to defend herself.

“I want Maggie to be as authentic as possible. I need a logical reason for everything about her. As for the stiletto boots, well, I figure some Italian had a shoe store in the Bowery before the government took over. “

One of Adrienne’s most memorable scenes takes place on the abandoned bridge – where she has a fantastic line – she says to Brain as they’re careening over the bridge with Snake driving Cabbie’s (Ernest Borgnine) taxi. Cabbie is Maggie and Brain’s wheels navigating the prison.

Brain says, “Slow down a little, Snake. I think they’ve got mines up ahead.” And Maggie says, “You Think?” That line still elicits a laugh out of Adrienne.

When Brain is killed, Maggie’s resolve shines through when she stands her ground in front of the Duke’s (Isaac Hayes) oncoming car to avenge his death. The Duke’s car is tricked out with two chandeliers on the hood. Maggie turns to Snake, puts her hand out, gesturing to him to throw her his gun. Standing like a rock, she opens fire at Duke as he heads straight at her. Maggie sacrifices her life for her principles.

“Her entire being is exposed right there. She has to make it right for Brain when he’s killed. She’s not firing at The Duke out of anger. She’s simply – I don’t even want to use the word “˜avenge’ because that carries with it too much negativity – she’s just doing what she has to do to make it right.”

The Studio wanted Tommy Lee Jones to play Snake Plissken, and Charles Bronson was interested in the part. However, Carpenter held out for Kurt Russell. He was and always will be Snake Plissken.

Adrienne with Season Hubley W. Hollywood Sep 27 1985 at Spago: photo by Ron Galella via Getty -452140658.

Except for Season Hubley, as the ‘Choc-Full-O’-Nuts’ girl who buys it pretty quickly in a horrible way, Adrienne loved working with the mostly all-male cast in Escape from New York because she had such a wonderful time with all the guys on the set: Kurt Russell, Donald Pleasance, Ernest Borgnine, Harry Dean Stanton, and Isaac Hayes.

Swamp Thing 1982: Adrienne Barbeau as Alice Cable””A Fierce Force in the Marshes:

In Wes Craven’s cult classic adaptation of Swamp Thing, Adrienne Barbeau subverted the typical damsel-in-distress trope, portraying Alice Cable, a government agent sent to investigate Dr. Alec Holland’s research project. Adrienne’s memoirs offer candid insights into the low-budget production and vividly detail many of the harsh and physically demanding challenges she faced while on location.

On location: filming a scene in the swamp with Adrienne and David Hess as he’s trying to drown her.

On the set of Swamp Thing.

When Adrienne Barbeau first read the script for Swamp Thing, she thought it was whimsical, charming, and lovely. She believed it had a lot of potential. She saw it more as a fantasy or fairy tale than a horror film, and she thought director/writer Wes Craven was a lovely guy, a very gentle, quiet guy. Wes Craven’s work has been such a paradox for me, as I have shied away from many of his films, like Last House on the Left 1972 and The Hills Have Eyes 1977. However, after reading some of his critical essays, I do have to say he was an insightful scholar and had a unique vision that shaped the genre in the 1970s.

It can be said that Swamp Thing is a modern-day Beauty and Beast transported to the bayou. In this adaptation of the DC Comics character, Adrienne Barbeau stars as the smart and sexy Alice Cable, a government agent who arrives at the swampy laboratory where scientist Alec Holland works on a formula to end world hunger.

She meets and develops a connection with Alec (Ray Wise), and when he is transformed into the Swamp Thing after an accidental exposure to toxic chemicals, she becomes romantically involved with the titular creature.

Alice is another courageous and resourceful heroine who fights against the villainous Dr. Anton Arcane’s (Louis Jourdan) corporate greed and the risk of environmental destruction, solidifying her place as a strong female protagonist. Alice: “I don’t know where we are, Toto, but it sure isn’t Kansas.”

“In Swamp Thing, my character was really physical. I fired guns and beat up 200-pound men; I loved that kind of role. In those years, I was quite sturdy, and I still am. I could handle it well. It was probably my Armenian heritage coming to the forefront. Still, in that film, there were some hard workdays”¦ I would wake up in the middle of the night, unable to sleep because of the pain of being tossed around so much. My character was chased through fields, knocked to the ground, dragged into dungeons, and almost drowned in a murky swamp”¦ naked.”

Swamp Thing was an extremely difficult film for Adrienne Barbeau to navigate; she has described the nightmare shoot as one of the more difficult films she had done, involving long, arduous days in real swamps, with extreme conditions, like suffocating hot and muggy weather, with leeches, snakes, chiggers and ticks and alligators; the production faced significant challenges, including the constant budget cuts that forced director Wes Craven to constantly rewrite scenes and eliminate characters. Adrienne would hold up in her trailer, isolated from the cast. Often working 14-hour days.

Dick Durock, who portrayed Swamp Thing, encountered significant struggles with his costume. Adrienne noted that once Durock donned the hot rubber suit, he often found himself unable to use the restroom for 8 to 9 hours at a stretch. There was also the problem with the suit itself, constructed with budget constraints; it was prone to tearing and needed to undergo constant repairs during filming.

Despite the difficulties faced during filming, she reflected fondly on her romantic scenes with Dick Durock as Swamp Thing, describing them as deeply touching. She praised Durock as a genuinely lovely man who managed to shine even amidst the most trying circumstances, highlighting the chemistry they shared amidst the unique challenges of their roles.

Adrienne would later appear in the Swamp Thing TV series, which, of course, starkly contrasted with Wes Craven’s original production. She was particularly impressed by the elaborate swamp set built for the show, which allowed for underwater filming.

Aside from being yet another bold, resilient character, there are several particularly erotic scenes that take place, of course, in the swamp. There’s a scene where Alice bathes in the swamp, which became somewhat controversial for its brief nudity.

The nude bathing scene was included in the alternative European Cut of the film, runs 2 minutes longer, and has not been released in any official capacity in the U.S. The nudity would have earned it an otherwise PG-rated superhero film. MGM accidentally released this version on DVD, only to pull it and replace it with a new edition that only featured the North American cut.

Adrienne has said she is not modest. So “If that’s what the role called for (meaning Swamp Thing) and that’s what they wanted me to do for the European release, then okay. I don’t even remember what that was about I don’t know that Wes was even supposed to shoot it like that. But he did, and somehow it ended up in the original release.”

Adrienne on the set of Swamp Thing with director Wes Craven.

“˜I walk out of a private screening of Swamp Thing and call John in tears. It’s god awful, I say. What am I going to tell Wes? He’s never going to understand, and he’s going to hate me. But I can’t lie.”

A month later, Siskel and Ebert give it two thumbs up and label it a cult classic.

Creepshow 1982: Billie””The Daring Femme Fatale and Irresistible Harpy Archetype in a Campy Exploration of Horror and Comic Book Aesthetics:

“OH, JUST CALL ME BILLIE’ EVERYONE DOES.”

The character of Billie offered Adrienne an opportunity to portray a character with an audacious personality. Director George Romero’s collaborative spirit and expertise in horror filmmaking made the project even more rewarding. Adrienne had a great time working with Romero. “George Romero was a teddy bear.” She even loved his wife at that time, Chris Romero. She loved Pittsburgh and spent her days off antiquing. And it was because of Billie’s outrageous personality, even the fact that Billie drinks too much and Adrienne doesn’t drink at all, that made this horror film so much fun for her.

“So, on Creepshow, it was really a question of me just sort of putting myself in George’s hands and trusting that he knew what he wanted and that I should act the way he wanted me to.”

In Creepshow, Adrienne Barbeau owes a lot of the character of Billie to Romero, telling her to “˜crank it up.’ Adrienne would put milk in the scotch, which brought her back to the days working for her old Mafia boss at NYC’s Matty’s Mardi Gras. He had an ulcer, and he used to put milk in his scotch.

This horror anthology, written by Stephen King and directed by George Romero, features Adrienne as the obnoxious booze-pounding Billie, a shrewish wife who meets a gruesome fate in the segment “The Crate.” Her performance is both flamboyantly comedic and aptly chilling, showcasing her range as an actress. Its farcically dark humor certainly gave Adrienne Barbeau a celebration to camp it up and use her comedic chops as Hal Holbrook’s ball-cutting wife.

“I loved working with Hal, and with Fritz, but I honestly don’t remember anything about Snuffy (Tom Savani) and the special effects. I was pleased to be asked to appear in the recent series and so enjoyed working with Greg Nicotero. Obviously, my role in (the episode) “Grey Matter”Â wasn’t as memorable as Billie, but it was fun to work with Tobin Bell again (our third time working together ““ we played incestuous siblings in an episode of Criminal Minds!) and getting to know Giancarlo Esposito. Aside from our episode, I haven’t watched the series ““ I’m not a big horror fan ““ but glad to know it was picked up and is so successful.” (from Adrienne’s interview with REWIND)

-Oh, Henry, you are such a little kid! I swear to God you are! I mean where would you be without me to take care of you?

-No good at departmental politics. No good at making money! No good at making an impression on anybody! And no good at all in bed!! When’s the last time you got it up, Henry, huh? When’s the last time you were a man in our bed?!

-Now get out of my way, Henry, or I swear to God you’ll be wearing your balls for earrings! And I swear to God if you ever touch me again, I’m gonna…!

From one of the most prolific, imaginative, and slightly deranged minds – the grand horror storyteller Stephen King’s Creepshow draws inspiration from the EC comic book series. The film’s humor lies in its absurdity, and the dark comedy does not overshadow its roots in horror, as it features numerous shocking and horrifying moments.

Adrienne, who doesn’t like to be scared, almost didn’t take the role. The potential for gore with Savini’s bloody effects was a little concerning until friend Tom Atkins explained that George Romero was going to film the movie like the EC Comic books it was based on. She should read the script with that in mind; it would be produced with that spirit. Then, it all made sense to her.

Thanks to George Romero, there were highly stylized shots of Adrienne being torn apart, mostly off-screen, by Tom Savini’s crate creature, much with a comic book feel, as Atkins suggested.

A college professor, Henry (Hal Holbrook), discovers a mysterious crate hidden under a staircase at his university. The crate contains some kind of hungry creature, its red eyes glaring through the slats. Henry’s life takes an absurd turn when he decides to use this discovery to rid himself of his obnoxious and overbearing wife, Billie, who is hell-bent on berating him. Henry spends his time daydreaming about ways to do Billie in.

In this memorable segment, the comic twist of fate befalls Billie as it leads to a series of ridiculous efforts on Henry’s part to push Billie toward her grisly demise, and all of Henry’s machinations become a reality as he feeds her to his pet monster that lurks inside the crate.

As chaos erupts, we’re presented with a blend of slapstick horror and dark humor, making “The Crate” a standout segment that cleverly satirizes both horror tropes and the dynamics of a dysfunctional marriage.

“Oh, just call me Billie,’ everyone does.” Every horror fan loves that line. It’s the first thing I hear if I’m signing autographs for fans.”

In the 1983 Season 2 episode of Quincy M.E’s “˜Let Me Light the Way,’ Adrienne Barbeau is cast in an extraordinarily intense role as Carol Bowen, a rape counselor with whom Quincy has developed a close friendship. When a serial rapist wreaks havoc in Los Angeles, leaving a trail of trauma in his wake, a nurse from a local hospital succumbs to shock following one of the attacks. The primary suspect is a mechanic who has managed to evade law enforcement. Despite Quincy and the police having a strong suspicion about the perpetrator’s identity, they are unable to make an arrest due to insufficient evidence.

