Baxley, Barbara, 1923-1990

Barbara Baxley was born on January 1, 1923 in Stockton, California. She attended the University of the Pacific, where she acted in plays, and graduated with honors. She moved to New York, where she trained with Sanford Meisner and Martha Graham at the Neighborhood Playhouse, and with Elia Kazan at the Actors Studio.

Baxley made her Broadway debut as Sybil in the Tallulah Bankhead Private Lives (1948), and followed that with Peter Pan (1950), in which she understudied Jean Arthur in the title role. In 1951, she starred in a short-lived comedy, Out West of Eight, and in 1952, she replaced Julie Harris as Sally Bowles in I Am a Camera. Other Broadway appearances during the 1950s include Tennessee Williams' Camino Real (1953), the sex comedy Oh Men! Oh Women! (1953), Baxley's personal favorite: Clifford Odets' The Flowering Peach (1954), and William Inge's Bus Stop (1955), in which she replaced Kim Stanley as Cherie. Baxley also appeared in regional productions of Much Ado About Nothing (1955) in Chicago, and A Palm Tree in a Rose Garden (1957) in Cricket, New York. She starred in the National Tour of Inge's The Dark at the Top of the Stairs in 1959.

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