Barbara Hershey/Seagull/Herzstein

She was big for a year or two.

Who knows?

I guess you are unaware of her Carradine years.

I was looking at her photos when she was young, thinking: she must have some Irish in her, then I went to Wiki:

Her father's parents were Jews who had emigrated from Hungary and Russia respectively, while her mother, a native of Arkansas, was a Presbyterian of Irish descent.

Those Lips!

Or perhaps, I should say, non-lips.

She and the ghastly Kenneth Brannagh should do a movie together.

She gave my favorite performance in 'Hannah and Her Sisters.' Not sure why Dianne Wiest got all the attention for that film.

She was the only good thing about Black Swan. And she really was great in A World Apart. Didn't she win some huge award for it? The scariest thing about that film is that apartheid was still in full swing when it was made (that was a couple of years before Mandela was released from prison).

Didn't she take a lot of LSD at one point?

Yeah, she and Carradine got heavy into it around the time she made a movie called "Last Summer" in 1969 where she played the cool girl who helps her boyfriend rape the dorky girl on Fire Island one summer. During the filming of that movie, a stunt seagull died and Hershey said (probably high as a kite) that she felt the gull's spirit enter her body, hence the name change to "Seagull," and watched her career going dead in the water.

Maybe she didn't become a big star because she was so weird. Changing her name to Barbara Seagull, supposedly because she killed a seagull by accident and felt guilty about it, or felt its spirit enter her, or some crazy thing like that. And didn't she pull out her breast and start breast feeding her baby on the Dick Cavett show? I seem to remember Cavett talking about that on some talk show.

She was in an early Martin Scorcese movie, "Boxcar Bertha." David Carradine was a co-star and they had an affair. There was a pictorial of their sex scene in "Playboy." She said of their scenes "we sure didn't have to fake anything." I guess not.

[quote] Didn't she win some huge award for it?

Best Actress Award in Cannes. She won the same award a year earlier for 'Shy People'. I don't think any other actress ever managed to get that award two years in a row.

Because she's not that good. Everything she does seems overwrought.

But she fucked her own career up with her lips.

The guys in the pic with her above are, believe it or not, Richard Thomas and Bruce Davison.

Talentless lunatic. One of the first actresses to destroy her face with plumping and surgery. Whore.

The seagull.

Last Summer is a good movie and was quite controversial in 1969. I had a crush on Bruce Davison.

She reemerged as Hershey in The Stuntman, I think. Great movie!

Catherine Burns was excellent in Last Summer. That was kind of a hauntingly touching character.

R11 & R13 You've obviously never seen A World Apart, you seething cunts!

Got some good notices as Mme. Merle in "Portrait of A Lady" with that slithering sex on a stick, malkovich

She plumped up her lips to look younger for her role in "Beaches." It was a mistake, but I don't think she did it out of vanity. I think she just wanted to look the part. For "The Deer Hunter" Robert De Niro had his teeth made larger and brighter to look younger.

Carradine and Hershey. He was one of the first ones to die of AEA. Read a bio on him. Really strange, debauched character. Into anything and everything.

I think she's had a good career. The Stuntman, The Entity, The Right Stuff, The Natural, Hannah and Her Sisters, Hoosiers, A World Apart, The Last Temptation of Christ and of course, Beaches, make up her '80s resume of films, and she's excellent in all of them. She has also done excellent television work in A Killing in a Small Town (Emmy Award) and Paris Trout. She has an Oscar nomination, although she should have been nominated for A World Apart and Black Swan (how she was not nominated for this is beyond me).

Thanks for proving us right, R18.

She worked constantly in small movies and on TV. She is known to be a great actors.

Really? How many?

She was adorably cute in Tune In Tomorrow. She was always a great actor and did not ruin her face.

r26 I love Tune in Tomorrow! Very underrated.

She had a long relationship with Naveen Andrews.

She shared the Cann award with 2 other costars of that movie.

She is the one who gave Marty S the idea to do that Jesus movie.

