Barbara Rhoades

Barbara Rhoades is an American actress born on March 23, 1947, in Poughkeepsie, New York, who built a career across Broadway, film, and television spanning several decades. She attended Our Lady of Lourdes High School and began taking dancing lessons at the age of seven.

Rhoades appeared on Broadway in 1964, performing for eighteen months as a showgirl in the musical Funny Girl. She also accumulated stage experience through summer stock productions at the Cecilwood Theater in Fishkill, New York. In 1967, she signed a long-term exclusive contract with Universal Pictures, marking her formal entry into screen work.

Her film work during the 1970s included There Was a Crooked Man... (1970), in which she appeared alongside Kirk Douglas and Henry Fonda, and Up the Sandbox (1972), starring Barbra Streisand. She played a Las Vegas hooker who encounters Art Carney's character during his Oscar-winning performance in Harry and Tonto (1974), and portrayed a police officer named "No Balls" Hadley in The Choirboys (1977). Additional film credits from the period include Scream Blacula Scream (1973) and The Goodbye Girl (1977). In 2007, she appeared in First Born alongside Elisabeth Shue.

Rhoades is perhaps most widely recognized for her comedy and mystery television work, including her role as lady bandit Penelope "Bad Penny" Cushings in The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968) with Don Knotts. She held a recurring role on the soap opera Soap as Maggie Chandler, the character designated as Jodie Dallas's future wife. In 1977, she joined the regular cast of the situation comedy Busting Loose, playing Melody Feebeck, and in 1989 portrayed Jessica Gardner on Generations. In 2011, she took on a recurring role on One Life to Live as Irene Manning, childhood best friend of Victoria Lord, played by Erika Slezak. Throughout the 1970s and beyond, Rhoades made guest appearances on numerous television series, including Columbo, Kojak, Mannix, Starsky and Hutch, McMillan and Wife, Ironside, It Takes a Thief, Alias Smith and Jones, The Odd Couple, Bewitched, Maude, Sanford and Son, The Six Million Dollar Man, The Partridge Family, Love American Style, Trapper John M.D., Murder She Wrote, Cagney and Lacey, and Law and Order. She was also a frequent panelist on the game show Match Game, hosted by Gene Rayburn.

On February 18, 1979, Rhoades married television producer Bernie Orenstein in a ceremony held at L'Orangerie, a French restaurant in West Hollywood. In 1995, she, Orenstein, and their son Alec relocated to Weston, Connecticut, where Rhoades continued to perform on occasion.