The case becomes personal when the rapist targets Carol, and she is brutally attacked. Adrienne gives an incredibly dramatic and emotional performance as a victim of assault.

Let Me Light the Way was one of Adrienne’s standout dramatic performances. She loved working with Jack Klugman and noted that he was a sweetheart.

Adrienne doesn’t remember much about the forgettable Terror at London Bridge 1985, except the fact that she didn’t get a voice-over job for a commercial because she lost her voice screaming in that forgettable TV movie. In Back to School 1986, Adrienne Barbeau plays Vanessa, Rodney Dangerfield’s ex-wife. The film is a comedy about a wealthy businessman who enrolls in college to support his son.

Hearts of Darkness: Where Cannibal Women and Sexploitation Go Avo-cad-Oh No!!

Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death (1989): This satirical exploitation film is a discombobulated parody of adventure and classic mad scientist tropes. Once again, it showcases Adrienne Barbeau’s comedic timing as a campy and charismatic antagonist. Adrienne plays Dr. Kurtz, the villainous leader of the Piranha Women tribe. Dr. Kurtz is a formidable figure who embodies the film’s satirical take on gender roles and feminist themes and commands her tribe with an iron fist.

Kurtz is a cunning and captivating villain and symbol of empowerment as she cooks her male prisoners in a giant throwback boiling pot (insert Bugs Bunny cartoons and *1930s exploitative jungle horror pictures) and feeds them to her tribe of cannibalistic warrior women who believe that men are inferior and primarily serve as a source of meat.

*The subgenre of films from the 1930s that feature horror narratives set in jungles and often exploit the image of the “˜savage’ black native is commonly referred to as “jungle horror” or “jungle adventure horror.”

These films typically exoticize African American actors and their characters utilizing themes of primitivism and colonialism, and often reflect the racial stereotypes prevalent during that era. This subgenre can be seen in films like Ingagi and White Zombie, which exemplify the blend of horror with colonialist tropes.

Adrienne Barbeau with Playboy’s Playmate of the Year 1982 and B movie queen star actress Shannon Tweed.

It is a distorted humorous attack through a patriarchal lens of extreme feminist ideologies that subverts traditional adventure tropes and delivers a potent commentary on the complexities of femininity and power dynamics in an outrageous manner. This sexploitation satire takes it to similarly absurd extremes in the vein of Dr. Moreau and the more obvious Kurtz, whose name she shares with the egomaniacally paranoic Kurtz in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.

More Selected CREDITS INCLUDE:

UNITED STATES – JANUARY 20: FANTASY ISLAND – “Return to Fantasy Island” – Season One – 1/20/78, Adrienne Barbeau (as Margo Dean) guest-starred with George Maharis (Photo by ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images).

Adrienne appeared in TV movies Top of the Hill 1980, Valentine Magic on Love Island, Tourist, and Charlie and the Great Balloon Chase 1981. She made an appearance in a few episodes of Fantasy Island 1978, 1979, & 1983. She starred in the sci-fi feature film The Next One 1984, co-starring Kier Dullea, and that same year appeared in the TV movie Seduced 1984. In 1985, she was cast in the TV movie Terror at London Bridge, and the reboot of The Twilight Zone TV series. She appeared in the star-packed series based on the story Alex Haley starring Anne Baxter, Hotel 1984 & 1986, and in two episodes of Murder, She Wrote 1984 & 1986. Also in the 80s, she appeared in Open House 1987, the TV movie Ultraman: The Adventure Begins 1987, The Real Ghostbusters TV series 1987, Head of the Class TV series 1989, and an episode of the TV series Monsters in 1989.

Adrienne Barbeau attends the ‘Murder She Wrote’ Celebrates 100th Episode on February 12, 1989, at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection -Getty Images)

Adrienne starred in the segment “The Facts in the Case of Mr. Valdemar” in the 1990 film Two Evil Eyes. This segment, directed by George A. Romero, is based on Edgar Allan Poe’s story and features Adrienne Barbeau as Jessica Valdemar, who conspires to embezzle her dying husband’s fortune with the help of a hypnotist.

Jessica is a former stewardess who marries an elderly man for his money. In a plot driven by greed, she conspires with her ex-lover, Dr. Robert Hoffman, to hypnotize her dying husband, Ernest Valdemar, into signing over his fortune. But there are dark consequences when Valdemar dies during the hypnosis, leaving Jessica and her lover trapped in a horrifying situation as they try to cover up his murder and have to confront the supernatural retribution that awaits them.

“I married a rich, old man. I let him use me for pleasure and for show. Now, I’m going to let him pay me for my services.”

In 1992, Adrienne Barbeau played Silvia Hartnell in The Burden of Proof, a miniseries that aired on ABC. This adaptation is based on Scott Turow’s novel, which is a follow-up to his Presumed Innocent. Sandy Stern (Héctor Elizondo) is reeling from the recent loss of his wife. Grief-stricken, he finds himself uncovering dark secrets while also becoming entangled in the moral dilemmas of the legal system. Sandy’s life becomes even more complicated when he defends his brother-in-law, Dixon Hartnell, a stockbroker who falls under scrutiny for suspected illegal wrongdoing.

OTHER CREDITS INCLUDE:

The TV movies Blood River in 1991, Doublecrossed in 1991, the 1992 TV series Dream On, FBI: The Untold Stories, The Wild West TV mini-series in 1993, ABC Weekend Special 1993, Father Hood 1993, Daddy Dearest TV series in 1993, Demolition Man 1993 as the mainframe computer voice, Silk Degrees 1994, Rebel Highway 1994, The George Carlin Show tv series 1994, Babylon 5 tv series in 1994, Sailor Moon animated TV movie as the voice of Queen Serenity and Queen Beryl, Judge Dredd 1995 as the central voice. She appeared in Weird Science TV series in 1997, Shattered Hearts: A Moment of Truth Movie TV movie in 1998, Diagnosis Murder TV series 1998, Sliders TV series 1998, The New Batman Adventures TV series in 1998, The Angry Beavers TV series 1998, Love Boat: The Next Wave 1999, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine TV series in 1999.

Adrienne Barbeau also appeared on The Drew Carey Show as the glamorous and flirtatious Kim Harvey, Oswald’s mother. Her character was featured in a recurring role across six episodes during the show’s later seasons, specifically in 1999.

She established her new fame as a successful voice actor among animation fans as the sensationally popular Catwoman on Batman: The Animated Series (1992-1995) and Gotham Girls.

Since Catwoman’s debut in 1940, she has emerged as the antiheroine who has become one of DC’s most iconic characters, as Batman’s complex on-again, off-again ally & adversary, and love interest. From the 1960s, she’s been portrayed by Jane Webb behind the voice in The Batman/Superman Hour, Julie Newmar, Eartha Kittm, Lee Meriwether, and Michelle Pfeiffer in Batman Returns in 1992.

Adrienne Barbeau brings her own mature, sophisticated, and purring undertones as the voice of Catwoman/Selina Kyle and Martha Wayne in this acclaimed animated series, bringing a sultry and nuanced portrayal of the iconic character. Her performance captured an element of complexity as both a villain and an anti-heroine, making her one of the leading superstars in the series.

Adrienne also lent her voice to various characters in the beloved Scooby-Doo animated series of films, showcasing her versatility as a voice actor and bringing her recognition to younger audiences. This includes Ms. Simone in Scooby-Do on Zombie Island.

The Rat Movie: TV movie BURIAL OF THE RATS 1995:

Enter the realm of the Rat Women!

Adrienne stars as The Queen and the King of the Bs Roger Corman, whom we sadly lost recently, produced Burial of the Rats, the 1995 TV movie.

The Queen: “Let us affirm this truth – we are all vermin in the ratholes of the universe.”

In 19th Century France, a young Bram Stoker is captured by a man-hating, all-female cult of thong bikini wearers. Aided by flesh-eating rats, the warrior women raid the lairs of evil men and punish them. Our hero must decide between his wish to escape the dangerous cult and his love for one of its members.

” I’ve taken roles because I loved the character. I’ve taken roles because there was another actor in the cast with whom I wanted to work. I’ve taken roles because the director was great. I’ve taken roles because termites were eating my roof, and Cody’s tuition was due. I’ve taken roles because I just didn’t want to sit home, and I’ve taken roles because I love to travel…”

“… I took this film because it was shooting in Moscow and I’d always wanted to go to Moscow, and this was in 1994, and it was supposed to be 50 trained rats and me doing a horror film in Moscow. And when I landed, a rebel faction of the government had just fired on their White House. And the producer took me to their apartment and said, “˜Well, you stay here. We have civil war. I don’t know what’s going on, maybe we don’t make this movie, maybe you don’t go home.’ And they were firing on us – I could see them out the window of my apartment. But we did make the movie.” (pg 247)

Adrienne Barbeau took Burial of the Rats because she had a desire to go to Russia. But on the day she landed in Moscow, there was an attempted coup, and they declared martial law. In terms of her role, she was told there would be 50 trained rats. The Russian prop woman assured her that these were not gutter rats. Aside from the fact that there were only 30 rats, 16 of which were already dead, the only talent they possessed was to eating anything that was smeared with fish guts, primarily Adrienne’s gown, to get them to swarm all over her. The prop master had to keep moving around the dead rats to make it seem like they were still moving.

Some of the absurd and crazy goings-on while filming- for more, read her memoir. It’s full of great moments like this!:

“Back up the ladder to my throne. From where I sit, I command the entire room. There is a pit dug in the floor in front of me with the pendulum suspended over it. The audience will believe it’s filled with rats. On the far right of the room is a rack designed to separate a man’s arms and legs from his body. It doesn’t work. So far, the only things that do work are the huge flares suspended from the walls on either side of my throne. Well, they work in terms of being lit and burning. As for suspended “¦ the one to my right breaks and falls on the platform behind me. Immediately, the straw on the floor around the throne catches fire. The director picks this moment to throw a fit. He starts screaming, “I quit, I quit!” I start screaming, “Fire! Fire!” No one speaks English, so it doesn’t matter what we’re screaming. I’m sure the poor handmaiden’s pseudo-rat sandals are flammable, and I have visions of my blue synthetic wig going up in a blaze and melting down my forehead. Fortunately, I have returned from my bathroom road with a full cup of tea. I pour that on the burning hay, and Amy comes running up the stairs to stamp out the flames with her boots.”

In 1997, Adrienne recorded a self-titled album – a selection of songs: True Companion, If I Could, My Father, All These Years The Power Of Love, There Are Worse Things I Could Do, Mary Margaret, I Had A King, Forever Loving You, The Other Woman, and Love Remains. She performed in concerts across the country in West Coast venues.

Adrienne  in 1997 with James Mellon and Kevin Bailey performing “How Lucky Can You Get in And the World Goes Round at Center Theater in Long Beach: photo Irish Schneider LA Times Getty images-569166377

In 1999, Adrienne guest starred in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode ” Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges as Romulan Senator Kimara Cretak.

By the 2000s, Adrienne Barbeau had returned to the stage, balancing her roles on screen and stage, with her continuing voice work.