Hershey's comeback, ironically, was in the horror film "The Entity" where she was remarkably touching and believable.

I liked David Carradine. Sure, he was a right mess, but he was an interesting actor. Sometimes he turned out to be the best thing in a movie ("The Long Riders") or a tv production ("North and South").

Her very first movie was with Doris Day. "With Six You Get Eggroll" from 1968.

BDF Keith was the hot Carradine.

There are gross pics of Carradine's body taken during the autopsy on the internet.

If Ali MacGraw could act she would be Barbara Hershey.

R31 George Carlin was also in the movie.

Fascinating. I knew none of this about her, had no idea she was so tripped out. Was Carradine bi?

[quote] Was Carradine bi?

He died in a closet.

Barbara Hershey turned down the lead role of Alex in Fatal Attraction.

Hershey gave birth out of wedlock to a son she named Free, bringing him into the world at home in Laurel Canyon (with David playing piano and guitar to ease her 20-hour labor).

Barbara and Free and their hound dog, Bird, now live in comparative conventionality in a two-bedroom aerie in the Santa Monica Mountains.

. “Free is his name, and the beauty of it is that he is free to change it if he wants,” Barbara notes. “So far he likes it.”

Free changed his name to Tom.

I love her. She has done some great roles and will do more.

The Monroes. Kept tripping on her long skirts so it was called "pulling a Hersey" or something like that.

^ Hershey

She was also in a couple early Gidget episodes with Sally Field, and I think she was Chip's girlfriend in an episode of My Three Sons. Search YouTube.

Wow, someone who remembers "The Monroes". I'm impressed!

She was flakier than a French croissant.

Hershey would have been a terrific Alex Forrest r38

The Stunt Man was a great film and she did a good job in it. O'Toole was magnificent but Steve Railsback was totally miscast.

She got raped by a ghost

Carradine liked to be slapped around by trans hookers. He was heavily into S&M. Like the CBS executive he was found in a closet dressed in lingerie, except for the fact Carradine died.

I read that when she made Hoosiers she sided with Gene Hackman when he was being an a-hole with the director David Anspaugh. Not a surprise I guess because she didn't want to cross Hackman. Things apparently lightened up when Dennis Hopper arrived for his part.

The Stuntman is one of my favorite films. She and O'Toole are wonderful and it has a great score. Plus, the Hotel Coronado has never looked better.

"Carradine ... was one of the first ones to die of AEA."

Really? One of the first people ever? Or first actor ever? Or first of Hershey's lover ever?

I'm confused.

Evidence of Love.

Superb performances in "The Stunt Man," "A World Apart," "Portrait of a Lady," and "The Black Swan." She should have won the Best Supporting Actress for one of those.

She was cute and had regular white person lips. Kenneth Branagh's lipless.

R56 lots of white people have naturally full lips. Her lip injections didn't mess up her face. Her lips aren't overly large or misshapen. Thin lips can get that prune quality pretty early. The injections extended her career. She wouldn't have gotten the sexy middle aged parts without it.

^Really?

[quote]In the movie, Beaches Barbara’s cosmetically augmented, lush, and full lips stole the show. Comedian Steve Harvey referred to her as “that little big lipped girl”.

[quote]Erma Brombeck stated in an article: “I have no idea what ‘Beaches‘ was all about. All I could focus on was Barbara Hershey’s lips. She looked like she stopped off at a gas station and someone said, ‘your lips are down 30 pounds. Better let me hit ’em with some air.’”

Yes, her collagen lips were a big shock back then. Now it is "normal."

Lantana. 2001. Great movie. Noir.

I missed that one, R60. I will have to look for it.

in which anthony lapaglia was also good

Loved her in SHY PEOPLE. Very underrated film. Watched it again the other day. She should have been nominated for an Oscar for it.

I remember being so repulsed by her character in Killing in a Small Town. So brilliantly evil coupled with that horrible perm.

