Barbara Colby

Barbara Colby (July 2, 1939 – July 24, 1975) was an American actress born in New York, New York, whose career spanned theater, television, and film across roughly a decade of professional work. Her Broadway appearances ran from 1965 to 1975, and she was building toward a prominent television role at the time of her death.

Colby began her professional acting career on the stage. A 1964 performance in Six Characters in Search of an Author preceded her Broadway debut the following year in The Devils. During the remainder of the 1960s she appeared in productions including Under Milk Wood, Murder in the Cathedral, Dear Liar, and A Doll's House, and received strong notices for her portrayal of Portia in a 1966 production of Julius Caesar. She also spent two years as a leading actor with the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, where her credits included Aubrey Beardsley the Neophyte, House of Blue Leaves, Afternoon Tea, and The Hot l Baltimore. An off-Broadway engagement cast her as Elizabeth in Richard III before she returned to Broadway with Murderous Angels in 1971 and a revival of A Doll's House in 1975.

On television, Colby accumulated a substantial body of guest work throughout the early 1970s. Her first significant television role came in 1971 in the Columbo episode "Murder by the Book," part of the series' first season. She subsequently appeared in episodes of The Odd Couple, McMillan & Wife, The F.B.I., Medical Center, Kung Fu, and Gunsmoke. In 1973 she appeared alongside Cloris Leachman in the television film A Brand New Life. A 1974 guest appearance on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, in which she played a streetwise prostitute, led to a second episode on that series and ultimately to a regular role on its spin-off, Phyllis, starring Leachman. Colby was cast as Julie Erskine, Leachman's boss and the owner of a commercial photography studio. Three episodes of Phyllis had been filmed before her death; all three aired in September 1975. Her final screen credit was the television film The Ashes of Mrs. Reasoner, which aired in January 1976. Her film work included California Split and Memory of Us, both released in 1974, and Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins in 1975.

In her personal life, Colby was married to Robert Levitt Jr., whose mother was Ethel Merman. At the time of her death she was separated from Levitt. Her immediate survivors included her mother and half-sister.

On the evening of July 24, 1975, Colby and fellow acting student James Kiernan were walking to their car after an acting class in the Palms district of Los Angeles when they were shot in a parking area. Kiernan survived long enough to speak with investigators, telling them that two men approached them from a light-colored van and that the shooting occurred without warning or provocation. He said he did not recognize the men. Police found no evidence of robbery and characterized the incident as either a random drive-by shooting or a targeted killing. Colby died at the scene; Kiernan died of his wounds shortly after. The killers were never identified, and the case remained an open cold case.