The female lead of the 1950s science fiction horror film It Came from Outer Space, Barbara Rush, passed away at the age of 97. According to Fox News Digital, Claudia Cowan, her daughter, and a reporter, “passed away peacefully at 5:28 on March 31st, 2024.” I know she was waiting for me to safely get home so we could transition since I spent this morning with her.
Barbara Rush: Early Life And Oscars
Rush was signed to Paramount Pictures after studying theater at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He was born in Denver in 1927, raised in Los Angeles, and then moved back to Los Angeles. Rush’s breakthrough performance came in 1951 in the Oscar-winning science fiction film When Worlds Collide, where she played the daughter of an astronomer trying to warn humanity that they are doomed by a rogue star that is headed straight for Earth. Rush had previously made her screen acting debut in The Goldbergs, a big-screen spinoff of the popular radio and TV series.
She made her screen debut in It Came from Outer Space two years later, another now-cult film from the 1950s sci-fi cycle sparked by worries of a communist invasion and nuclear apocalypse. Here, Rush plays a schoolteacher who discovers a falling meteor that turns out to be an alien spaceship with her lover, Richard Carlson. Unlike previous “red scare” movies of the era, the aliens prove to be essentially harmless, even though they replicate the bodies of the local townspeople. For her performance in the movie, Rush was awarded a Golden Globe for the Most Promising Female Newcomer.
Barbara Rush: Professional Career
Rush went on to appear in a number of important productions as a supporting actor. She played the sister of Tony Curtis in the medieval drama The Black Shield of Falworth, Jane Wyman’s stepdaughter in the Douglas Sirk melodrama Magnificent Obsession, and James Mason’s spouse in the Nicholas Ray-directed film Bigger Than Life, which explored the adverse effects of cortisone medication. She also played Dean Martin’s love interest in the Marlon Brando war film The Young Lions, Paul Newman’s disillusioned lover in the legal drama The Young Philadelphians, Frank Sinatra’s girlfriend in the swinging bachelor comedy Come Blow Your Horn, and Sinatra’s role as Marian in the Rat Pack comedy Robin and the Seven Hoods.
Following a string of guest appearances on television, such as her portrayal of feminist villain Nora Clavicle in Batman, Rush landed a prominent role in the long-running serial Peyton Place, playing the mother of rebellious teenager Carolyn Russell, whose marriage is collapsing. Following that, Rush kept up his career in television, working largely as a guest on episodes including Fantasy Island, Ironside, The Streets of San Francisco, The Mod Squad, and The Bionic Woman. She played winery owner Nola Orsini in the popular soap opera All My Children for a considerable amount of time in the 1990s.
Family Background
Rush had two children from her three marriages, which included marriages to Jeffrey Hunter (1950–1955), Warren Cowan (1959–1969), and Jim Gruzalski (1970–1973).
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