Terrific actress. She went through her crazy Seagull phase but is a survivor. Not a movie I dislike with her in it. She may not have had a HUGE career but, judging from her longevity in her chosen field, she's been successful over the years at what she does.

What the fuck was she doing with that creep Carradine anyway?! I'm sure he made her ride the Hershey highway every night.

Loved The Monroes when I was a kid! - but remember being confused years later when she changed her name to seagull and my young self couldn’t work out what was going on. Was it the same actress? Why the odd moniker now? Had I imagined she was called hershey years before? I was sure she had been!

I hadn”t heard he dead seagull sprit transference story at that stage....

Gotta say - love to hear what she’d have to say about harassment on Hollywood and what it meant for a career. She’s been in the biz for so long - she must have heard and/or seen everything!

OOOh, “Lantana”! Forgot that one. Very good.

She’s a terrific actress but a kook. That’s okay. I like her.

lots of bad work, unfortunately. She also had a tiff with Bette on Beaches because for one of the scenes at the beach, apparently her feet looked atrocious, and Bette made her get a pedicure. "Barbara, I don't care if you garden barefoot, but please do something about those hooves!"

I don't know if that's true or not, r69, but I'd love to hear more behind the scenes gossip about Beaches. The two of them together must have been a lot to take!

[quote]and Black Swan (how she was not nominated for this is beyond me).

It was actually Mila Kunis who was getting the Oscar supporting actress buzz for that film.

All this talk about plumped up lips reminds of the ballerina Gelsey Kirkland. A neurotic mess, she wanted to be the perfect ballerina, so she set about making herself one.She had her lips puffed up with silicone for some reason; to look sexier, perhaps? Nobody who came to see her dance would be looking at her lips. She also had her earlobes trimmed (why in hell did she do THAT?) and got breast implants. Anyway, the plumped up silicone lips looked awful; she looked like she'd been punched in the mouth and had swollen lips due to an injury.

[quote]"Carradine ... was one of the first ones to die of AEA." Really? One of the first people ever? Or first actor ever? Or first of Hershey's lover ever?

I should have stuck "that I've heard of" in there.

She is our neighbor in Hawaii,, she is "difficult"

[quote]R20 She plumped up her lips to look younger for her role in "Beaches."

IIRC, it was for playing Mary Magdalene in Martin Scorsese's THE LAST TEMPTATION ON CHRIST (1988). Having collogen put in her lips was a specific acting choice...she wanted to appear like a sensual prostitute (ie, her role). I guess she liked the look and stuck with it.

But it's interesting that one poster here makes fun of her naturally thin lips in an early pic (R4) and then others criticize her fuller lips, later. You just can't win : (

[quote]R72 All this talk about plumped up lips reminds of the ballerina Gelsey Kirkland. A neurotic mess, she wanted to be the perfect ballerina, so she set about making herself one.She had her lips puffed up with silicone for some reason; to look sexier, perhaps? Nobody who came to see her dance would be looking at her lips. She also had her earlobes trimmed (why in hell did she do THAT?) and got breast implants.

I believe it was a spiral into anorexia, and the perfectionistic demands of her industry, that made her obsess about her physical appearance. She was also in a very long relationship with Michael Baryshnikov, who she (wrongly) felt very inferior to in every way...which also made her desperatly keep hacking away at her appearance.

As you know, she finally turned to heroin.

On wiki it says she has homes in LA, Hawaii, CT and New York. She can't be doing poorly financially.

[quote]As you know, she finally turned to heroin.

I thought coke was her drug of choice.

Is that Gesley Kirkland book good?

R78 Quite sure she progressed to horse, Patrick.

[quote]R79 Is that Gesley Kirkland book good?

What I found fascinating (as someone who cannot dance) is her descriptions of her evolving technique and her approach to ballet. For instance, as far as "remembering" the steps, she sees the movements for a specific ballet as sort of an overhead-viewed template, all connected by lines, and she then dances her way from Point A to Point B etc etc. all the way through to the end.

