BOOK REVIEW: THERE ARE WORSE THINGS I COULD DO
Kirkus Reviews
April 1, 2006
>From Broadway to sitcoms to HBO to off-Broadway in a few short decades.
Though she’s best known as a buxom horror-film action babe and as
Maude’s daughter on the long-running Norman Lear sitcom, Barbeau
delves into far more interesting subject matter here than the usual
warmed-over showbiz anecdotes. Half French-Canadian and half Armenian,
she grew up in California during the 1950s. She started acting in high
school, then moved to New York and entered the off-Broadway/waitress
grind. Barbeau seems lackadaisical about her career; more than once,
she dryly laments opportunities missed because she just wasn’t paying
attention.
So it’s even more surprising than usual that fairly early on she landed
a lucky break — originating the role of Tevye’s second daughter Hodel
in Fiddler on the Roof. That led to originating Rizzo in Grease, after
which she decamped for Hollywood to spend six years with Bea Arthur
on Maude. Barbeau chronicles romances along the way with ’70s icon
Burt Reynolds and the surprisingly decent-sounding John Carpenter,
who directed her in Escape from New York and The Fog.
Her career was hit-and-miss for a while but has perked up in recent
years, with roles on HBO’s Carnivale and in an upcoming off-Broadway
show about Judy Garland. Barbeau’s style can be off-putting, as she
jumps around in time and leavens her narrative with scraps from the
journals she’s kept since childhood. But the refreshing directness of
her approach keeps things moving even when the subject matter is less
than enthralling. She also has a nice way of introducing characters:
“I played a whore in a bordello who’s in love with a legless man.
Alex was the legless man.”
Far from a classic, but better than the standard actor bio.
Publication Date: 5/10/2006 0:00:00 Publisher: Carroll & Graf/Avalon
Stage: Adult ISBN: 0-7867-1637-1 Price: $25 Author: Barbeau, Adrienne