Actor / Director Profile

Born and raised in a small bungalow in Hollywood, Barbara Hershey (born Barbara Herzstein) had dreams of being in movies as a little girl. Quiet and withdrawn, she acted out stories in her back yard. Her major acting debut was on "The Monroes" (1966), where she played Kathy. Her motion picture career began with With Six You Get Eggroll (1968). For the next few years, she was typecast as a "wild child" and tried to live up to that image. She had a rocky relationship with David Carradine, with whom she had a child they named Free. From 1972 to 1974 she changed her name from Barbara Hershey to Barbara Seagull. Her career was resurrected when she appeared in the miniseries "From Here to Eternity" (1979) and especially the feature The Stunt Man (1980). In that film she played an actress on the edge, which may have been influenced by her own life. Based upon her strong performance, other roles in quality films followed: The Right Stuff (1983); The Natural (1984); Hoosiers (1986) and Beaches (1988). A two-time winner of the Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Award, for her work in Shy People (1987) and A World Apart (1988), she also won an Emmy for her performance in A Killing in a Small Town (1990) (TV).