Adrienne Barbeau crosses the boundaries of TV and Film to do key voice work in animated features and video games :

Actress Adrienne Barbeau portrait at home, November 8, 1996, in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Bob Riha, Jr./Getty Images)

Her voice acting work started with 1982’s The Thing as the computer voice. Though she commented that she doesn’t remember, people have told her she says the word “checkmate.” Adrienne continued with bit parts in animated shows like Demolition Man 1993, and Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island in 1998 as the voice of Simone Lenoir, she narrated the IMAX nature movie The Living Sea in 1995 and you can hear her in Descent3 video game as the voice of Dr. Katelyn Harper in 1999.

“When I started doing voiceovers I was approached by a voiceover agent who had heard me on $20,000 Pyramid in 1978, you know, I think you have a great voice for doing”¦ and that would have been after THE FOG, and so she just started submitting for I started out doing voice-over commercials and there was some animation and went and studied animation with the woman who ended up being the booth director from Catwoman because there is a technique for just acting with your voice. But in those days, there were very few celebrities people in the public eye who were doing voice- overs the fastest way to have a huge voice-over career is to have a huge filmmaking career.”

“When asked what drew her to this field, she noted, “I was drawn to voice acting when my son Cody (Carpenter) was born. It was something I could do and still be a full-time mom; I wasn’t about to leave him for 14 hours a day to do a TV series. John asked me to voice the computer in The Thing, and if I remember correctly, the other three films you mention were simply offers that came through my voice-over agent. I did have to audition for Catwoman, though, in Batman: The Animated Series. I remember because it was just a thirty-second recording I did in my agent’s office, and they called me about a month later to say I’d been cast.”

When asked what drew her to this field, she noted, “I was drawn to voice acting when my son Cody (Carpenter) was born. It was something I could do and still be a full-time mom; I wasn’t about to leave him for 14 hours a day to do a TV series. John asked me to voice the computer in The Thing, and if I remember correctly, they were simply offers that came through my voice-over agent. I did have to audition for Catwoman, though, in Batman: The Animated Series. I remember because it was just a thirty-second recording I did in my agent’s office, and they called me about a month later to say I’d been cast.”

“We were fortunate to have an incredible booth director who made all the difference in the world. Because when you’re doing animation, you’re not seeing the animation you’ve just got the words on the page, and so if Catwoman is jumping off the roof of a building and she goes running off and she lands, then I’ve got Andrea Romano going in the booth “˜Ah Adrienne it’s ten story building it’s not just two stories’ Oh okay so much of it is coming from the booth director, but it’s great fun and its I don’t think it’s any more difficult I don’t have to get dressed. I don’t have to get my hair done.”

As Dr. Tilson, in Halo 4, Adrienne had her first experience with motion captions, and that’s a different experience than just doing voice-over work – “You have to memorize everything, and they put you in the suit with the dots, and you still have to do physical acting. But, you don’t get much direction, and yet they want to see your body movement, so you’re sort of on your own. With motion capture they’re filming your entire body while they’re recording your voice. So, inflection and expression are important “I didn’t know the full scope of the role until I showed up to do the job.”

Her involvement in video games highlights her flexibility as a voice actor and her ability to bring complex characters to life. Her work in gaming has expanded her reach to a new generation of fans, highlighting her adaptability across different media.

Her roles in major franchises like Gods of War and Halo 4 have contributed to the storytelling and immersive vibe that define modern video games. Through her performances, she has managed to connect with both longtime fans of her work and new audiences in the gaming community.

Gotham Girls is an American animated web series that aired for three seasons and 30 episodes from July 27, 2000, to November 19, 2002. The show is part of the DC Animated Universe and features notable voice actors reprising their roles from other DC animated series. The first two seasons primarily featured comedic content, while the third season introduced more serious story arcs. The show is celebrated for its unique perspective of the various female action heroines from Gotham City and often blends humor, action, and character-driven storytelling.

Once again, Adrienne Barbeau brings to life Catwoman, also known as Selina Kyle, while other notable voice actors include Arleen Sorkin as Harley Quinn and Diane Pershing as Poison Ivy. The show also features the characters of Batgirl and Zatanna.

Catwoman is a very layered character, often walking the fine line between action hero and villainous icon.
She is known for her flirtatious and mischievous nature, cunning, agility, and expertise in theft, but she also possesses a strong moral code that sometimes aligns her with the protagonists. Adrienne’s Catwoman is an heiress and a radical animal rights activist who possesses a supernatural bond with felines.

She also reprised her role as Catwoman in an animated remake using the original voice actors for the trailer promoting The Dark Knight Rises in 2012.

When asked what drew her to do voice acting, she noted, “I was drawn to voice acting when my son Cody (Carpenter) was born. It was something I could do and still be a full-time mom; I wasn’t about to leave him for 14 hours a day to do a TV series. John asked me to voice the computer in The Thing, and if I remember correctly, the other three films you mention were simply offers that came through my voice-over agent. I did have to audition for Catwoman, though, in Batman: The Animated Series. I remember because it was just a thirty-second recording I did in my agent’s office, and they called me about a month later to say I’d been cast.”

In 2006, she played Sif in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. In 2009, she added her voice to Batman: Arkham Asylum as Dr. Getchen Whistler. She reprised her role as Catwoman, originally voiced in Batman: The Animated Series, bringing her iconic interpretation of the character to the video game format.

Then, in 2010, Adrienne voiced the Greek goddess Hera, the wife and sister of Zeus, the Queen of the Gods, in this critically acclaimed action-adventure game with a rich narrative and mythological theme. She has a relatively minor role in God of War III, appearing briefly before being killed by Kratos. In 2012, she added her voice to the ever-popular Halo 4 as UNSC scientist Dr. Tillson. Also, in 2012, she was the voice of the Hotel Manager’s Wife in Hitman: Absolution, and for Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning 2012, she is the voice of Ciara Sydanus.

Adrienne returned to God of War: Ascension in 2013, lending her voice work as Aletheia. In 2015, she played Pink Eye, the leader of her territory, whose stronghold is a kind of gateway in Mad Max. And as the voice of the central computer in the 2014 animated series Judge Dredd.

In Fallout 76 (2018), Adrienne added her voice as The Overseer, a significant character in this open-world RPG who guides players through the game’s narrative and challenges. Her role adds flair to the game’s post-apocalyptic setting.

In 2020, in Steel Dawn, she is Vault 76 Overseer, leading up to Starfield in 2023 as the voice of Betty Howser and Cafe Lady / Civilians in Spider-Man 2.

In 2024, Adrienne adds her voice to Sally Jupiter, the first Silk Spectre in the animated adaptation of Watchmen: Chapter 1 – of the Watchmen graphic novel.

These roles connect her to the superhero genre, further showcasing her versatility as an actress. Throughout her career, Adrienne Barbeau has demonstrated remarkable versatility, successfully transitioning between Broadway, television, film, and voice acting while maintaining her status as a beloved figure in the entertainment industry.

In The Convent 2000, which was a balls to the wall – campy horror comedy by indie director Mike Mendez, Adrienne stars as Christine, the older version of a girl who, back in the early 1960s, enters into the evil-infested convent and systematically annihilates a group of nuns and a priest, setting the place on fire, and walking away. The convent/orphanage for pregnant teens was once home to demons who possessed everyone there, intending to bring forth the Anti-Christ.

Now abandoned, the convent holds the lore of Christine’s massacre; college students love to break in and party in the creepy deserted building that is reported to be haunted. It’s a particularly popular place for sororities and fraternities to hang out, vandalize, and haze pledges.

The chaos begins when a group of friends visits the deserted convent and inadvertently awakens the malevolent forces within its walls, with most of these stoned, drunk, and horny idiots becoming possessed zombies themselves. There is a trace of The Evil Dead, yet The Convent definitely has its own unique vibe. The place is now rampant with the demonic zombified young trespassers and the spirits of the nuns the younger Christine killed.

The sole survivor of the group of friends, Clarissa (Joanna Canton), escapes and runs to a now grown-up Christine, who tells her the full story, admitting that the rumors and the legend about her killing everyone decades ago are true. She slaughtered the nuns running the place, but it was because they had become possessed by demons who intended to take Christine’s baby and use him to create the Anti-Christ.

The film is surprisingly hilarious, with some truly original shock moments and funky special effects. Adrienne Barbeau adds a bit of nostalgia – the reluctant Scream Queen who is so badass and well-armed in her leathers, straddling her motorcycle, waging war on the demons.

Christine and Clarissa return to the unholy place to fight, armed with a giant cannon-like gun wielding a machete on her motorcycle and maintaining her badass persona. They manage to fight off most of the demons, shooting up the place and chopping off heads. But Christine will wind up blowing up the convent with herself and the Anti-Christ inside, as it is the only way to make certain the evil will not escape. I feel like Adrienne was definitely channeling Snake Plissken.

The Convent premiered in January 2000 at the Sundance Film Festival. However, due to the closing of the original distributor, the film was not released on home video until December 2002.

“I felt like it was my very own tribute to EFNY. Although it was a low-budget production, I felt it had a lot of talent connected to it, originality, and character. Sometimes, I would feel like Snake Plissken armed with another M-16 rifle. I’m sorry it didn’t get a theatrical release because I always believed it to be a decent little film, a good picture, and a lot of fun.”

“That came along just at the time I was saying to my husband, “˜Ah, nobody’s gonna hire me to pick up a gun again.’ But yeah, I wish that kind of character or those kinds of roles had been as popular when I was doing them as they are now. Or as “˜mainstream’ as they are now. What with the advent of the popularity of video games and everything, so that you’ve got”¦well, I’m going back a ways now and thinking about Lara Croft, there must be something more recent”¦but you know”¦big films. Because I still love doing “˜em. But I’m just glad I had the chance, you know?”

Adrienne appeared in the Netflix series A.J. and the Queen, starring RuPaul, and Batman Beyond in 2000, Sabrina the Teenage Witch TV series in 2001, No Place Like Home in 2002, The Santa Trap TV movie in 2002, Ghost Rock in 2003, Century City TV series in 2004, Totally Spies! animated TV series in 2002 & 2004 as the voice of Helga von Guggen, Deceit TV movie in 2006, Christmas Do-Over TV movie in 2006. Of special note, in Rob Zombie’s remake of Halloween in 2007, Adrienne’s part as the Adoption Agency secretary wound up as deleted scenes.

Above two images: Ring of Darkness 2004

In 2004, Adrienne appeared in director David deCocteau’s TV movie Ring of Darkness, where she played the character Alex. The film is a fantasy horror story centered around a boy band called “Take 10,” whose lead singer mysteriously vanishes. The band, which is secretly composed of zombie cannibals, holds a talent contest to find a replacement singer. The film blends elements of horror with a satirical take on the music industry.

Carnivàle 2003-2005: Adrienne Barbeau’s Ruthie “A Seductive Snake Charmer Caught Between Life and Death in a Dust Bowl Dreamscape: or Traveling Magic – A Depression-Era Spectacle:

When it comes to livin’, dying is the easy part.
—Samson

Honey, everyone has bad dreams. It’s the times we live in, its hard to be happy. It’s hard to feel safe.– Ruthie

Adrienne Barbeau breathes life into the character of Ruthie, manifesting her roots from the strong and wise women in her family who fled the genocide in Armenia.

Adrienne knew the producers of the show, who were looking for a wizzend old woman snake dancer in a show about Carny workers. She would lead with a scene at the funeral, where she gives a short eulogy. Adrienne shows up to the audition in an old pair of cowboy boots and jeans and the wig with a little grey streak in it that she wore in The Convent. The director, Rodrigo Garcia, asked if she had any problem working with snakes. As with many of the other cast members, the role almost appears to have been written for her because Ruthie started to become more like Adrienne rather than the other way around.

