A student at the University of California, Barbara Rush performed on stage at the Pasadena Playhouse before signing with Paramount Pictures. She made her screen debut in the 1951 movie The Goldbergs and went on to star opposite the likes of James Mason, Marlon Brando, Paul Newman, Richard Burton, and Kirk Douglas. In 1954 she won the Golden Globe Award for "Most Promising Newcomer - Female" for her performance in It Came from Outer Space.

Barbara Rush married actor Jeffrey Hunter in 1950 with whom she had a son, Christopher. They divorced in 1955 and in 1959 she married publicist Warren Cowan. Their daughter, Claudia Cowan, is a journalist with Fox News television channel.

Ms Rush began her career on stage and it has always been a part of her professional life. In 1970, she earned the Sarah Siddons Award for dramatic achievement in Chicago theatre for her leading role in "Forty Carats" and brought her one-woman play A Woman of Independent Means to Broadway in 1984. She began working on television in the 1950s and during the 1970s became a regular performer in made for TV movies, miniseries, and a variety of other shows including Peyton Place and the soap opera, All My Children. She was a regular cast member on the early 1980s soap opera Flamingo Road as Eudora Weldon. Frequently described as the epitome of class, Ms Rush continues to make guest appearances on television as recent as 2005 in the recurring role of Ruth Camden on the series, 7th Heaven.

Selected filmography:

The Goldbergs (1951) When Worlds Collide (1951) It Came from Outer Space (1953) Magnificent Obsession (1954) Bigger Than Life (1956) The Young Lions (1958) The Young Philadelphians (1959) The Bramble Bush (1960) Strangers When Me Meet (1960) Come Blow Your Horn (1963) Robin and the Seven Hoods (1964) Hombre (1967) The Seekers (1979) The Last Day (1975) Flamingo Road (1980) Summer Lovers (1982) Web of Deceit (1990)