Barbara Sharma

Barbara Sharma, born Barbara Anna Sharma Schirmer on September 14, 1938, in Dallas, Texas, is an American actress and dancer whose career has spanned nightclubs, Broadway, television, and film. Her father, Edwin Schirmer, was a haberdashery salesman who declined an offer from 20th Century Fox to debut his daughter in films when she was eight years old, unwilling to relocate the family to California. He also kept a television out of the household, which drew Sharma toward radio during her childhood. At fourteen she moved to New York to live with relatives and enrolled at the Professional Children's School.

Sharma began dancing at age four and was performing professionally by age nine, appearing in nightclubs in Miami, Florida and Havana, Cuba, as well as venues across the country. She later described herself as "a ballerina, a child prodigy, a big name in Cuba when I was 10 years old." She was originally billed as Barbara Ann Sharma before dropping the middle name. After spending a summer at Camp Tamiment, she launched her Off-Broadway career at nineteen, taking the lead role in Little Mary Sunshine and appearing in the original production of Rick Besoyan's In Your Hat in 1957.

Her Broadway career, which extended from 1955 to 1991, brought her into the original casts of several major productions. She originated the role of Rosie in Sweet Charity and Mary in Hallelujah, Baby!, and also appeared in the original companies of Little Me, Hello, Dolly!, and Come Summer, in which she played Emma Faucett. Her work from this period is preserved on the original cast recordings of those productions. Much of her stage work during the 1960s was shaped by her close collaboration with choreographer Bob Fosse, with whom she worked as a lead dancer across five seasons. She later returned to Broadway as Bobbi Michele in Last of the Red Hot Lovers in 1970.

That same year, Sharma replaced Bernadette Peters in the New York production of Dames at Sea and remained with the show through its entire Los Angeles run. Her performance caught the attention of producer George Schlatter, which led directly to her joining the main cast of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, where she was a regular from 1970 to 1972. On the program she frequently tap-danced and took on numerous characters, among them the Burbank Metre Maid. In 1973 she starred opposite Bernadette Peters in the ABC musical comedy special Break Up. She was also a recurring panelist on the game show Match Game during the 1970s.

Outside of Broadway and variety television, Sharma built a substantial career in episodic television. She portrayed Shelley Sealy as a main cast member of the short-lived series Glitter from 1984 to 1985, and held recurring roles as Mrs. Recinos on Becker, Mrs. Douglas on Frasier, Amanda Wilkerson on Chico and the Man, and Myrna Morgenstein in Rhoda. She also appeared as a member of the PBS anthology series Masquerade and made guest appearances on programs including The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Facts of Life, Perfect Strangers, Hart to Hart, One Day at a Time, Alice, Amazing Stories, and two episodes of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, among others. In 1982 she played Adelaide in Garland Wright's production of Guys and Dolls at the Guthrie Theater. Her film credits include Con Air, My Stepmother Is an Alien, Norman... Is That You?, and Time Share.

Sharma also performed a significant amount of radio work and appeared in commercials from the 1950s through the 2000s, including campaigns for Folgers, Glass Plus, and State Farm. In her personal life, she married trumpet player Al Stewart at age seventeen; they have a daughter.