Barbara Barrie Dies at 95 Using New York Aid-in-Dying Law

Barbara Barrie, the Oscar-, Emmy- and Tony-nominated actress who created the role of Sarah in Stephen Sondheim's "Company" and played the mother in "Breaking Away," died Wednesday, Oct. 28, at her home in Manhattan. She was 95.

Her agent, Gary Gersh, said in a statement that Barrie's death was "medically assisted in accordance with the New York State Medical Aid in Dying law, of which she was a proponent and advocate."

Her daughter, Jane Harnick, confirmed the death to The New York Times and said it followed a terminal cancer diagnosis.

New York's law took effect Aug. 5. It allows terminally ill adults with less than six months to live to obtain self-administered prescription medication to end their lives.

Her daughter says she talked about it for decades

Harnick said her mother had always advocated "for the right to die on your own terms," long before she was sick with anything.

"Her whole life, even before she was ill with anything, she always said, 'When the time comes, I want to just take something and go to sleep.' She used to talk about that," Harnick said in a phone interview.

The law taking effect in August was "perfect timing," Harnick said, because her mother did not want to reach the point of having her family watch her suffer. The family backed the decision "100%," she said.

"She is just a huge proponent of the law and was so grateful to be able to do it her way," Harnick said. One of the things that mattered most to her mother, she added, was that people be able to talk about medically assisted deaths "without judgment."

"She was 95. She had done everything she wanted in life. She had her family. She had her house. She lived in her favorite city, and she experienced it all to the fullest. And she was ready. She was so ready," Harnick said.

What the law actually permits

Medical aid in dying gives patients with six months or less to live the option to obtain medication they can take themselves, at a time they choose. It is not euthanasia, which is when another person administers a lethal drug.

Jessica Empeño, executive director at The CSU Shiley Haynes Institute for Palliative Care and a former national director for clinical engagement at the advocacy nonprofit Compassion & Choices, has told USA TODAY that the phrase "physician-assisted suicide" is not accurate, because the patient is the one in control. A doctor does not even have to be in the room when the patient takes the medication.

Empeño said the word "suicide" suggests a person wants to die. Patients who choose medical aid in dying do not want to die, she said, "but they are dying." Applying for and receiving the medication in the United States is a long, involved process, and only patients with a prognosis of six months or less qualify.

Legal in 13 states and Washington, DC

Medical aid in dying is legal in California, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington, plus Washington, DC, according to the national advocacy group Death With Dignity.

Most of those laws look similar on paper. Vermont and Oregon stand out because they do not have residency restrictions.

Opposition has not gone quiet. In Illinois, a handful of physicians, religious leaders and a Lutheran skilled nursing facility sued in August over the state's new policy, arguing in court records that doctors opposed to the practice would have to choose between violating their faith or abiding by their faith and violating state law. The Catholic Medical Association later joined the plaintiffs.

"We cannot agree to the State's demand that we help patients end their own lives, in direct violation of our rights of conscience," Catholic Medical Association President David Hilger said in a September press release. "We are called to accompany rather than abandon patients in their times of greatest need."

The Illinois law, known as "Deb's Law," took effect in September while the lawsuit remains pending.

The case that put the issue on the map

Brittany Maynard was 29 when she was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. She documented her final months publicly and ended her life with medical aid in dying on Nov. 1, 2014.

Her husband, Dan Diaz, told USA TODAY in June 2025: "She died in the same way that she lived her life, with grace, compassion and love."

Anita Hannig, an anthropologist and author of the book "The Day I Die: The Untold Story of Assisted Dying in America," has told USA TODAY that patients often describe wanting to spare their families. "A lot of patients really express this desire to shield family members from the agony of watching them die, and potentially having them witness a really traumatic or a really burdensome death," she said.

Bernice Rodriguez, a grandmother in California with stage 4 breast cancer that has spread to her lungs and bones, told USA TODAY in April that she might never use the medication. She said relatives of hers had recently gone through chemo, lost their hair, stayed chronically ill for about six months and died anyway. For her, she said, that was not on the table.

Five Oscar nominations for 'Breaking Away,' one of them hers

Barrie was best known as Evelyn Stohler, the mother in the 1979 coming-of-age film "Breaking Away," about an Indiana teenager obsessed with Italian bicycle racing. The movie was nominated for five Academy Awards. Barrie's was for best supporting actress.

She reprised the part for the 1980 television series and earned an Emmy nomination for it. Two more Emmy nominations came later, for "Law & Order" and "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit."

Her first major film role came in 1964 in "One Potato, Two Potato," playing divorcée Julie Cullen Richards, a white woman who falls in love with a Black man, Frank Richards, played by Bernie Hamilton. The film came out before interracial marriage was legal nationwide. Barrie won the best actress award at the Cannes Film Festival for the performance.

Other film credits included 1980's "Private Benjamin," 1997's "Hercules," in which she voiced Alcmene, and 1999's "Judy Berlin." She finished with more than 120 credits, and her last one was the 2025 queer romantic comedy "Things Like This," according to her IMDb profile.

Sixty years on Broadway, starting in 1955

Barrie made her Broadway debut in 1955 in "The Wooden Dish" and kept working on and off Broadway for more than 60 years.

She was in the original Broadway cast of "Company" in 1970 and was nominated in 1971 for a Tony for best featured actress in a musical as Sarah. Her other stage credits included "The Crucible" in 1958, "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "The Taming of the Shrew" from 1958 to 1959, "The Selling of the President," "The Prisoner of Second Avenue" in 1971 and "California Suite" in 1976.

Her final Broadway run came in 2017, originating the role of Helene Berman in Joshua Harmon's play "Significant Other."

On television she first appeared on "Kraft Television Theater" in 1955, then worked steadily through "Naked City," "The Twilight Zone," "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour," "The Nurses" and "The Defenders." Later audiences knew her from "Barney Miller" and from "Suddenly Susan," where she played Brooke Shields' on-screen grandmother. Her last television work was guest spots on "Nurse Jackie" in 2010 and "Enlightened" in 2011.

Chicago to Corpus Christi, then New York

She was born Barbara Berman on May 23, 1931, in Chicago. The family moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, where she attended Del Mar College before transferring to the University of Texas, picking up multiple drama awards and graduating in 1952 with a major in drama.

Her film debut came almost by accident. She was in Texas visiting family in 1956 when she landed an uncredited part in the Western epic "Giant."

Barrie was diagnosed with rectal cancer in 1994 and spent years afterward trying to strip the embarrassment out of the subject. She wrote two books about it: "Second Act," a 1997 memoir, and "Don't Die of Embarrassment: Life After Colostomy and Other Adventures," published in 1999.

In 2014 she announced she had idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a degenerative lung disease. "I have a very full, active life, but what lies ahead is unknown and yet known at the same time," she said in a statement that year. "I am living full steam ahead and am now trying to help other people do the same."

Barrie married actor, director and producer Jay Harnick in 1964. He died in 2007. She is survived by her daughter, Jane, her son, Aaron Harnick, and three granddaughters.