Oscar-nominated actress Barbara Barrie ended her life with medical assistance on Wednesday at the age of 95 in her New York home, three weeks after learning she had terminal cancer.
She was able to say goodbye to her family with four final words.
“As she was falling asleep, we all said, ‘We love you,'” Jane Harnick, Barrie’s daughter, told Page Six on Thursday. “And she said, ‘I love you too.’ And those were his last words.
Harnick was reportedly joined by her husband Adam Freifeld and her brother Aaron Harnick. Best known for her Oscar-nominated performance in “Breaking Away” (1979), Barrie was a “strong advocate” for medically assisted dying, her daughter said.
“For years and years, before she got sick, she would always say, ‘When my time comes, I just want to have something and go to sleep,'” Jane Harnick told the outlet. “She truly believed it was a human right.”
The Tony Award-nominated actor was diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis in 2014, a degenerative disease that permanently thickens and scars tissue in the lungs and makes breathing more difficult, Playbill reported at the time.
Symptoms may include chest pain, shortness of breath, weight loss and feelings of being unwell, according to the National Library of Medicine. Barrie, however, moved on and even spent last summer swimming after undergoing a hip replacement last year.
“Some doctors wouldn’t do it,” Harnick told Page Six. “We found the one who would do it. And he was amazing. (Barrie) wrote him at the end of his life and said, ‘Thank you, you made my last summer perfect.’ …She loved the ocean more than anything.
Harnick said Barrie’s cancer “made her weak all over,” but she was also “ready to go” — and was even preparing candidates for her eulogy and musical options for the memorial.
Stephen Danelian/NBCUniversal/Getty Images
More than a dozen US states have passed laws allowing medical aid in dying, including New York, where Governor Kathy Hochul (D) signed the Medical Aid in Dying Act in February, which allows it for terminally ill patients with less than six months to live.
Barrie’s agent, Gary Gersh, told USA Today that she died in accordance with said law.
Her decorated acting career spanned more than half a century. In addition to her Academy Award nomination, Barrie earned three Emmy Award nominations, a Tony Award nomination in 1971, and the Best Actress award at the 1964 Cannes Film Festival.
She also starred in the NBC sitcom “Suddenly Susan” alongside Brooke Shields, Judd Nelson and Kathy Griffin.
Harnick, however, said his final wishes had nothing to do with taking action and that Barrie wanted his family to continue to defend the human right to medically assisted dying.
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