Barbara Hershey
- Highest Rated: The Right Stuff (1983)
- Lowest Rated: Splitting Heirs (1993)
- Birthday: Feb 5, 1948
- Birthplace: Hollywood, California, USA
-
While a prolific screen presence from the late-'60s onward, Barbara Hershey did not truly attain star status until two decades later, finally blossoming to become one of the most acclaimed American actresses of her generation. Born Barbara Herzstein on February 5, 1948, in Hollywood, CA, she studied drama during high school and in 1965 made her professional debut in the teen television romp Gidget. From 1966 to 1967, she was a regular on the series The Monroes and subsequently guest starred in a number of other programs. Hershey made her film bow in 1968's With Six You Get Eggroll, followed by the Western Heaven With a Gun and Last Summer. After a number of other lesser projects, she starred as the title heroine in 1972's Boxcar Bertha, the first major theatrical release from a then-unknown Martin Scorsese. David Carradine, Hershey's onscreen partner in crime, became her offscreen companion as well. Carradine directed them both in Americana (filmed in 1973 but not shown until eight years later), and together they had a child, Free.In another nod to the counterculture, Hershey rechristened herself "Barbara Seagull" and traveled to the Netherlands to film the 1973 drama Angela, winning Best Actress honors for her work at the Berlin Film Festival. Still, box-office success continued to elude her, and her resumé remained littered with undistinguished projects including the 1974 heist drama Diamonds, the 1976 comedy A Choice of Weapons, and the Western The Last Hard Men. By 1977, Hershey -- having dropped the "Seagull" surname -- turned to television, where she appeared in the Irwin Allen disaster production Flood! as well as the miniseries A Man Called Intrepid and the 1979-1980 weekly program From Here to Eternity. The 1980 comedy The Stunt Man, actually shot two years earlier, marked Hershey's return to feature films, and was followed by 1981's Take This Job and Shove It and the 1982 horror picture The Entity. By this point, Hershey -- once viewed as a rising star -- had been largely written off by the Hollywood powers-that-be. However, in 1983, she accepted a small role in Philip Kaufman's acclaimed The Right Stuff which garnered her considerable notice. She followed it with another small but pivotal role in Barry Levinson's 1984 baseball fable The Natural, and after a pair of well-regarded television projects -- the 1985 Errol Flynn bio My Wicked, Wicked Ways and 1986's Passion Flower -- Hershey's name was back on the map. After years of low-budget and low-brow projects, suddenly she was a fixture of high-profile features including Woody Allen's masterful 1986 effort Hannah and Her Sisters, David Anspaugh's Hoosiers, and Levinson's 1987 comedy Tin Men. Also in 1987, Hershey's turn in Andrei Konchalovsky's Shy People won Best Actress honors at the Cannes Film Festival, an award she again took home the following year for her performance in Chris Menges' A World Apart.Hershey also excelled in more mainstream affairs, appearing opposite Bette Midler in the weeper Beaches. In 1988, she and Scorsese reunited for the first time since Boxcar Bertha in The Last Temptation of Christ, in which she appeared as Mary Magdalene, winning a Golden Globe nomination for her performance. In 1990, Hershey returned to television to star in the movie A Killing in a Small Town, for which she won an Emmy. Back in the movies, she remained noted for her performances in offbeat fare like 1990's Tune in Tomorrow, 1993's Falling Down, and 1996's The Pallbearer. For her supporting performance in Jane Campion's 1996 adaptation of The Portrait of a Lady, Hershey also earned an Academy Award nomination. In 1998, the actress won further praise for her role as Kris Kristofferson's bohemian wife in A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries. The same year, she appeared as a struggling actress in Amos Poe's Frogs for Snakes, and then went on to play Bruce Willis' wife in the highly anticipated 1999 adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions. She appeared in the dr
Photos
Highest Rated Movies
-
The Right Stuff
98% -
11:14
92% -
A World Apart
91% -
Filmography
Movies
Rating |
Title |
Credit |
Box
|
