Barbara Anderson (actress)

Anderson was born in Brooklyn, New York.^[3] Her father, George Anderson, was a Navy enlisted man.^[4][5]

Anderson became interested in acting during her teens, when she did a Tennessee Williams play.^[6] While she was a student at Memphis State University, Anderson won the title of Miss Memphis in 1963.^[3][7] Anderson was an actress with the Front Street Repertory Theatre in downtown Memphis, and debuted professionally in Memphis with the Southwestern University Players. Later, she acted with the Los Angeles Art Theatre.^[3]

Anderson decided to move to Los Angeles. In 1966, one of her first TV appearances came in a first-season episode of Star Trek, "The Conscience of the King", as Lenore Karidian.

She premiered her Eve Whitfield character in the March 1967 Ironside TV movie, and continued the role when the series debuted in September. That same week in September, she had a featured role in the first episode of the TV series Mannix.^[8]

Anderson was one of the four original cast members of Ironside and was the lead actress in the series for the first 105 episodes. Anderson played the role of one of two police officers chosen to assist Robert Ironside (Raymond Burr), former chief of detectives for San Francisco, after he lost the use of his legs due to a shooting. Anderson continued in her role as Officer Whitfield for four seasons.^[9] For her role on the show, she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 1968.^[10]

Her later performances include the wife of a man who inherits a notoriously haunted house in the Night Gallery episode "Fright Night" and as a witness to a mob hit in the Harry O episode "Material Witness". She accepted a recurring role (seven episodes) in the final season of Mission: Impossible, taking over parts that were originally written for regular cast member Lynda Day George while George was on maternity leave. Anderson later declared the Mission: Impossible role some of the best work she had ever done, and George agreed: "She did a terrific job".^[11]

Anderson continued to work, though, accepting supporting roles in several TV movies, including 1977's You Lie So Deep, My Love (where she was reunited with former Ironside co-star Don Galloway).^[12] She also accepted guest roles on popular TV shows of the period including The Love Boat, Wonder Woman, and Marcus Welby, M.D. In 1993, Anderson reunited with her former Ironside co-stars for the TV movie Return of Ironside, reprising her role as Eve Whitfield, now the mother of a daughter.^[13][14]

In 1971, Anderson married actor and, later, successful stockbroker,^[15] Don Burnett and left the TV series Ironside to devote time to her marriage.^[16]

In 2023, thirty years after withdrawing from public life, she spoke at length about her career and personal life as set forth in the book Barbara Anderson Forever... by French author Patrick Loubatière.^[17]