“I got a call for an audition by the producers. There was a role that I was somewhat interested in: the Tarot reader. But the producers suggested another part for me. I really did not know much about the show other than it took place in the 30s and that it had something to do with Carnival workers”¦ not that there was some mystical quality to it all. Finally, I read for the part of Ruthie, the snake charmer. I heard nothing for weeks, and then I received a call, and they told me that I had gotten the part”¦ snakes and all. I love the part of Ruthie; it was such an incredible opportunity. Hardly anyone is writing such sensual and mysterious material for women my age. The way they write these scripts for this show, I never know where my character is going.”

“We’d usually get the scripts two or three weeks in advance of a shoot, then we do a reading with everyone involved, and then we go do the shoot. It’s an interesting way to work, and even for television. I don’t recall working this way before. But it keeps me sharp, and it makes my character still”¦ haunting. I do think that it is a strange show, however, and something that can only be done on cable television. People seem to be catching on with the second season; it is becoming quite a cult phenomenon.” (pg 293)

Growing up on a farm harvesting grapes ”twenty acres in the middle of Fresno and Central Valley” Adrienne’s grandparents lived through the Depression era. They had the look of earthy people and that worn demeanor of hard work and rough lives, as in the photography of Dorothea Lange, which the show had carefully framed its context from much of the look, style, and atmosphere of that time.

Adrienne’s performance resonates with the echoes of survivors who fled unspeakable horrors, imbuing her role with a palpable sense of grit and determination. With Adrienne Barbeau’s personification of an enigmatic Avatar, Ruthie emerges as a force of nature, weathered by life’s harsh realities yet unyielding in her resolve and authenticity.

Ruthie exudes a strength and potent understanding of a rough life, survival, integrity, and resilience in a cruel world. Her earthy and no-nonsense demeanor is a shield against the cruel vagaries of a world gone mad. As mother and lover, she embodies fierce loyalty, her affections as deep and enduring as ancient roots of the elaborately tattooed tree symbol carved on the backs of the shadowy & light protagonist and antagonist of the show.

Adrienne adds a visceral power to this interesting and colorful woman with many layers; she is perhaps one of the only actresses who could bring Ruthie to life, possessing grit, raw intensity, sensuality, prowess, and presence. And as a mystical snake-charming woman with second sight, she literally nails it. There is something sublime about the scene when Ruthie tells Clea Duvall that she sees dead people.

She plays one of the key members of the traveling carnival. As an older woman with a mysterious past, she brings experience and a protective maternal presence to the troupe; she has a close bond with her son Gabriel, the carnival strongman, who bears shades of Lenny from Of Mice and Men. Her character is marked by resilience and a no-nonsense attitude, traits that serve her well in the harsh environment of Depression-era America. Ruthie ends up having a romantic relationship with Ben Hawkins, a young man with the powers of healing and resurrection who is half her age.

Ruthie’s life takes a dramatic turn when she dies from a lethal snake bite, and Ben resurrects her by using his supernatural gift. This event profoundly affects her, adding an extra layer of otherworldliness to her already complex persona. After her resurrection, Ruthie struggles with the implications of her death experience and the mysterious forces at work in the show’s universe. She begins to see dead people, to channel them, and to have visions.

Throughout the series, Ruthie embodies the resilience and adaptability required to survive in the harsh world of Carnivàle, making her an integral part of the show’s ensemble cast.

Filmed in Santa Clarita, California, and nearby Southern California, Carnivàle is a visually stunning and thematically rich American television series set during the Great Depression in the 1930s, which
captures both the bleakness and the wonder of its dust-swept landscapes of 1930s Depression-era American setting. The show features an intricate combination of mysticism and gritty realism, transporting viewers to the harsh landscapes through the lives of a traveling carnival’s eclectic cast and tracing the lives of a disparate group of characters.

Carnivàle was beautifully mindful of shining a light on what Heather Havrilesky’s article’ Gutsy-or just gusty?’ 2007 for Salon called “the hopelessness of the Great Depression to life” and for being among the first TV shows to show “unmitigated pain and disappointment.”

Created by Daniel Knauf, the show took meticulous care to ensure its historical accuracy in recreating the dusty landscapes, the tattered remnants of hope or imaginative designs of the costumes, and the overall mood of desolation and deprivation. This careful eye earned Carnivàle multiple Emmy Awards for art direction, cinematography, and costumes.

The narrative weaves together like one of the show’s tarot readings: the lives of a traveling carnival led by the enigmatic, unseen “˜Management’ and the dwarf Samson, played by Michael J. Anderson. The carnival serves as both a refuge and battleground for the forces of light and darkness.

A Carnival of Souls

At its heart, Carnivàle explores the ongoing duel between good and evil, hope and despair in the human condition. Ben Hawkins (Nick Stahl), a young drifter plucked from the dusty despair of his Oklahoman roots, becomes part of a traveling carnival of freaks, fortune tellers, and colorful figures. Ben has healing hands and a haunted soul. Both blessed and cursed, in California’s sun-baked valleys, he embarks on a quest to unravel the enigma of his own existence. A Creature of Light: embodying hope and redemption

It will play itself out as a cosmic chess game and as an unwitting pawn who goes up against the demonic charismatic preacher Brother Justin Crowe (Clancy Brown.) A coal-black eyes, silver-tongued, and malevolent preacher who casts a long, ominous shadow, wielding the ability to peer into the darkest corners of the human soul, twisting minds and manifesting nightmares. A Creature of Darkness: representing chaos and destruction. Brother Justin threatens to bring about the end of humanity. The story is laden with mythological symbolism, fable, and allegory, and the choreographed imagery obscures the lines between reality and the supernatural. The bleak atmosphere with elements of the surreal centers around the struggles between good and evil, free will, and destiny. Carnivàle doesn’t just tell a story; it immerses viewers in a rich mythology that blends Christian symbolism, Tarot divination, and the whimsical and close-knit inner society of carnival life.

As the carnival winds its way through a land ravaged by poverty and pain, Ben and Justin are drawn inexorably toward each other. Their collision course is set against a backdrop of Dust Bowl desolation, where tarot cards whisper secrets and ancient prophecies come alive.

This intricate blend of the mundane and the mystical creates a surreal atmosphere where the line between reality and the supernatural often blurs. Set against the backdrop of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, Carnivàle paints a vivid picture of human resilience in the face of overwhelming hardship while simultaneously delving into cosmic battles that stretch far beyond the dusty carnival grounds. Through its diverse characters and their intertwining stories, the traveling carnival itself becomes a microcosm of humanity, filled with colorful characters, each hiding their own secrets and existential struggles.

Carnivàle is often compared to a cross between David Lynch’s 1990s television series Twin Peaks and author John Steinbeck’s 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath.

It received numerous nominations and awards, including five Emmys out of fifteen nominations. It was originally planned to span six seasons, but it was abruptly cut short by four seasons. Carnivàle, with its 24 episodes, was canceled in 2005 after just two of the intended six seasons.

Nick Stahl and Adrienne Barbeau during HBO Hosts Party For The New Series “Carnivale” at Warner Bros. Studios Back-Lot in Burbank, California, United States. (Photo by Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic)

Amy Madigan, Adrienne Barbeau, Clea Duvall, and Cynthia Ettinger attend Carnivàle second season party at Paramount Theater in 2005. Photo by Stephen Shugerman Getty.

Featured for two seasons on HBO from 2003 to 2005, Carnivàle garnered both acclaim and critique for its bold narrative and stunning visual poetry. While some viewers found its surreal elements a bit too obscure, the series has since cultivated a devoted cult following. Fans celebrate its distinctive fusion of horror, drama, and deep philosophical themes, appreciating the intricate layers that invite philosophical exploration and psychological interpretation. The show is a deeply meaningful contribution along Adrienne Barbeau’s career arc. It would have been extraordinary to see where else Ruthie would have gone in her development as a strong character.

Adrienne returns to the stage as Judy Garland in her one-woman show”¦ The Property Known as Garland (2006)

Adrienne Barbeau returned to the New York stage, starring as one of the 20th century’s greatest performers, Judy Garland, in The Property Known as Garland written by then-husband Billy Van Zandt. It opened Off-Broadway at the Actors Playhouse in New York City on March 23, 2006. While the one-woman play doesn’t showcase Adrienne Barbeau’s singing, she aimed to capture Garland’s bawdy humor and her strength as a great storyteller “” in addition to being the ultimate, expressive, and powerful raconteur. It is the fictional backstage account of Garland’s appearance in Copenhagen in 1969, as the icon prepares for what will be her final concert appearance before her tragic death that year at the age of 47.

This one-woman bio-play was named for the way Garland was referred to by MGM and Louis B.Mayer. With her wicked wit, Judy dishes the dirt on her MGM co-stars, her husbands, her mercenary mother’s abuse, and more”¦taking us down the yellow brick road of her incredible life. In her memoirs, Adrienne wrote she wasn’t doing an imitation of Judy Garland. It was an affectionate and entertaining imagining of her last live performance.

The role required Adrienne to delve into Garland’s complexities, capturing her struggles with fame, addiction, and personal relationships, as well as her immense talent, warmth, and wit, and the depth of her anguish, which inspired much worship in the years since her death and her much-examined life.

Adrienne onstage opening night Actor’s Playhouse in the West Village 2006: Photo by Richard Corkery NY Daily News Archives via Getty Images.

“Garland’s talent is legendary; her true story is more electrifying than you’d ever imagine. She is Judy Garland.”

Adrienne Barbeau reads her book at LGBTCC in NYC on April 11, 2006. Photo by Derek Storm Film Magic.

In 2007, Adrienne Barbeau had a cameo role as the adoption agency secretary for Rob Zombie’s reimagining of Carpenter’s 1978 Halloween. Her scene was cut from the theatrical version of the film but is included in the DVD version.

“I’ve turned down myriad roles… sometimes, in the horror genre, because they’re just too violent or gruesome or offensive for my taste. Listen, I turned down The Devil’s Rejects. Not sure I even read it all the way through, I ust knew no matter how good it was and how fine a director Rob Zombie is (I later did one scene for him in his Halloween and loved working with him), it was not something I could do.”

In the low-budget Unholy, released in 2007, Adrienne plays Martha, a widow living in rural Pennsylvania. The story begins with Martha coming home to find her daughter Hope about to commit suicide in their basement. Despite Martha’s efforts, she can’t prevent her daughter’s death. Hope’s final words to her mother are, “Beware of the experiment.” Following her daughter’s suicide, Martha, along with her son Lucas (played by Nicholas Brendon, who played Xander Harris in Buffy), investigates a conspiracy involving a legendary local witch, and introduces Nazi occultism, secret government experiments, and family secrets. Though critics praised Adrienne’s performance as a grieving mother who uncovers dark secrets, the film received mixed reviews.

In her memoirs, There Are Worst Things I Could Do, she is easygoing, funny, and generous with her time; you get an idea of what a good sport Adrienne Barbeau is with whatever project she’s working on, Unholy included – no budget, the freezing weather, no food, no trailers, and special effects that were developed on the fly. Adrienne faced this low-budget horror flick with some familiar obstacles during the production of Unholy, which the cast and crew had to deal with while trying to get the movie finished.

