Barbara Parkins is a retired Canadian actress best remembered for her work in The '60s.
Born in Vancouver, she and her mother moved to Los Angeles when she was sixteen, and she worked as a cinema usher to pay for her drama training. She made her film debut in 1961's 20,000 Eyes and could be seen in guest roles in shows such as Leave It to Beaver, The Untouchables and Perry Mason. One of the roles for which she is best known soon followed - that of bad girl Betty Anderson in the television adaptation of Peyton Place.
Initially supposed to be a small role that would be killed off after only six weeks, audiences loved Betty, and she was kept around as a series regular; staying with the series for its entire run until 1969, at one point even being in talks to headline a spin-off titled 'The Girl From Peyton Place'. She was also the only female cast member nominated for an Emmy during its run, though she lost it to Barbara Stanwyck for The Big Valley, and infamously said she was happy to lose it to her rather than Anne Francis who she felt was "unfeminine". Despite the success the series brought her, she wanted to move onto bigger and better things, and that began with a shoot for Playboy because, having done "40,000 closeups" on Peyton Place, "I wanted to make people aware that I had a body".
An attempt at transitioning into films came in 1967 when Jacqueline Susann's bestselling novel Valley of the Dolls was up for adaptation, and Barbara was cast in the lead role of Anne Wells. Although financially successful, the film was infamously torn apart by critics for its unintentional hilarity, and has since gone down in history as a Camp classic. Barbara herself learned to embrace the cult fandom surrounding it and made appearances at several screenings, as well as gave her approval to various parodies.
Although not the breakout role she'd hoped for, she was still offered a few potential career changing roles and infamously turned them down, such as Love Story and instead chose to move to London in search of a more peaceful existence, living off the financial security afforded to her by Peyton Place, as well as being unnerved by the murder of her Valley of the Dolls co-star and friend Sharon Tate and wanting to retreat from the public eye. She continued acting well into The '90s but quietly retired in favour of focusing on her photography. Her final performance to date is voicing Mother Box in an episode of Superman: The Animated Series.
Tropes associated with her work:
- Breakout Character: Although Mia Farrow's Allison was expected to become this on Peyton Place, it was actually Betty who did so, as the former only became a star after Rosemary's Baby. In fact, the only reason the planned spin-off didn't go ahead was because the network worried that losing Betty would cause ratings of the parent series to suffer.
- Cast the Runner-Up: In Valley of the Dolls, she auditioned for Neely first, considering that the meatiest role, and Jennifer was her second choice. A screen test exists
for her as Neely, but she was deemed a better fit for Anne. - The Cast Show Off: She was actually a trained singer and dancer as well, and jumped at the chance to demonstrate it in the TV movie Ziegfield: The Man and His Women.
- Casting Gag: She appeared in a biopic about Jacqueline Susann, who of course had written Valley of the Dolls.
- Creator Backlash:
- She has happily called Valley of the Dolls a terrible film, but embraced the so bad it's good nature of it.
- She regretted doing a nude scene for Captains and the Kings, feeling it was gratuitous and didn't serve the story.
- Fake American: Most of her roles, though she had been living in America since the age of sixteen.
- Fake Nationality: She played Polish-French performer Anna Held in Ziegfield: The Man and His Women.
- Friendship on the Set: She and Patty Duke became close friends with Sharon Tate on Valley of the Dolls and were even bridesmaids to her. She also loved Judy Garland and, even if she was fired after only ten days, still called her one of her favourite people she'd worked with.
- Hollywood Hype Machine: Thanks to her role on Peyton Place, she received a lot of hype and expressed a desire to branch out into films. Despite Valley of the Dolls being trashed by critics, she still got several offers that she turned down and regretted, such as Love Story, They Shoot Horses Don't They? and Goodbye Columbus. She was sent back to television and ended up leaving Hollywood altogether in favour of a quieter life.
- Hostility on the Set: Like most of the actresses in Valley of the Dolls, she clashed with Mark Robson, and recalls him being very unreceptive to ideas and caring more about shots and camera angles rather than the performances.
- I Am Not Spock: At the height of Peyton Place's popularity, she was often addressed by people in the street as Betty. Valley of the Dolls was an attempt to avoid this, and in that she succeeded.
- Ms. Fanservice: Besides her Playboy shoot in 1967, she appeared nude in the miniseries Testimony of Two Men and Captains and the Kings. In Ziegfield: The Man and His Women, she has a lengthy sequence where she performs in a sexy black corset. In Valley of the Dolls, there's a montage of her as a glamour model, and was named one of the sexiest stars in film history by Empire in 1995.
- Remake Cameo: She reprised her role as Betty thirty years later for Peyton Place: The Next Generation.
