Inspirational Women In Hollywood: How Actress Adrienne Barbeau Is Shaking Up The Entertainment Industry
… if you want to act more than anything in the world, then do not take rejection personally. If you’re talented enough to be asked to audition, there are myriad reasons you might not get the job that have nothing to do with your talent. Don’t take it personally!
As a part of our series about Inspirational Women In Hollywood, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Adrienne Barbeau. Adrienne is an actress, singer and the author of three books. Barbeau came to prominence in the 1970s as Broadway’s original Rizzo in the musical Grease. She also played Carol Traynor, the divorced daughter of Maude Findlay (played by Bea Arthur) on the sitcom Maude. In 1980, she began appearing in horror and science fiction films, including The Fog (1980), Escape from New York (1981), Creepshow (1982), and Swamp Thing (1982). During the 1990s, she became known for providing the voice of Catwoman on Batman: The Animated Series (1992–1995), and subsequent Batman cartoon series.
Thank you so much for doing this with us Adrienne ! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us your “Origin Story”? Can you tell us the story of how you grew up? Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path?
I grew up all over Northern California, spending my summers on my grandparents’ 20 acre grape farm outside Fresno, and finally settled in San Jose when I was twelve. There I started doing musicals at the San Jose Civic Light Opera — and a week after graduating high school, I got my first professional job at a salary of $7.00 a day, entertaining our armed forces in Southeast Asia. After one year of college, I moved to New York to try to become an actress. I didn’t know a soul there, but it seemed like the place you had to be to work on stage.
Can you tell us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
I detail one of my favorite career stories in The Rat Movie chapter of my memoir There Are Worse Things I Could Do. Suffice it to say I landed in Moscow on the day of an attempted coup. I was there to star in a movie with 50 rats. The producer took me to my apartment and left me there, saying we might be in the middle of a civil war and he didn’t know if I could ever go home. Martial law was declared, but we got to film. The rats were purported to be trained circus rats, but all they were trained to do was eat anything that smelled like fish. So whenever I had a scene where they had to swarm over me, the prop department squeezed fish heads all over my gown and the rats scrambled to lick off the juice. The filming went downhill from there.
It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
I’d worked on Broadway for eight years and had been working on Maude for two, when I was hired to do my first tv movie. We shot Maude just like a stage play, with four cameras filming the show straight through. So I’d never worked on film. Well, we got on the set and filmed the master (a wide shot that encompasses all the actors doing their dialogue in the scene) and I went off to my dressing room to change clothes for the next scene. I didn’t know there were close-ups and medium close ups and over the shoulder shots that had to be filmed for the same scene. Fortunately the Assistant Director called me back to the set before I made a total fool of myself. The lesson I learned? Film ain’t nothin’ like stage!
You have been blessed with great success in a career path that can be challenging. Do you have any words of advice for others who may want to embark on this career path, but are intimidated by the prospect of constant rejection?
Honestly, if being constantly rejected is something you don’t think you can handle, if it’s going to ruin the quality of your life and undermine your belief in yourself, then acting is probably not the career to pursue. But if you want to act more than anything in the world, then do not take rejection personally. If you’re talented enough to be asked to audition, there are myriad reasons you might not get the job that have nothing to do with your talent. Don’t take it personally!
You have such impressive work. What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? Where do you see yourself heading from here?
Right now I’m working on a new series for Amazon Prime, I’m developing a pitch for a series based on my second novel Love Bites, I’m starring in another horror film, and I’m video captioning (narrating) films and television series for the visually handicapped. My latest book, which I co-edited, is Grease…Tell Me More, Tell Me More! — funny, moving, and never before heard stories celebrating the 50th anniversary of Grease’s opening on Broadway.
As you know, Grease is one of the most popular Broadway shows, and one of the most beloved movies. In your opinion, what was it that really captured people’s attention about the show?
I think Grease has been so long successful because every single audience member sees themself in one of the characters. That’s our life onstage!
This is our signature question that we ask in nearly all of our interviews. What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why? If you can, please share a story or example for each.
The only thing I wish someone had told me when I was starting out, aside from not taking rejection personally, is to ask for what you want. The answer might be ‘no’, but you’ll never know unless you ask.
Can you share with our readers any self-care routines, practices or treatments that you do to help your body, mind or heart to thrive? Please share a story for each one if you can.
I don’t like the taste of alcohol so I’ve never been a drinker, and I stopped eating red meat back in the early 70’s — again, don’t love the taste or texture. That’s probably helped keep my body healthy. As for my spirit, well, I just try to be happy and optimistic and non-judgmental as much as I can. Singing throughout the day helps! And talking to my dogs.
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?
It may be simplistic but I believe the most amount of good for the most amount of people would come from following the Golden Rule: treat other people the way you want to be treated.
Is there a person in the world whom you would love to have a power lunch with, and why? Maybe we can tag them and see what happens!
I don’t care about power lunches (not even sure what they are) but I would love to meet John Sandford for coffee one day. I just love his writing — Lucas Davenport, Virgil Flowers, Letty Davenport — going all the way back to his Kidd novels as John Camp.
Are you on social media? How can our readers follow you online?
My website is www.abarbeau.com. My Insta is adrienne_barbeau Facebook is @4abarbeau
Twitter is @abarbeau.
This was so informative, thank you so much! We wish you continued success!