“˜’This sounds sort of hokey, but for me, it always begins with the words. So I’m always aware that something could come along and be really valuable because of the words, the script. But it may not necessarily be the one that somebody with a lot of money wants to finance. I just did another one last November that was just a wonderful character for me to play, and I’m so glad that I did it. But it was low-budget. What I learned from the Unholy is that I make sure I have a dressing room [laughs]. There were kids in that movie who were dressing in a tent at 18 degrees, and I sort of draw the line”¦I’ve got to have at least a heater in a room!”

“It was a nightmare. But then you turn around and do the one like [Reach For Me 2008]; Seymour Cassell is starring, and Alfre Woodard and LeVar Burton, and LeVar directed it. I loved the character, and I got to do some work that I wouldn’t have gotten to do if I wasn’t willing to put up with the low-budget aspect. I just like to work.”

This clip includes snippets of Adrienne in -Shattered Hearts: A Moment of Truth movie 1998, Reach For Me 2008, Sons of Anarchy 2013, and AJ & the Queen 2020.

In the 2008 Cold Case episode of Season 6, called Wings, Adrienne portrayed an older Helen McCormick from 1960, a former colleague of the victim. The episode revolves around the investigation of a murdered stewardess from 1960 whose remains are discovered in an old hotel.

Adrienne Barbeau appeared in the premiere episode of Season 4 of Dexter Living the Dream, which aired on September 27, 2009.

In this episode, Dexter struggles to balance his new family life with his dark passenger and the urge to kill while also pursuing a new target, “The Trinity Killer.” Adrienne Barbeau’s appearance as Suzanne Coffey was a cameo role in this season’s opener as a former romantic interest of Dexter’s father, Harry Morgan.

Adrienne gave a poignant performance as a hospice patient in the love story Reach for Me in 2008. In 2009, she was cast as ‘The Cat Lady’ in the family comedy The Dog Who Saved Christmas. She was also Scooter’s mother in the 3D animated feature Fly Me to the Moon. Adrienne appeared in Grey’s Anatomy in 2009, the TV movie Vacation in 2010, and CSI: NY  TV series in 2011.

In 2009, Adrienne Barbeau starred as Alice Jacobs in the 2009 21-minute runtime short film Alice Jacobs Is Dead, which explores themes of love and sacrifice in a post-apocalyptic world ravaged by a zombie virus. Dr. Ben Jacobs (John Lazar) has developed a new serum that will help fend off the Z-virus, which has nearly destroyed civilization. While Jacobs struggles to help humanity, he must deal with the reality that his own wife, Alice, is infected.

Hidden away while he attempts to cure her, he must come to terms with his great love for her and the threat she poses to society. Adrienne’s performance has been praised for its depth as she conveys the stigma of carrying both the horror of what is happening to her body and the heavy burden her husband faces in healing the ravaged world. It has been described as a “˜zombie love story’ for how it blends both the poignancy of the Jacobs’s love for each other and the horrors of disease.

Adrienne Barbeau has remarked on Alice Jacobs Is Dead, stating that she was drawn to the project because it resonated with her playing strong female characters with an added layer of vulnerability. And because of its intelligent script and the opportunity to portray a zombie. Adrienne also saw a deeper meaning in the story as a treatise on Alzheimer’s, interpreting the zombie condition as a metaphor for degenerative disease, not merely as a horror film but as a commentary on the disease, something that resonates with many people and transcends its horror elements. She was also impressed by director Alex Horwitz and his vision for the project.

Her decision to take on this role came despite her agents’ skepticism about the project due to its low budget and short film format. Her choice to pursue the role regardless of these concerns demonstrates her commitment to projects that offer meaningful and challenging roles, even in unconventional formats.

This role allowed Adrienne to incorporate her close experience with the horror genre with a deeper, metaphorical take on her character. As a result, her performance has played a big part in making the film a cult classic over the last 15 years.

Adrienne joined the cast of TV’s Revenge during the second season in 2012, in a recurring role playing Victoria Grayson’s mother, Marion Harper. “She taught Victoria what it takes to survive with very little, with your wit and your looks,” said Revenge creator Mike Kelley.

It features the complex, damaged relationship with her daughter Victoria, played by Madeleine Stowe. Adrienne’s character was introduced in the episode titled “The Lion’s Share.”

Adrienne Barbeau plays Victoria’s mother, Marion Harper, in Revenge 2012.

Marion Harper: “I thought at least you might enjoy having pity on me.” “¨Victoria Grayson: “Pity is not a quality you taught me.”

in 2014, Adrienne Barbeau played Alice, Venus Van Dam’s mother in the FX series about an outlaw motorcycle gang – Sons of Anarchy who meets her demise during her only appearance in the Season 6 episode “Sweet and Vaded.”Â 

She had roles in Tales of Halloween 2015 as The Radio DJ. In Beyond the Edge in 2016, Death House in 2017 as the virtual Narrator, Big Legend 2018, Malevolence 3: Killer 2018, Chain of Death 2019, Swamp Thing TV series 2019, Exorcism at 60,000 Feet 2019, Hoax 2019, Gates of Darkness 2019, and the reboot of Creepshow TV series 2019 with her episode, Gray Matter.

Adrienne Barbeau appears in the award-winning movie Argo (2012). She plays the character Nina, the former wife of Lester Siegel, portrayed by Alan Arkin. She contributes to the film’s depiction of the Hollywood backdrop involved in the creation of the fake film used as a cover for the CIA’s rescue operation during the Iran hostage crisis. In the film, Nina is involved in a table reading for the fake movie Argo, where she plays the role of Serksi, the Galactic Witch.

In the 2014 Criminal Minds 20th episode of Season 9 called Blood Relations, Adrienne Barbeau gives a strikingly powerful performance as Cissy Howard, the matriarch caught in a violent feud between two families in rural West Virginia, The Howards and the Lees.

Adrienne as Cissy Howard and Tobin Bell in the 2014 Criminal Minds episode Blood Relations.

As the story progresses, it is revealed that Cissy is actually Magdalene Lee, the sister of Malachi Lee (played by Tobin Bell from the Saw franchise), siblings who had an incestuous relationship when they were young. As a result of their hidden relationship, Cissy gives birth to their son, who becomes the story’s unsub, a serial killer known as the “˜Mountain Man’ who uses barbed wire to garrot the heads off his victims. Cissy is kidnapped by her deformed son, who seeks revenge against the members of the families involved in the feud.

When the BAU arrives to investigate the brutal murders, they uncover Cissy’s dark past and her link to the family conflict. By the episode’s climax, she manages to reach her son, who decides to flee instead of exacting his brand of revenge on her due to the tragic consequences of the family’s history.

Adrienne Barbeau is on the Criminal Minds set with director/actor Matthew Gray Gubler in one of his many disturbing and powerful directorial contributions to the long-running show.

Adrienne gives an incredibly nuanced performance as a woman trapped by her past secrets, caught between the familial strife of two enigmatic clans and her painful memories of being shamed and abandoned.

With her raw, unfiltered expressiveness, she brings Cissy’s complex world to life. She vividly portrays the weight of generational trauma, the pull of family loyalty, the sting of betrayal, and the lingering shadows of past sins.

General Hospital (2010-2011)

“I’m realizing that a soap offers so many opportunities for a woman my age. At this stage in my career, the roles that are available tend to be the judge or the doctor, or somebody’s mother – that’s what happens when you’re the guest star of the week. But GH reminds me in a way of Carnivàle, where we never knew what was coming next and it was always exciting and fascinating. There’s a lot of meat on this soap!”

Adrienne Barbeau has expressed loving the challenge and excitement about the role, working in daytime television, and with longer dialogue in a single take.

Adrienne joined the cast of the long-running soap opera in August 2010 and remained on the show until 2011. She portrayed Suzanne Stanwyck, a former foreign correspondent turned director of an international charity with a deep commitment to humanitarian causes, particularly focusing on victims of sex trafficking and dedicated to helping exploited children.

She is an ambitious, resourceful, resilient, and ballsy woman with a sharp wit, often using her intelligence and charm to navigate the treacherous waters of the soap opera’s dramatic plotlines as she faces professional challenges and personal relationships in the tumultuous world of Port Charles.

Suzanne is initially introduced as Brenda Barrett’s confidante and long-time friend. Brenda Barrett played by Vanessa Marcil Giovinazzo is the spokesperson for Suzanne’s worldwide organization, ASEC: the American Society for the Exploited Children.

She worked with Brenda for years in Africa and places all over the globe for ASEC. Suzanne worked in close proximity to Brenda but the truth of her identity was not revealed until months later. On Valentine’s Day of 2011, it was revealed that Suzanne was really the wife of Theo Hoffman, also known as the Balkan, who was an international crime lord after Brenda for the death of his son Aleksander. Suzanne’s closeness to Brenda had just been a part of their plot for revenge because she was just as eager to avenge her son’s death as Theo was. (from Wikipedia)

The role reflects Adrienne Barbeau’s knack for portraying strong female characters and taps into her established persona as a fierce and independent woman. Casting Adrienne generated excitement among fans, especially those who remembered her from shows like Maude.

Beyond acting, Adrienne Barbeau has authored several books in addition to her memoir There Are Worse Things I Could Do. 

In 2010, Adrienne Barbeau re-invented herself yet again and co-authored a series of novels, the first co-authored with Michael Scott, creating a vivid world where the vampire elite run the streets of Los Angeles and Ovsanna Moore, the dark heroine of her Vampyres of Hollywood, teams up with Detective Peter King, who band together to fight them.

Adrienne at the -12th Annual Star Trek Convention 2013: photo by Gabe Ginsberg FilmMagic Getty images-a175980656-204

Adrienne Barbeau at the second annual David DeCcoteau’s Day of the Scream Queens: Burbank CA 2015 held at Dark Delicacies Bookstore photo by Albert L Ortega via Getty.

Fiddler on the Roof in Manhattan, NY, 2014: Actress Michele March with Adrienne Barbeau off stage 50th anniversary Fiddler Town Hall Theater photo Yana Paskova Getty Images-450590962.

In 2019, Gates of Darkness, a mystery/horror film that features elements of exorcism and dark family secrets – Adrienne Barbeau plays Rosemary, the grandmother of the main character, Stephen Tade. She co-stars alongside another notable actor, Tobin Bell, as Monsignor Canell, and John Savage as Joseph, who plays the grandfather. In a significant scene, Rosemary commits suicide in front of her family and friends during a family celebration.

In 2019, the television series reboot of Creepshow started off the first season, episode 1 with Gray Matter, directed by Greg Nicotero. Adrienne Barbeau plays Dixie in a story that rattles the nerves about a father whose thirst for alcohol evolves into a hunger for humans.

Christopher Nathan and Adrienne Barbeau in the episode Gray Matter for the 2019 TV series Creepshow. Co-stars Tobin Bell, written by Stephen King, Philip de Blasi, and Byron Willinger and directed by Greg Nicotero.

[from her memoir “There Are Worst Things I Could Do” (2006)]: It’s not easy, though, singing upside down in a headstand on a raised platform with your unfettered breasts hitting you in the chin. I’m a short woman with a pretty good body and large breasts – that’s not what I think of as sexy.

In 2015, Adrienne joined the National Tour of Pippin as Berthe, Pippin’s Grandmother. She performed her signature song No Time At All, while doing an entire trapeze act, which ended with a song and dance number that had her hanging upside down 15 feet in the air with no net.

