Barbara Rush, the feminine lead of Nineteen Fifties sci-fi horror It Got here from Outer House, has died aged 97. Her daughter Claudia Cowan, a reporter for Fox Information, instructed Fox Information Digital: “My great mom handed away peacefully at 5:28 this night. I used to be along with her this morning and know she was ready for me to return residence safely to transition.”
Born in Denver in 1927, Rush grew up in Los Angeles and, after learning theatre on the College of California, Santa Barbara, was signed to Paramount Footage. After making her display screen performing debut in The Goldbergs – a big-screen spinoff of the favored radio and TV collection – Rush’s breakthrough position got here in 1951 within the Oscar-winning sci-fi image When Worlds Collide, because the daughter of an astronomer trying to warn humanity they’re doomed by a rogue star on a crash course with Earth.
Two years later she appeared in It Got here from Outer House, one other now-cult product of the Nineteen Fifties sci-fi cycle impressed by fears of nuclear armageddon and communist invasion. Right here Rush performed a schoolteacher who, alongside along with her boyfriend (Richard Carlson), spots a falling meteor that seems to be a spaceship carrying aliens. Whereas the aliens duplicate the our bodies of native townspeople, they prove to primarily be benign, not like different “purple scare” movies of the time. Rush gained a Golden Globe for many promising feminine newcomer for her position within the movie.
Rush then went on to play supporting roles in a string of main productions. She was Jane Wyman’s stepdaughter within the Douglas Sirk melodrama Magnificent Obsession, Tony Curtis’s sister in medieval-set drama The Black Protect of Falworth, and James Mason’s spouse in Larger Than Life, the Nicholas Ray-directed drama in regards to the side-effects of cortisone remedy. She additionally featured within the Marlon Brando warfare image The Younger Lions as Dean Martin’s love curiosity, starred reverse Paul Newman in authorized drama The Younger Philadelphians as his disillusioned lover, performed Frank Sinatra’s girlfriend in swinging-bachelor comedy Come Blow Your Horn, and appeared once more with Sinatra as Marian within the Rat Pack comedy Robin and the 7 Hoods.
Having appeared repeatedly in TV visitor spots, together with as feminist villain Nora Clavicle in Batman, Rush was solid in a serious position in long-running serial Peyton Place as rebellious teenager Carolyn Russell’s mom, whose marriage is breaking down. Thereafter Rush continued to work principally in TV, with visitor spots on reveals together with The Mod Squad, Ironside, The Streets of San Francisco, The Bionic Lady and Fantasy Island. Within the Nineties she held down a long-running position within the standard cleaning soap All My Youngsters, as vineyard proprietor Nola Orsini.
Rush was married 3 times – to Jeffrey Hunter (between 1950 and 1955), Warren Cowan (1959-1969), and Jim Gruzalski (1970-1973) – and had two kids.
