Actor who starred with Sinatra, Newman, on TV
9/21/1926 - 3/29/2024 1942 - 2024 Nov 4, 1936 Mar 31, 2024 1/31/1939 3/20/2024
Barbara Rush, a popular leading actor in the 1950 and 1960s who starred with Frank Sinatra, Paul Newman and other top film performers and later had a thriving TV career, has died. She was 97.
Rush’s death was announced by her daughter, Fox News reporter Claudia Cowan, who posted on Instagram that her mother died on Easter. Additional details were not immediately available.
Cowan praised her mother as “among the last of “Old Hollywood Royalty” and called herself her mother’s “biggest fan.”
Spotted in a play at the Pasadena Playhouse, Rush was given a contract at Paramount Studios in 1950 and made her film debut that same year with a small role in “The Goldbergs,” based on the radio and TV series of the same name.
She would leave Paramount soon after, however, going to work for Universal International and later 20th Century Fox.
“Paramount wasn’t geared for developing new talent,” she recalled in 1954. “Every time a good role came along, they tried to borrow Elizabeth Taylor.”
Rush went on to appear in a wide range of films. She starred opposite Rock Hudson in “Captain Lightfoot” and in Douglas Sirk’s acclaimed remake of “Magnificent Obsession,” with Audie Murphy in “World in My Corner” and with Richard Carlson in the 3-D science-fiction classic “It Came From Outer Space,” for which she received a Golden Globe for most promising newcomer.
Other film credits included the Nicholas Ray classic “Bigger Than Life”;
“The Young Lions,” with Marlon Brando, Dean Martin and Montgomery Clift; and “The Young Philadelphians” with Newman. She made two films with Sinatra, “Come Blow Your Horn” and the Rat Pack spoof “Robin and the Seven Hoods,” which also featured Martin and Sammy Davis Jr.
Rush, who had made TV guest appearances for years, recalled fully making the transition as she approached middle age.
“There used to be this terrible Sahara Desert between 40 and 60 when you went from ingenue to old lady,” she remarked in 1962. “You either didn’t work or you pretended you were 20.”
Instead, Rush took on roles in such series as “Peyton Place,” “All My Children,” “The New Dick Van Dyke Show” and “7th Heaven.”
“I’m one of those kinds of people who will perform the minute you open the refrigerator door and the light goes on,” she cracked in a 1997 interview.
Her first play was the road company version of “Forty Carats,” a comedy that had been a hit in New York. The director, Abe
Burrows, helped her with comedic acting.
“It was very, very difficult for me to learn timing at first, especially the business of waiting for a laugh,” she remarked in 1970. But she learned, and the show lasted a year in Chicago and months more on the road.
She went on to appear in such tours as “Same Time, Next Year,” “Father’s Day,” “Steel Magnolias” and her solo show, “A Woman of Independent Means.”
Born in Denver, Rush spent her first 10 years on the move while her father, a mining company lawyer, was assigned from town to town. The family finally settled in Santa Barbara, Calif., where young Barbara played a mythical dryad in a school play and fell in love with acting.
Rush was married and divorced three times — to screen star Jeffrey Hunter, Hollywood publicity executive Warren Cowan and sculptor James Gruzalski.
Bob Thomas, a longtime Associated Press journalist who died in 2014, was the principal writer of this obituary. AP National Writer Hillel Italie contributed to this report from New York.
Ivy passed away peacefully at her home in Littleton, CO. Services 4/9/24 starting at 1 PM. For full obituary & service dates and times please go to www.crownhillfuneral.com
Beloved wife, mother, grandmother, and greatgrandmother. Rosary, Thurs 4/11, 7pm, Notre Dame, 2190 S Sheridan. Mass, Fri 4/12, 10am, Notre Dame. Interment at Mount Olivet immediately following. For obituary and service details, see: https://obits. cfcscolorado.org/obituary/viola-rodriguez.
Gerry Rutherford, age 81, passed away peacefully March 26, 2024 in Lakewood. She is survived by her husband, John Rutherford, 3 children, and 5 grandchildren.
Dr. Karl Van Etten died at Longmont United Hospital hospice March 20, 2024 of congestive heart failure and complications from Parkinson’s. Karl was born in Honolulu January 31, 1939, and spent much of his childhood years in idyllic Lanikai. After graduation from Roosevelt High School in Honolulu, Karl attended Stanford University. He was not happy at Stanford and abruptly joined the Marines after his sophomore year. Honorably discharged after three years of service, he attended the University of Hawaii at Manoa where he completed his undergraduate degree with a psychology major. At UH, Karl was a competitive runner setting records in hurdling, and also appeared in theatre productions. Prior to graduate school he wanted to explore Scandinavia and spent some time in Copenhagen and in Oslo, where he found the courage to audition for a theatre production at Oslo University, and met his future wife Anne. He is likely the only man born in Hawaii who has performed on the stage of “Det Norske Teater!” Karl went on to earn a Teaching Certificate at the University of Minnesota and married Anne in Minneapolis in 1967. Returned to Hawaii, he taught social studies and served as Athletic Director and assistant Head Master at Mid Pacific Institute in Honolulu from 1967 to 1973. Karl and Anne with their toddler son Lars left Hawaii for two challenging years of graduate school in Boston, where Karl earned an MBA at Northeastern University, and Anne an MM at New England Conservatory. Karl was hired by the Colorado based company I.H.S. and, based in Frankfurt, Germany, worked as an international marketing manager until he was called back to Colorado.
Karl was a born teacher at heart and returned to teaching in 1986 at the Community College of Aurora, where he chaired and taught business courses and served as Dean of Instruction. During his CCA years he earned a Doctor of Education degree from the University of Northern Colorado. Karl cared deeply about his Aurora community and participated for many years in the Citizens’ Advisory Budget Committee of the City of Aurora, that earned him an “Amazing Auroran” honor. In 2000 Aurora Mayor Paul Tauer appointed Karl to serve on the Lowry Economic Redevelopment Board of Directors, where he remained until his retirement from CCA in 2006. Karl was a dedicated member of Rotary and a Paul Harris Fellow of Rotary International. He coached young soccer players, and enjoyed volunteer teaching reading and math to fourth graders at Montview Elementary school. Karl had many diverse interests and enjoyed classical music, opera and theatre, sports, history and politics. He and Anne were avid mountain hikers and together they conquered several Colorado fourteeners. Late in life Karl took up running again and ran in three “Bolder Boulder” races as well as in many charity races for “Hope House” and “Jodi’s Race”, where he placed third in the 70+ age group at age 77. Throughout his life Karl lived by his island cultural heritage of modesty, kindness and tolerance. He loved his family and began but never completed writing a family history.
Karl is survived by his wife Anne, son Dr. Lars Van Etten, grandsons Keldan and Sandis, great granddaughter Elana, brothers Alan and Peter Van Etten and sister Jean Speidel, and many nieces, nephews and cousins. Friends are invited to attend a “Celebration of Life” reception Sunday, April 28, 2:00pm at Horan & Mcconaty Mortuary, 11150 E. Dartmouth Avenue, Aurora.