“When they asked me if I was interested in taking over the role of Berthe, Pippin’s grandmother, I went online and watched a little bit of the scene, and there was no question in my mind I wanted to be a part of this company,” Barbeau tells me. “Singing, and dancing, and doing trapeze work ““ it’s really a magical evening in the theater, I think. It’s well worth seeing.”

“I don’t have a lot of imagination, so it doesn’t cross my mind what could go wrong. I just get up there and trust. I’m working with this fantastic dancer-acrobat, Preston Jamieson. It requires ultimate trust in Preston, because he’s flying me around and hanging me upside down. He’s doing the hard work.”

In this dazzling spectacle that graced the Fox Theater’s stage, courtesy of Broadway Across America, Adrienne Barbeau breathes vibrant life into Berthe, the spirited matriarch who’s both Pippin’s sage grandmother and Charlemagne’s indomitable mother. As the young prince Pippin embarks on a soul-stirring odyssey to uncover his life’s true calling, Berthe swoops in with her pearls of wisdom. But this is no ordinary grandmotherly advice ““ Berthe delivers her philosophy with theatrical flair, quite literally elevating her performance as she swings and twirls on a trapeze high above the stage. This wisdom transforms Berthe’s guidance into a breathtaking visual metaphor and the show’s blend of wonderful music and showmanship.

Diane Paulus’ 2013 reimagining of Pippin infuses the classic musical with a vibrant, theatrical circus aesthetic. A revival of Bob Fosse’s original Pippin, which won five Tony Awards, opened in 1972 and ran on Broadway for almost five years. It’s known universally for Stephen Schwartz’s score and features one of the most evocative songs, Corner of the Sky.

Adrienne says, “Diane has created a wonderful new vision, with incredible magic acts and a traveling circus. It’s a play within a play, acted out by the players in the circus. The players break the fourth wall and tell the audience that they are going to see something magical tonight.”

Reflecting on her career, she has always been able to joke about herself. She has remarked that she’s done nearly everything except a high-wire act and that “By the time I get to Atlanta, I should know what I am doing.”

“I am doing it with a partner, who I could not do it without,” Barbeau laughs. “I’m 20 feet above the stage. When I first told my sister I was doing this, she said, “˜There’s a net, I assume.’ And I had to say, “˜No, there is no net.’ I’ve not done anything this physically challenging, but it’s a wonderful song and fun to do.”Â (Interview Jim Farmer for ARTSATL 2015)

“I had no interest in getting back on stage really. But when a role comes along for someone my age where I’m hanging from a trapeze (Cirque du Soleil theater ) In fact we used a lot of people from Canada from Cirque and from Le Set Due de La Moreire? But I was asked to play Pippin’s grandmother, and she sings, but she sings it doing a trapeze act. And hanging upside down, and I thought, you know, yeah, I’ll do this let me get back on stage.”

Recent Work (2020s)

Adrienne appeared in The Eagle and the Albatross in 2020, Curious George: Go West, Go Wild TV movie as the voice of Ginny’s Mom in 2020, and the ecological horror film Unearth 2020.

It’s the 2020s, and Adrienne Barbeau remains active in the industry:

She played Kathryn Dolan in the EcoHorror Unearth 2020, which debuted at the Fantasia International and Mile High Film Festivals –

When she received the script she felt – “It’s explaining the plight of our farm community across the country. I come from – My grandparents were farmers. I grew up on a 20-acre grape farm that’s never made a dime, I don’t think. So as I read it, I just connected with the character.”  in addition, she said, Unearth was well-written, and it was not just your, you know, your basic slasher film where there are characters that we have no idea who they are, all murdered in the most grotesque ways you can imagine in the first 90 seconds of the film. That’s not interesting to me.” (2020 interview with Grant Hermann at Coming Soon.)

From the EcoHorror Unearth 2020.

Ariela Barer and Adrienne Barbeau in the short thriller Oddities 2023.

Adrienne appeared as Verna in American Horror Stories (2021) and as the voice of Maria Murdock in the Sci-Fi Action film 2021 Cowboy Bebop, in 2022s Hellblazers, and in the 2023 short feature Oddities, described as a ‘twisted story that exists at the intersection of noir and horror, but there’s a joylessness in it.” The story centers around a pair of drugged-out thieves attempting to rip off an antique shop until they discover that Adrienne Barbeau isn’t as helpless as they think. It had its LA premiere at Screamfest LA and was also screened at Brooklyn Horror and Austin Film Festivals.

In 2021, Adrienne joins a cast of veteran actors from the Broadway community and beyond as the guest star on Episode 11 of The World to Come podcast by Erik Ransom (book and lyrics), Andy Peterson (music), and Rachel Klein (direction) ““ as the voice of Queen Gehenna in the sci-fi/fantasy musical audio series set in New York in a semi-dystopian future, where society is divided along pop-cultural lines. Her character, the no-nonsense badass Queen Gehenna of the Fansci Folk, is heard in a flashback to the fateful Fiveboro’s Genre Wars, strategizing and making deals with strange bedfellows in an attempt to dominate the city. Deb Miller DC Theater Arts from March 2021. (Wikipedia)

In 2021, the anthology TV series American Horror Stories features Adrienne Barbeau as Verna in the episode “Drive In.” Verna is the managing employee at the drive-in theater who operates the projector. The plot revolves around a cursed film that leads to terrifying consequences for the audience. Adrienne also appeared 9-1-1 TV series in 2023, Amazon Prime’s Harlan Coben’s Shelter, a TV mini-series in 2023, Hustlers Take All in 2024, and Watchmen: Chapter 1 as the voices of Sally Jupiter, Silk Spectre, and the TV broadcaster in 2024.

In 2022, Adrienne Barbeau plays Georgia in the American action horror film Hellblazer, directed by Justin Lee. The film takes place during Christmas and is set in the 1980s. Hellblazer also features a star-studded cast of horrorcon frequenters, including Bruce Dern, Billy Zane, and Tony Todd.

Georgia is a rural DJ. perhaps a nod to Stevie Wayne. It centers around an evil cult that unleashes a monster on a small southwestern town, and the townspeople fight back. It has been described as a “cormanesque smalltown hangout.”

She has co-authored a collection of stories and memories from over a hundred actors who appeared on Broadway and in the national touring companies of the original production of Grease.

Grease”¦Tell Me More, Tell Me More! was published on June 7, 2022, by the Chicago Review Press, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the show. It’s funny and moving and fascinating.

Lights, Blood, Action!: Unveiling the Dark Glamour of Vampyres of Hollywood:

Adrienne Barbeau started taking writing classes from a woman who had also been in musical theater on Broadway around the same time she was performing. She was teaching writing classes to several actors that she personally knew. As part of the exercises, she had to write things to bring to class that she thought would be funny and interesting. So she wrote about the rat movie. After all, there was enough quirky material there to jot down.

She also wrote about John Carpenter and dating Burt Reynolds. After about six months of bringing in these little pieces, the teacher said, ‘You need to get an agent because you’ve got a memoir here.’ Then, she was approached by an Irish writer, Michael Scott, who was well-known in the UK, who told her she should write a horror novel for her fan base. But she wasn’t sure she could write a plot. However, she knew she could write good characters and scenes and dialogue, so they began collaborating. He turned his contribution over to her, and she began to articulate it in her own voice with her signature humor.

“In some ways, it was anxiety provoking. There was a big learning curve. I actually turned to another friend of mine who is a much-published author, Julie Smith. She has three detective series to her name. And my book, even though it is about a vampire, it really is a detective novel, a thriller. Now that the reviews are coming in, and that I’m getting a great response from romance magazines, I realize that it’s also a romance.

“I turned to Julie and I asked her help and advice. She basically sat down with me over a two-day period and taught me how to plot, taught me how I could ask myself questions that would take me in other directions. And I think had it not been for Julie, I would have had 30,000 words instead of 90,000. Once I got into it, then things just started coming out.” (from PopEntertainment interview 2010)

Adrienne Barbeau’s first novel, Vampyres of Hollywood, was published by St. Martin’s Press in July 2008. It was co-written with Irish author Michael Scott. The second book, Love Bites, was published in 2010, and Make Me Dead was published in 2015. Both were written exclusively by Adrienne.

“Ovsanna Moore is a Hollywood siren, horror film legend, and cut-throat producer. She also happens to be a 450-year-old vampyre. In the follow-up to the much acclaimed Vampyres of Hollywood, Adrienne Barbeau paints a wonderfully sly portrait of cinematic vampyres, as well as the nature of celebrity and the entertainment industry. Her “Scream Queen” credentials make her the only author who could combine such a fast-paced, edgy plot with tongue-in-cheek references to the inner workings and vanity of Hollywood. A whirlwind of action, Love Bites is a clever take on vampyres readers will never forget. – synopsis from.” -review by Steve Barton of Dread Central 2015

Adrienne’s first novel bears her customary wit and dead-on satire; her series of books center around Ovsanna, a 450-year-old vampire, a “˜strong survivor fighting for justice,’ like many of Adrienne Barbeau’s film and television characters.

“Beverly Hills Police Detective Peter King knows a lot about the City of Angels, but he doesn’t know that most of the A-listers in town are vampires. Or that powerful siren Ovsanna Moore is the CEO of their clan. Moore and King may be from opposite sides of the Hollywood Hills, but both have something to gain by stopping the killer, who the tabloids have dubbed the Cinema Slayer. Ovsanna must protect her vampire legacy and her production schedule, while King just wants to keep his Beverly Hills beat as blood-free as possible. When the horror queen and the hunky cop form an unholy alliance, sparks fly, and so do the creatures of the night.” ~ vampyres of hollywood | adrienne barbeau.

“Ali McGraw has an autobiography titled Moving Pictures. I was taken with the style in which she wrote, not a soup-to-nuts detailing every minute of her life. That’s the only book that influenced me when the time came to put my stories down on paper. I cared more about how I said what I had to say than the content of what I was saying. Since the memoir, I’ve written three vampyre novels about a scream queen who is the head of a vampyre clan of A-list Hollywood actors. It’s sort of a comedy ““ romance ““ or thriller.”

“Since the memoir, I’ve written three vampyre novels about a scream queen who is the head of a vampyre clan of A-list Hollywood actors. Sort of a comedy ““ romance ““ thriller.  And I’ve just finished co-authoring a collection of stories and memories from over a hundred actors who appeared on Broadway and in the national touring companies of the original production of Grease. Grease”¦Tell Me More, Tell Me More! will be published by the Chicago Review Press next year to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the show. It’s funny and moving and fascinating.” (June 2022 with Tom Moore and Ken Weissman)

“Ovsana, she can kick ass just like all these guys that I read and like the characters that I usually play. So I guess that’s where she came from. What better format to write the kind of woman that I would like to be ““ and like to think that I am, on occasion, and that I play in the movies”¦the strong survivor, fighting for justice”¦”

“I’ll go back maybe sixty or seventy pages, or back to the beginning or whatever, and I’m reading through it, and I find myself thinking, “˜ Did I write that?’ Where did that come from? Out of me? There are other times when I’ve written something, and I think, “˜Oh, that works’, and I’m sorta proud of that, but even as I’m aware of that, I’m also aware that it wasn’t anything that I thought of before I put my fingers on the computer. And it’s really fascinating.”

She continues to engage audiences across various media, demonstrating her enduring appeal and adaptability in the entertainment industry. Throughout her journey, she has shown a remarkable ability to reinvent herself, from Broadway star to beloved television star, from comedienne to dramatic actress to Scream Queen, voice actor to author, all while maintaining her unique charm, vibrance, and talent.

