Barbara Harris

Barbara Densmoor Harris (July 25, 1935 – August 21, 2018) was an American Tony Award-winning Broadway stage star and Academy Award-nominated motion picture actress. Early life Harris was born in Evanston, Illinois, the daughter of Natalie (née Densmoor), a pianist, and Oscar Graham Harris, an arborist who later became a businessman. She was the youngest of four children. In her youth, Harris attended Senn High School and then Wilbur Wright College. She began her stage career as a teenager at the Playwrights Theatre in Chicago. Her fellow players included Edward Asner, Elaine May and Mike Nichols. She was also a member of the Compass Players, the first ongoing improvisational theatre troupe in the United States, directed by Paul Sills, to whom she was married at that time. Though the Compass Players closed in disarray, a second theatre directed by Sills called The Second City opened in Chicago in 1959 and attracted national attention. Despite Sills and Harris having divorced by this time, Sills cast her in this company and brought her to New York to play in a Broadway edition at the Royale Theatre, opening on September 26, 1961. For her performance in this, she received her first Tony Award nomination. Broadway career A life member of the Actors Studio, Harris received a Tony nomination in 1962 for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical for her Broadway debut in the original musical revue production From the Second City, which ran at the Royale Theatre from September 26, 1961 to December 9, 1961. The revue also featured the young Alan Arkin and Paul Sand. Produced by Max Liebman (among others) and directed by Paul Sills, the production presented Harris in such sketches as Caesar's Wife, First Affair, Museum Piece, and The Bergman Film.