Barbara Angie Rose Baxley was born on New Year's Day 1923 to Emma A. Tyler &
C. Bert Baxley in Porterville, California. She was the younger of their two
daughters and was named after her grandmothers; Angie Sibley-Tyler and
Iva Matilda Rose-Baxley. Barbara attended and graduated with honors
from the University of the Pacific in Stockton where she was raised,
and won a scholarship to the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York where
she studied with Sanford Meisner.
She made her 1948 Broadway debut in
Noël Coward's Private Lives, starring
Tallulah Bankhead, and Donald Cook. In 1960, she received a
Tony nomination for her role in the
Tennessee Williams play Period of
Adjustment. She was a charter member of the Actors Studio where she
studied with Elia Kazan. She was good friends
with and shared an apartment with
Tallulah Bankhead for many years. She
had many television & film roles, and won critical praise for her role
as Sally Field 's mother in
Norma Rae - Eine Frau steht ihren Mann (1979), but her love was
Broadway. Barbara loved cats and had one named Tulah.