She is very devoted to finding her interpretations for roles, researching how other dancers approached the classics, etc. I thought all of that was very interesting...and admirable.

She was always getting outside coaching to come up with this stuff, getting her own costumes made that supported the characterization, etc. Once she saw a dancer in a floating sort of tulle skirt she had never seen before, that has wonderful movement. The dancer wouldn't tell her what the fiber was, so Kirkland snuck into her dressing room, ripped a sample from the seams, and sent it off to be scientifically analyzed so she could recreate it (!!) She was like the Mata Hari of ballerinas : )

R81 doesn't mention any of the juicy stuff, like Kirkland's cocaine addiction or anorexia or her doomed affair with Mikhail Baryshnikov (she makes fun of his accent and speech patterns mercilessly) or her constant bitching and moaning about everything. Kirkland is quite a snob when it comes to dance; ballet is an exquisite ART FORM and dancers like Fred Astaire are nothing more than trifling entertainers who provide shallow amusement for artistically bankrupt audiences. Her book is sort of interesting but her whining gets tiresome fast.

R72, lots of fun about Gelsey. Her dad wrote "Tobacco Road" and her sister Johnna was also a Balanchine Dancer who later danced for the LA Ballet. Gelsey got silicone injections in her lips, ankles and breasts. Lucky for her the silicone didn't spread to her organs. She got the lips injection when she was a Balanchine dancer because she felt Mr. B had a complete obsession with Suzanne Farrell and she had an overbite. She went to a dentists and asked him to give her buck teeth. When he refused, she got the injection.

Jackie O was the editor of the book. Did you know Gelsey like getting coke up her ass? Patrick Bissell introduced her to it and a stock broker gave it to her Stevie Nicks style.

And yes, she sounded like a real pill. She clearly thought she was above being in "The Turning Point", which might be true, but she was so high minded about everything that she becomes totally insufferable.

Let us give great thanks. Give thanks for a completely Ruskie Troll-free thread. DL still has a heartbeat, DL is not yet dead! I've missed you all here with art the noise from those trolls. This thread is how it was before Trump. So it took a year to have a single "normal" thread again.

If anyone is unfamiliar with Gelsey Kirkland, attached is a "60 Minutes" segment done after the release of her autobiography.

I don'r remember the book as being whiney or overly blaming others...a lot of her story is about insecurity and self-loathing.

As I recall, her problem with the ballet world she experienced was Balenchine's New York City Ballet sacrificing the health of the dancers' bodies (stressing speed over long term safety), and then the American Ballet Theatre having no support system in place for employees who need to recover addictions. (I'm sure it is different today...she was addressing her own story from the 1970s and 80s.)

As far as taking responsibility for her own problems, what makes it somewhat skewed is, you can't take children and teens and immerse them in a certain world like ballet (which is run basically like a dictatorship) and then expect them to advocate well for their own wellbeing. How are they possibly equipped for that?

What complicated Kirkland's story is she became a huge star within the world of ballet, and her partnering with Mikhail Baryshnikov drew huge crowds. So it wasn't really in her employers' financial interest to say, "Hey, we're sending you off to rehab and you come dance again when you're healthy and have this all sorted out." The plan instead became how to keep her onstage.

She definitely became fucked up through her own choices...but you could also say her employers were complicit.

As a non professional, what stands out to me watching the clips of Gelsey Kirkland is a kind of "through line" that runs through her body and movements. Everything is connected in this very graceful, expressive line. This is a cliche, but I would almost describe it as if she were dancing with her heart, and her limbs, neck, head etc. are extensions of it. There is a supreme delicacy along with a liquid quality to her work. You also really see this in the ROMEO AND JULIET footage that's on Youtube...though the extent of her anorexia there has become so evident that it is DISTURBING to watch.

People we are talking about Hershey here, not some Russian ballerina.

YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE HERSHEY!

Okay, well, Barbara Hershey is a proficient actress who has never been out of work, yet lacks the warmth or special magnetism that would have made her a star. She's fine, she's good...but it takes more than that.