Year |
---|---|---|---|---|
38% | The 9th Life of Louis Drax | Violet | — | 2016 |
The Natural: The Best There Ever Was | Actor | — | 2016 | |
Childless | Natalie | — | 2015 | |
Sister | Susan Presser | — | 2014 | |
40% | Insidious: Chapter 2 | Lorraine Lambert | $71.5M | 2013 |
Left to Die | Sandra Chase | — | 2012 | |
9% | Answers to Nothing | Marilyn | $22.5K | 2011 |
66% | Insidious | Lorraine Lambert | $53.8M | 2011 |
84% | Black Swan | Erica Sayers/The Queen | $107M | 2010 |
Nick Nolte: No Exit | Actor | — | 2009 | |
Anne of Green Gables: A New Beginning | Anne Shirley | — | 2009 | |
Albert Schweitzer | Helene Schweitzer | — | 2009 | |
71% | Love Comes Lately | Rosalie | — | 2008 |
Uncross the Stars | Hilda Limberlost | — | 2008 | |
Drowning on Dry Land | Kate | — | 2008 | |
Bird Can't Fly | Melody | — | 2007 | |
26% | Riding the Bullet | Jean Parker | $0.2M | 2004 |
Paradise | Elizabeth | — | 2004 | |
92% | 11:14 | Norma | — | 2003 |
The Stranger Beside Me | Ann Rule | — | 2003 | |
Hunger Point | Marsha Hunter | — | 2003 | |
Daniel Deronda | Actor | — | 2002 | |
90% | Lantana | Valerie | $4.3M | 2002 |
Outer Space | Actor | — | 2002 | |
A World Apart | Actor | — | 2001 | |
The Sinister Saga of Making 'The Stunt Man' | Actor | — | 2000 | |
26% | Breakfast of Champions | Celia Hoover | — | 1999 |
27% | Frogs for Snakes | Eva | — | 1999 |
77% | A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries | Marcella | — | 1998 |
The Staircase | Mother Madalyn | — | 1998 | |
45% | The Portrait of a Lady | Madame Serena Merle | — | 1996 |
45% | The Pallbearer | Ruth Abernathy | — | 1996 |
69% | Last of the Dogmen | Lillian Sloan | — | 1995 |
Abraham | Sarah | — | 1994 | |
55% | A Dangerous Woman | Frances | — | 1993 |
8% | Splitting Heirs | Duchess Lucinda | — | 1993 |
53% | Swing Kids | Frau Müller | — | 1993 |
74% | Falling Down | Beth | — | 1993 |
63% | The Public Eye | Kay Levitz | — | 1992 |
Defenseless | Thelma Knudsen Katwuller | — | 1991 | |
Paris Trout | Hanna Trout | — | 1991 | |
50% | Tune in Tomorrow... (Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter) | Aunt Julia | — | 1990 |
39% | Beaches | Hillary Whitney Essex | — | 1988 |
80% | The Last Temptation of Christ | Mary Magdalene | — | 1988 |
91% | A World Apart | Diana Roth | — | 1988 |
60% | Shy People | Ruth Sullivan | — | 1987 |
81% | Tin Men | Actor | — | 1987 |
Legends - Live at Montreux 1997 | Nora Tilley | — | 1987 | |
89% | Hoosiers | Myra Fleener | — | 1986 |
Passion Flower | Julia Gaitland | — | 1986 | |
91% | Hannah and Her Sisters | Lee | — | 1986 |
My Wicked, Wicked Ways: The Legend of Errol Flynn | Lili Damita | — | 1985 | |
82% | The Natural | Harriet Bird | — | 1984 |
98% | The Right Stuff | Glennis | — | 1983 |
64% | The Entity | Clara Morgan | — | 1982 |
Working | Actor | — | 1982 | |
Americana | Jess' daughter | — | 1981 | |
Take This Job and Shove It | J.M. Halstead | — | 1981 | |
89% | The Stunt Man | Nina Franklin | — | 1980 |
Woman Accused | Ellen | — | 1977 | |
In the Glitter Palace | Ellen | — | 1977 | |
Flood! | Mary Cutler | — | 1976 | |
The Last Hard Men | Susan Burgade | — | 1976 | |
Choice of Weapons | Marion | — | 1976 | |
Diamonds | Sally | — | 1975 | |
50% | Boxcar Bertha | Boxcar Bertha | — | 1972 |
Dealing: Or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues | Susan | — | 1972 | |
The Pursuit of Happiness | Jane Kauffman | — | 1971 | |
The Liberation of L.B. Jones | Nella Mundine | — | 1970 | |
The Baby Maker | Tish Gray | — | 1970 | |
78% | Last Summer | Sandy | — | 1969 |
Heaven with a Gun | Leloopa | — | 1969 | |
With Six You Get Eggroll | Stacey Iverson | — | 1968 | |
Experiments in Terror | Actor | — | 1961 | |
Turkey Shoot: Beaches | Actor | — |
TV
Rating |
Title |
Credit |
Year |
---|---|---|---|
74% |
The X-Files
1993-2018
|
Erika Price |
|
11% |
Damien
2016
|
Ann Rutledge |
|
80% |
Once Upon a Time
2011-2018
|
Geppetto/Marco Cora Greg Mendell |
|
63% |
Once Upon a Time in Wonderland
2013-2014
|
Cora |
|
Masterpiece
1971-2014
|
Mrs. Hubbard Contessa Maria Alcharisi |
|
|
10% |
The Mountain
2004-2005
|
Gennie Carver |
|
Chicago Hope
1994-2000
|
Dr. Francesca Alberghetti |
|
|
American Playhouse
1982-1996
|
Lenore |
|
|
Kung Fu
1972-1975
|
Nan Chi |
|
QUOTES FROM Barbara Hershey CHARACTERS
- Erica Sayers/The Queen
-
Take off your shirt.