As of 2024:  The PitchFork Retreat is in post-production; Adrienne is playing Elle. Kindling is in production; she plays Mother Ruth. The Demon Detective has been completed; she has been cast as Abby.

Awards and nominations:

1972, nominated for and won Theatre World Award for Grease; in 1972, nominated for a Tony Award for Best Feature Actress in a Musical for Grease; in 1977, nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress Series, Miniseries or Television Film for Maude, 1991 nominated Fangoria Chainsaw Award for Best Supporting Actress in Television Film for Two Evil Eyes – Due occhi diabolici, 1999 nominated for 1st Online Film & Television Association OFTA Television Award for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, 2002 nominated and won Fangoia Chainsaw Awards for Best Supporting Actress for The Convent, 2004 nominated for Satellite Awards for Best Supporting Actress Television Series for Carnivale. 2010 nominated and won for Festival Award for Best Actress for Alice Jacobs Is Dead, 2016 won the 14th annual New York Horror Film Festival Lifetime Achievement Award, 2023 won Hollywood Reel Independent Film Festival for Best Actress in a Short Film for Early Retirement, 2023 won for FANtastic Horror Film Festival, San Diego Best Supporting Actress in a Short Film for Oddities and in 2023 won Los Angeles CINEVERSE Film Festival for Best Performance for Early Retirement.

My interview with the iconic, beloved Adrienne Barbeau! on JULY 8, 2024

You say in your autobiography, “I’m Armenian. As far as I’m concerned, that explains it all.” You possess an unwavering authenticity and resilience. You’re celebrated for this endlessly potent strength in your long list of versatile roles, and it’s something you project in real life. I suspect it arose from a deep connection to the women in your family who navigated the horrors of genocide with extraordinary fortitude. This echoes my own story ““ I’m descended from formidable Russian Jews, specifically Bessarabian roots, who escaped the tumultuous region of what is now Ukraine. How has this history of the strong women in your family, your life growing up on the farm, and the rich legacy of your Armenian culture informed your work? Do you have any particular memories you’d like to share?

Growing up, I was surrounded by strong women who worked hard, never complained, cared for their families above all: my grandmother, my mother, my aunts. I think since that was the only way I knew how women were in the world, that was what I became.  Spending summers on a farm in 100 degree heat, watching my grandparents deal with all kinds of nature ““ snakes, rodents, spiders, frogs ““ I grew up without much fear of anything. (Well, I didn’t like having to squat in the sand in the dark outside the outhouse, knowing I could be on top of  a frog, but when you don’t have an alternative”¦)

You’ve mentioned that your favorite roles were Maggie in Escape from New York, Stevie Wayne in The Fog, Billie in Creepshow’s segment “˜The Crate.’ And Ruthie in Carnivàle. Maggie embodies strong principles when navigating a harsh world. Stevie Wayne, with her whisky voice in The Fog, also shows remarkable courage in confronting a supernatural threat to protect the people of Antonio Bay. Billie in Creepshow was an outrageous personality. And your most complex role might be the extraordinarily earthy Ruthie in Carnivàle. All four roles showcase your versatility. Can you share your reflections on why those particular characters remain memorable for you?

I love Stevie Wayne because she put the people of Antonio Bay before her own fears and did everything she could to save them.  I love Maggie because she had a morality and code of ethics that again put her own safety second to her love for Brain.  Plus she wore a bitchin’ costume and great boots (which I still have and still wear occasionally).

Billie just makes me laugh. She’s so far away from my personality ““ I don’t even drink ““ but I understood what made her act the way she did, and I had so much fun bringing her to life.  And Ruthie ““ well, I just loved everything about her and about the show itself.  The metaphysics, the spirituality, the fight between good and evil, the fascinating characters.  And at that time, in the early 2000s, you’d be hard-pressed to find a role for a woman in her fifties that wasn’t a judge or a nurse or a lawyer.  A snake dancer?  Who has a relationship with a boy half her age?  Who dies and comes back to life?  I couldn’t ask for anything more. Except a second season.

It’s pretty bold at a young age to throw yourself at New York City and begin to forge a career as a performer on Broadway. From Matty’s Mardi Gras, the mob and call girls, dancing at night in New Jersey and at the 8th Wonder on Eight Street in the Village. Discotheque dancing on a baby grand piano in Part Washington (incidentally, I grew up a few towns over on Long Island), a horrid voice teacher, and adventures in therapy. Can you share some of those experiences?

“My plan, once I got to New York, was to find a place to live, get a job and start auditioning. The only time I’d ever auditioned for anything other than school plays was the San Jose Light Opera when I drove to San Francisco to try out for the role of Luisa in a professional production of The Fantastics. I’d never seen the show. I didn’t know Luisa is a sweet young girl who sings sweet young songs full of romance and delight”¦ I sang a song I thought would show off my eighteen-year-old lyric soprano voice. “My Man’s Gone Now” from Porgy and Bess; you know, the deep, dark, turgid ballad written for a forty-year-old black woman. It took me years to figure out why I didn’t get a callback. So I arrived in New York”¦ (1)

(On working for the mob)Whattaya been doin’ before this? He asked. “Nothing really. I just moved here a week ago. I was going to college in California and working as an office manager for termite control.” “Termites huh? Well , sometimes we get bugs around here, don’t we, Vinnie? Only they ain’t the four-legged kind.” “Actually, I need to work at night “˜cause I need my days free to take classes and go to auditions and stuff. I’m trying to be an actress. “You ain’t a pro are ya?” “A pro? Well, I did get paid to go to the Orient to entertain the armed forces but I’m not a member of Equity yet, if that’s what you mean. I mean, I just go to open non-union chorus calls right now.” “Yeah”¦ well”¦ that ain’t quite what I meant but”¦ (2)

I started working the following night. Waited tables”¦ The first full-time job I had in New York was at a restaurant called Matty’s Mardi Gras. Matty’s full name was Matty the Horse. I never asked why. It didn’t dawn on me until years later that I was working for “The Syndicate.” (3)

In 1966, I was earning my living as a discotheque dancer. The term go-go girl hadn’t caught on yet””no white vinyl boots. Just the same black leotard and fishnet stockings and black high heels I’d worn at Matty’s, only this time the leotard was two-piece, and I’d sewn fringe and sequins on the top. Most of the clubs were in New Jersey: Hoboken, Harrison, Secaucus, and Newark. Occasionally, I’d go to the Salem Inn in Port Washington on Long Island to dance on top of the baby grand. That ended on the night I kicked a scotch-and-soda all over some jackass who was giving me trouble.” (4)

Looking back at your early training in the New York acting scene of the 1960s, it was a time heavily influenced by the Method and perhaps the overzealous application of emotional recall. Can you talk a bit about Stella Adler, Lee Strasberg, and Bill Hickey (a truly underrated character actor) at HB Studios? Were there any experiences in acting classes that you found particularly enlightening, frustrating, or even a bit mortifying?

I spent one month studying with Stella Adler and learned absolutely nothing.  I suspect she didn’t enjoy teaching women. I left after she upbraided me for wearing a hat to class. 
I spent three months studying with Lee Strasberg and again, I didn’t get it.  Part of the problem for me was political. If you weren’t acting on Broadway, it wasn’t easy to find someone in the class who was willing to work on a scene with you.  I remember doing some sense memory work where we held a cup filled with imaginary hot coffee and we were supposed to feel the steam coming off it, and maybe smell it.  Didn’t work for me.

Bill Hickey was the first teacher I began to learn from.  He told a story about his mother being in hospital and he and his aunt sitting in the waiting room for hours.  His aunt finally went to a nurse to ask when they could see her sister, and the nurse told her his mother had passed. His aunt yelled no, slapped one hand across her heart, and threw the other one in the air. She stood like frozen like that for minutes without speaking. Bill finally had to pull her arm down. He used that story to explain that if the emotion underlying the action is genuine, is honest, is real, then there’s no action that can be too big.

The teacher who best guided me was Warren Robertson.  Warren used a combination of Bio-energetics and (maybe- it’s been a long time) Stanislavsky’s techniques. What I learned from him, which was invaluable, was how to access my emotions so I could shape them and express them as a role demanded.

It’s 1968; can you tell me how you found your way into the production of Fiddler on the Roof? You’ve played strong, independent survivors right from the start. In Fiddler, you played Hodel, a girl who stands up to her father and runs away to Siberia with her love. Given the narrative of the Jews escaping Russia (as if your Armenian heritage is always there), do you think your grandmother was looking out for you to help you get your start in this role?

When I first got to New York in 1965, I sent my photo and resume out to every casting director and producer and agent listed in Backstage Magazine.  I kept 3 x 5 notecards for each submission. In 1968, out of the blue, I got a call from Shirley Rich who was Hal Prince’s casting director. She’d found my photo and resume in her files and asked me to come in and audition for Fiddler on the Roof. Her call came in on a Friday and the audition was Monday. During that weekend, I had such a strong feeling that my grandmother (who came from Armenia during the genocide) was telling me this was my role. It was a six-hour, grueling audition, but I got the job.

You originated the role of Rizzo in Grease, introducing her iconic character to us and scoring a Theater Guild Award and a Tony nomination. I wish I had seen you in that production. Is there a particular aspect of the character Rizzo and the musical itself that resonated with you? What are some of the things you loved about it?

What I loved most about Grease was the 60’s music. That’s what I grew up on and that’s what I really knew how to sing. And because we were all about the same age and all getting started in our careers, the cast came together to form close, close friendships that last to this day.

Norman Lear sent his casting director to see you perform onstage in Grease after you won the Tony Award and was very taken with you. Lear, along with Bud Yorkin and Susan Harris, must have seen something in you that was perfect for playing Carol, the daughter of the liberal, irreverent woman named Maude, who was like no one seen on prime-time television as of yet. You go from live theater to working with an ensemble of talented writers and incredible veteran stage actors in a television production. Tell me about auditioning for Norman Lear.

Norman interviewed me for the role of Carol in Maude but thought I looked too young to play the mother of a 7-year-old boy (as had already been established in the pilot). Then a month later, I guess after they’d seen several hundred actresses in L.A., they asked me to fly out and “screen test”.  I was incredibly nervous and doubt I read very well. They showed me the pilot and then asked me to read again. They didn’t say much. I flew back to NY to get back to Grease and a week later they offered me the part.

The show masterfully integrated socially conscious messages, finding laughter within its often heavy, controversial issues like alcoholism and mental health and topics that were political bombshells (women’s rights) that would push all boundaries. When did you discover Maude would be a groundbreaking sitcom due to the power of its humor?

We did a two-part abortion episode in our first season of Maude. We were groundbreaking from the get-go. But we never lectured; we never hit people over the head with one stance or another; we simply made the audience laugh and, maybe, along the way, made them think about issues from a new perspective.

In the pilot episode, Maude is pacing because you’re late arriving home. After Maude and Walter exchange their signature jibes (delivered with unequaled comedic timing), you enter wearing dark glasses, having come from a heavy therapy session. The 1970s started the focus on psychoanalysis, right? Guns blazing, you tell Maude, “Leave me alone, Mother,” and right then and there, the mother/daughter dynamic emerges. Was there an aspect of your relationship that did become like a mentor, mother/daughter relationship? Did you stay in touch over the years? Did she share anything about life in general that was an inspiration for you?