THE END

Well...

Gelsey Kirkland was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and has lived almost her entire life in the US.

This is interesting

Is that the book called Dancing on my grave? I remember my mom reading that when I was , like, 10. And at night at dinner she would just go on and on about it - every. Fucking. Night.

Why was ballet so pop-culture popular in the 70s?

[quote]Why was ballet so pop-culture popular in the 70s?

Mikhail Baryshnikov had a very dramatic story (he defected to the U.S. from Russia while on tour here.) He became a media star and was also a superb, charismatic, handsome STRAIGHT dancer...and Gelsey Kirkland was his chosen dance partner.

Then he was cast in THE TURNING POINT, a film that got a lot of Academy Award nominations. The fact that ballet doesn't usually draw a mainstream crowd was changed by people who didn't usually go to ballet buying lots of tickets to see Baryshnikov and Kirkland perform onstage.

Kirkland was supposed to costar in THE TURNING POINT, too, but was terrified. She starved herself down to 80 lbs. and was deemed too sick to do the film. Another dancer named Leslie Browne filled in, and was nominated for an Academy Award.

She won an Emmy for A Killing in a Small Town, another case of a beautiful actress looking ugly for dramatic effect.

More useless Hershey info (yes, I’m old): while pregnant by Carradine, she announced their plans to eat the placenta, though she later said they ended up burying it under a tree.

A fine actress, many excellent performances, but definitely had a flaky reputation to live down!

I love Lantana too. What a great underrated film.

Always thought it was impressive that Hershey worked with the legendary William Wyler in his last film, “The Liberation of L.B. Jones”. True, her bland supporting role didn’t give her much to do (especially after her strong leads in “Last Summer” and “The Baby Maker”) and the film itself was definitely nothing to write home about, but it was William Wyler!

R91, thank you for posting.

I really liked her in the one-season TV series "Damien," based on the Omen movies, where she played kind of a Lee Grant / Whore of Babylon type, guiding the little devil along.

"I don'r remember the book as being whiney or overly blaming others."

Oh, come on. Kirkland complained about everybody and everything. You just wanted to tell her to shut up already and that if ballet was such a hell then why did she make a career out it?

Yes, R91, thanks for sharing that interesting interview. She was excellent in “Portrait of a Lady”.

[quote]R100 Oh, come on. Kirkland complained about everybody and everything. You just wanted to tell her to shut up already and that if ballet was such a hell then why did she make a career out it?

I remember her being frustrated that the company basically just wanted her to "go out there and do it," which is not an artistic collaboration. She was not a workhorse to be shoved onstage. As an artist, she wanted a certain support behind the roles chosen for her, how the interpretations were approached, etc. She was a huge draw and it's amazing they didn't take more care with her.

I get the feeling there was also some sexism going on; the male executives were rolling out the red carpet for Baryshnikov and catering to his every artistic whim, yet let a mere ballerina want artistic consideration, and they're like, "What the f#ck are you talking about, you stupid little girl? Just go dance, and make it pretty!!"

[quote]R100 You just wanted to tell her to shut up already and that if ballet was such a hell then why did she make a career out it?

She loved BALLET, she did not like the personal experiences she had with HOW THE BUSINESS WAS USUALLY RUN. According to all critics, she was a once-in-a-lifetime talent. She was devoted to her craft, to the art of dance. The fact that she found management to be a pain yet kept with the art anyway is a measure of her devotion to dance itself.

I don't even remember any outrageous demands she made of her employers, in the book. I read it over 10 years ago, though. It's possible I don't remember some of the specifics.

I remember her being very embarrased by some of the later performances she gave while high. She was amazed those got rave reviews, as well, when she knew them to be unacceptable.

R103 et al I watched that interview. She sounds like Goop. But in the Merv show her voice is a bit different .

R104 I believe the interviews are years apart, and in one she's blitzed out of her mind on coke and/or heroin. So those just might effect the timbre of one's voice.