- Nina
-
No.
- Dr. Valerie Somers
-
Does she know about you?
- Patrick Phelan
-
I assume so. She would sense it wouldn't she?
- Dr. Valerie Somers
-
It depends on how good he is at deceiving her.
- Patrick Phelan
-
Or how good she is at deceiving herself.
- Erica Sayers/The Queen
-
What happened to my sweet little girl?
- Nina
-
She's gone!!!
- Nina
-
She's gone!
- Erica Sayers/The Queen
-
You can't handle this!
- Nina Sayers/ The Swan Queen
-
I can't? I'm the Swan Queen! You're the one who never left the corps.
- CC Bloom
-
Hilary you got so fat!
- Hillary Whitney Essex
-
I'm not fat I'm having a baby
- Hillary Whitney Essex
-
I'm not fat I'm having a baby.
- CC Bloom
-
You're not, You're having a baby?
- CC Bloom
-
You're not. You're having a baby?
- Hillary Whitney Essex
-
I'm Three Months Pregnant
- Hillary Whitney Essex
-
I'm three months pregnant.
- CC Bloom
-
That's great
- CC Bloom
-
That's great.
- Hillary Whitney Essex
-
Before I caught him with that woman we made love and that's when it ...
- CC Bloom
-
(interrupts) What woman?
- Hillary Whitney Essex
-
There was this woman I caught them together ...
- CC Bloom
-
(interrupts) Michael?
- Hillary Whitney Essex
-
Of course Michael and that's when it happened, and he doesn't want it because he's going to marry her. Can you believe it he's going to marry her?
- CC Bloom
-
(to bartender) Would you make this a double please?
- CC Bloom
-
(to Hillary) Let me get this straight. You caught Michael with another woman?
- Hillary Whitney Essex
-
Yes
- Hillary Whitney Essex
-
Yes.
- CC Bloom
-
And now you're going to have a baby all on your own
- Hillary Whitney Essex
-
Mmhmm (shakes head)
- CC Bloom
-
Oh Hillary I think that's wonderful
- Hillary Whitney Essex
-
You do?
- CC Bloom
-
I think it's the most exciting thing and if it's a girl will you name it after me? (hugs Hillary)
- Hillary Whitney Essex
-
(quietly) Yes
- Hillary Whitney Essex
-
(quietly) Yes.
- Ruth Sullivan
-
Sometimes people see what they want to see.
- Lorraine Lambert
-
I asked it what do you want...it said Dalton....I can still hear that voice
- Lorraine Lambert
-
I asked it, 'Who are you?' ... I said 'What do you want?' ... I can still hear that voice.
- Erica Sayers/The Queen
-
What Happerned To My Sweet Girl
- Erica Sayers/The Queen
-
What happened to my sweet girl?
- Nina Sayers/ The Swan Queen
-
SHES GONE !!!
- Nina Sayers/ The Swan Queen
-
She's gone!
- Erica Sayers/The Queen
-
You're not my Nina right now!
- Erica Sayers/The Queen
-
It's the role, isn't it? It's all this pressure? I knew it would be too much. I knew it!
- Erica Sayers/The Queen
-
"Everything will be better in the morning. It always is"
- Erica Sayers/The Queen
-
Everything will be better in the morning. It always is.
- Erica Sayers/The Queen
-
What happened to my sweet girl?
- Nina Sayers/The Swan Queen
-
She's gone!!!
- Norma
-
You'll burn for what you did to my daughter!
- Erica Sayers/The Queen
-
Where have you been?
- Nina
-
To the moon.
- Lilly
-
...And back.
- Erica Sayers/The Queen
-
What were you doing?
- Nina
-
Mom, you want to know their names?
- Erica Sayers/The Queen
-
What happend to my sweet girl?
- Nina
-
SHE'S GONE!