I loved Bea. Actually the whole cast was one happy family. Aside from learning comedic timing and delivery from one of the greatest comediennes ever, Bea taught me to eat hard-boiled eggs with Tabasco sauce on them!

There is an indomitable spirit that defines the classic action heroine. She’s an unstoppable force – that capable heroine with unwavering resolve – sometimes with a gun or a machete! That heroine has found a kindred spirit in you. And one of your playful credos is, “Put a gun in my hand, let me blow away the bad guys, and I’m in heaven.” Maybe there should have been a recurring film character archetype for you like the ones Charles Bronson and Pam Grier personified. A heroine that coolly takes out the bad guys! Would you rather be an action heroine or a scream queen?

I’d rather be an action hero than a scream queen.  Then at least I could watch my movies.  You’ll rarely find me in the audience of a horror film.  Love to do them, don’t like to see them.

Although he is most known for films that are meditations on morality and convey his philosophical/psychological ideations; beyond manipulating fear, George Romero imbued Creepshow with dark humor. There is something playful about the best horror films you have done, given your versatile background in both dramatic roles and comedy”¦ for instance; playing Billie, the raging lush, classless harpy, and tacky bitch always shrieking at your husband, (Hal Holbrook), who often fantasizes about ways to off you. Why did you almost turn down the role of Billie? Do you think you ultimately connected with her because of the film’s humor and your background in comedy? How was it working with Romero on this farcically violent tale?

When I read the screenplay for Creepshow I had no idea of the comic book style George intended for it.  I just thought it was gross (skeeved by the cockroaches especially) and vile. I didn’t get it.  I never saw Billie as comedic. She was a woman who’d been severely disappointed by her life; it hadn’t turned out the way she wanted it to”¦

I had to understand why she acted the way she did, to love her and accept her. Otherwise I’d just be an actress acting nasty, a one-dimensional character with no humanity. Ultimately, I think that’s why she works so well. Everyone remembers Billie.

“¦I had a ball. Once I settled into the style George wanted, I just became more and more outrageous. The whole experience was one of the best I’ve ever had”¦ Most of all, I fell in love with George and his wife, Chris. We became lifelong friends. (5)

Once he got the financial backing for The Fog, it opened the door for your first feature film. A film meant to be a straightforward horror movie based on his idea that the fog itself is the leading character. John Carpenter was a fan of Howard Hawks. Did he have you in mind for the Hawksian heroine of Stevie Wayne (a strong, resilient woman with her wits about her)? Do you see the character as the film’s sort of guardian angel?

The first film I did with John Carpenter was Someone’s Watching Me! John was a huge fan of Howard Hawks, and I think he saw something in me that was reminiscent of the women portrayed in Howard Hawks’ films.

The Fog takes place in the small California coastal town of Antonio Bay, which is invaded by a malevolent fog. Inverness was such a beautifully atmospheric place to tell a ghost story. I know that shooting wasn’t always easy at the lighthouse, with its turbulent wind and carrying the heavy equipment up and down 365-odd steps. It must have felt like a never-ending Sisyphean undertaking. Tell me about the physical challenges of working on location there. To perform an entire scene acting it in reverse””was it challenging to interpret your reactions in reverse in order to create the illusion that the fog was pulling away? It must have been difficult to use your facial expressions and body language to signal your terror, dread, and curiosity and then calm “” to pull off the effect of the fog and the fiends it was concealing as they were retreating?

I think Pt. Reyes and Inverness are as vital to The Fog as are any of our characters. It was a joy to work there. My scene on top of the lighthouse was on a set, however. This was long before CGI, so the “fog” was real fog, albeit crafted out of kerosene and water or god knows what ““ we called it “fog juice,” and it was oily and smelly and impossible to control. The effects department could waft it into a scene, but they couldn’t evacuate it. So when the time came to do the scene where the ghost was chasing me through the fog up the roof of the lighthouse, we had to act the scene in reverse. First, there’s no fog, and I’m relieved because the pirate ghost has disappeared, and then ““ they blow the fog in ““ I’m surrounded by fog, and the ghost is pursuing me. When they develop the film, they print it backward or upside down or something, I never did understand the technique and the scene works!

The Fog has withstood the test of time, achieving cult status with a resurgence of unwavering fans. And it’s you and your heroine, Stevie Wayne, who is often identified as the story’s heart and soul. How has The Fog impacted your career?

The Fog was my first feature, and in much the same way that Grease led to my television career, The Fog led to my film career. It was the beginning of so many good things to come.

Maggie’s dressed in fabulous rags: a stiletto boots-clad convict serving a life sentence with a sharp tongue and fists. You rocked that kick-ass guise within the dystopian chaos of Escape From New York! Your look was a very intuitive costume choice. Stephen Loomis’s designs were fashionably apocalyptic. What went through your mind to make Maggie as authentic as possible? Tell me a little bit about how you envisioned her look and how you contributed to Maggie’s resourceful ensemble.

Well, I figured anything Maggie used or wore had to be something found in the penal colony. I guess it never crossed my mind that there might be items left over in Manhattan stores. So I cooked a turkey and fashioned a hairclip out of the breast bone, and I painted my nails silver, thinking Maggie was using melted batteries or something. I don’t know.  The battery part is pretty ridiculous now that I think of it.  Was it battery acid that was silver? 

You must have had a blast in the film’s volatile climax on the bridge when Maggie avenges Brain’s death. There’s such a great unspoken edge between Snake and Maggie as she defies the impending threat of gruesome death. And Snake tosses you his gun. In your autobiography, you write that the drawbridge scene at the end is one of your favorite moments in the film. What do you love about it? You also tell a story about shooting the scene showing Maggie dead in your garage. How’d that happen, and why?

Brain is killed, and Maggie stands her ground to avenge his death in front of the Duke’s oncoming car. She turns to Snake, puts out her hand, and he throws her his gun. She stands stock-still and fires repeatedly at the Duke as he’s heading right for her. John sees it as a Hawksian scene: two people (Maggie and Snake) who understand each other without speaking. I don’t have Howard Harks for a reference. I just know all Maggie’s morality and ethics, and honor are expressed in that one action. (6)

When John shot the original film, the scene on the bridge ended with Maggie firing on The Duke. John screened the film for the Avco Embassy executives and asked for comments. A teenage J.J. Abrams was at the screening with his father and after his father made some suggestions (which John took), J.J. asked what happened to Maggie.  So John and I moved our cars out of our garage; I put on the costume, put on Maggie’s make-up, cooked another turkey breast to make a hair clip, and laid down on the floor of the garage. The effects department poured blood around my head, and we shot Maggie dead.

For years, one of the things that struck me about your persona is that you are extremely earthy, just like Ruthie. There is something so magical about Carnivàle, the writing, the costumes, the cinematography, the evocative music, and without a doubt”¦ the remarkable acting. Before Daniel Knauf and the writers fully fleshed out the character of Ruthie, did they provide any backstory about the older snake charmer to prepare you for the fable-esque story?

And”¦ Ruthie has a very worn-in look””a weathered face that speaks to the period in which Carnivàle takes place””the look of a woman who has been through a lot during the Depression era. Your grandparents lived through the Depression era. They must have had that look of honest labor, hard work, and rough lives. She is such a complex character. At that time, on cable television, hardly anyone was writing such sensual and enigmatic narratives for an older woman who is also wise, has integrity, and oozes sexuality. She says, “Honey, everyone has bad dreams. It’s the times we live in; it’s hard to be happy. It’s hard to feel safe.” – That’s a peek into Ruthie’s gritty and unflinching wisdom. It must have been incredible to explore a character like Ruthie. Did the style and atmosphere of that time in American history and the same resilience of your family draw you closer to Ruthie and the show? You said about Ruthie, “I knew her. I just knew Ruthie.” Is there a bit of you in Ruthie, or did Ruthie become a bit like you as the writers got to see your personality?

{Ruthie’s speech} “˜Lord, never met this woman. Don’t know what kind a life she did. Whether she sinned or did good. All’s I know, she got a son who gone through serious tribulation and great courage to face down them three big trucks and put her in the ground proper. And that says something, yes, sir. So she should go to heaven all right.’

Everything I need to know about Ruthie is in her use of language. I can hear how she says these words. I recognize her. I put on my jeans, a T-shirt, and my favorite cowboy boots, and I’m ready to audition. (7)

From the first page, I’m blown away. Yes, It’s about carny workers, but carny workers in the Dust Bowl during the Depression. No wonder I recognize Ruthie. This is the poverty my mother lived through. (8)

I read the script for Carnivále, and I knew Ruthie. Maybe because I spent my summers on a 20-acre grape farm in the Central Valley, maybe because my aunts and mother grew up during the Depression, I don’t know.  I just knew her.  I knew how she sounded when she made that speech at the graveside. There was no backstory provided. Actually, I think she was originally conceived to be an older, wizened woman. Once I was cast, she took on a bit of a different persona.

While reading There Are Worse Things I Could Do, I couldn’t believe your experience in Russia with the filming of Burial of the Rats. It sounded surreal! Can you give us an idea of how the whole thing unfolded and some of the crazy highlights of filming?

One of my favorite chapters of my memoir, There Are Worse Things I Could Do, is the one I call The Rat Movie.  Honestly, I can’t do any better at describing the absolute ridiculousness of making that movie than I did in the book. You really have to read the whole chapter to know how outrageously funny the whole experience was.

I’m interested to hear about your role in the National Theater Company production of Pippin as the music of the show moves me. You are sensational as Berthe in this production. I saw a clip that showcases your wonderful voice and agility! Bob Fosse’s original 1972 production had that very Broadway musical vibe, bold and glamorous with a strong narrative vibe woven in. Can you tell me about this retelling of the Pippin production”” the choreography, arrangements, and you on a trapeze?

I never saw the original production of Pippin, but I loved doing the 2015 National Tour. Hanging upside down from a trapeze 15 feet in the air with no net while singing “No Time At All” and working with the magnificent acrobats from Canada’s Les 7 Doigt was one of the great fun times of my life.

You seem to be a very emotionally inquisitive, spiritual, adventurous, and creative soul. I confess I have not read your series (yet), Vampyres of Hollywood. You’ve created a whole new world with your fiction novels. Tell me about your killer protagonist Ovsanna who essentially kicks ass.

Ovsanna Moore is a scream queen who runs an independent movie studio in Hollywood. She’s also a 450-year-old Armenian vampire, the head of a clan of vampires that includes most of the A-list actors in Hollywood: Orson Welles, Charlie Chaplin, Elvis, Mary Pickford, Robert Downey Jr., and on and on. And someone is killing members of her clan (which isn’t easy, considering they’re vampires). It’s up to Ovsanna and the Beverly Hills detective assigned to the case to figure it out. The Vampyres of Hollywood is the first in the trilogy, but my favorite is the second, Love Bites, which I have adapted, along with B. Harrison Smith, into a screenplay and a series pilot we’re hoping to see produced soon. Make Me Dead completes the trilogy. They’re funny and sexy and vampiry!

“”  Jo, thank you so much for such a lovely set of interview questions.  I look forward to seeing the final interview and article!   Take good care of yourself  — Adrienne

(1) pg.29, Adrienne Barbeau: There Are Worse Things I Could Do

(2) pg.36 ibid.

(3) pg.37 ibid.

(4) pg.63 ibid.

(5) pg.202 ibid.

(6) pg.187 ibid.

(7) pg.294 ibid.

(8) pg.299 ibid.