Gelsey Kirkland fanatics — start your own thread!

R5 because Dianne Wiest is fantastic in everything?

[quote] Why didn't she have a bigger career

She was crazy and strung out

R103, the outrageous demands were for her to show up. She cancelled so many performances that people were scared to buy tickets for fear she'd be out.

She is simply an artistic snob with no professional discipline. She applies that standard wantonly. One of her partners said that she overthinks and over-rehearses each movement, no matter how minute, to such a degree that it became impossible for the company to move forward. He admitted that it never showed onstage but it would have to be the ultimate "tick, tick, tick". But when it came to being ontime for rehearsal or doing a performance, she was at best, erratic.

I loved watching her but like many great artists, I'm glad I never had to meet or work with her. The only public video of her doing Giselle. What can I say? Magic.

BTW, did you know John Epperson, aka Lypsinka was so inspired by her that he became the ABT pianist because he wanted to work with her. According to Epperson, she was great and then the drugs started. He said it was very, very difficult to work with her but she taught him almost everything he knows about performance. She's also been very supportive about Lypsinka.

Dancing was huge in the 70s because there were magnificent stars who excited and drew audiences as a whole much like with opera and overall the companies were excellent.

You'd go to a performance and felt you had to buckle yourself into your seat before it began.

[quote] Dianne Wiest is fantastic in everything?

She's certainly not fantastic in managing her finances, unlike Miss Seagull who owns houses all across America.

She is killing me in Beaches right now on POP.

Who can forget Barbara Hershey (along with fellow future renowned thespian Bonnie Franklin) out-acting future Oscar winner Sally Field in Gidget?

[quote] She was a far better actress than Streep and more beautiful than Jessica Lange.

Please.

To smoke is no joke.

Smoking is a very bad habit.

I had never heard of Gelsey before. What a fascinating story. I started a thread of her own.

[quote]She was born (and is still legally) Barbara Herzstein, the third child of a Daily Racing Form statistician.

Her dad had my dream job.

She stunk on ice in BEACHES. Laughable scenes.

I told this on a different thread...I met her last year. She looked great, she didn't ruin her face. She's 70 and isn't all pulled an tucked. I told her I've been a fan since "With Six You Get Eggroll". She literally rolled her eyes and then laughed. I was like "What"? because I couldn't read if she was embarrassed about the movie to which I reminded her she got to work with Doris Day, Keith, Carlin, or if it was just so long ago. We talked about it and how it's a silly fun family film and is on regular rotation on TMC. We talked about "Last Summer" which she filmed on Long Island and close to my neighborhood. She was sweet, glad I met her.

Back in the 70s she was thought to be crazy. Posing with Carradine for a bunch of nude photos in Playboy was not something a "serious" actress did. Then the seagull incident.

She wasn't though of as sane until she was well into her 40s.

I don't know that she's ever given a truly fantastic performance. Ironically, her strongest work was in a sleazy exploitation film (THE ENTITY)

She's serviceable. I guess a bit more than that.

I thought she gave a strong performance in Hannah and Her Sisters.

Eh.....Lee's not a really demanding role. Anyone appearing stressed out and "sensitive" could play it.

she lost a lot of credibility when she had so much plastic surgery.....

she was alwys known to be a bit....off

Doesn't Herzstein mean "a heart of stone" in German?

[quote]I don't know that she's ever given a truly fantastic performance. Ironically, her strongest work was in a sleazy exploitation film (THE ENTITY)

"The Entity" wasn't a sleazy exploitation film. It was a big budget Hollywood studio picture like "The Exorcist" or "Carrie". I have the UK steelcase Blu-ray signed. The center is a shot of her nude. As she signed I said kidding "Don't open it!" and she laughed and said "I've seen it!" She has a sense of humor.

R122/R129 You two are lucky cunts - I'd give anything to meet her in person. Sounds like she's fun in real life, though she does give off some sort of an ice queen vibe onscreen.