Adrienne Barbeau began her career in 1963 with the San Jose Civic Light Opera. After graduating high school, she traveled with a musical comedy revue, entertaining our servicemen on Army bases throughout Southeast Asia. In 1965, she moved to New York where she made her Broadway debut as Tevye's second daughter, Hodel, in "Fiddler on the Roof." A Tony nomination and a Theatre World Award for her creation of Rizzo in the original Broadway production of "Grease" led her back to California, where she won the coveted role of Bea Arthur's daughter, Carol, in the classic hit TV sitcom "Maude."
Since then, Barbeau has become a bestselling author, a recording artist, and the star of numerous features, films for television, concert performances, musicals, and plays.
With a Golden Globe nomination and over 450 screen performances to her credit, Barbeau is best known for her performances in "The Fog," "Escape From New York," "Creepshow," "Swamp Thing," "Back to School," and "Cannonball Run." Her recent films include "Reach for Me" with Seymour Cassell and Alfre Woodard and the award-winning zombie film "Alice Jacobs is Dead." She also appeared in "Argo," directed by and starring Ben Affleck, and recently completed a large, guest-starring role on an episode of "Criminal Minds." She also starred as Ruthie, the Snake Dancer, on HBO's fascinating series "Carnivale." Her recent TV appearances include "Sons of Anarchy," "Dexter," and nine months on ABC's "General Hospital," her first foray into daytime television. Barbeau also portrays Victoria Grayson's (Madeline Stowe) mother on ABC's hit series "Revenge."
After appearing in over 25 musicals and plays, including the West Coast premieres of "Women Behind Bars" and "Drop Dead," the Canadian premiere of Neil Simon's "Lost in Yonkers," and the world premiere of "What the Rabbi Saw" by Billy Van Zandt and Jane Milmore, she returned to New York in 2006 and garnered standing ovations as Judy Garland in "The Property Known As Garland." The summer of 2012 found her returning to her favorite musical "Fiddler on the Roof," this time playing Golde.
Off camera, Barbeau is the voice of Catwoman in "Batman, The Animated Series," Ms. Simone in "Scooby-Do on Zombie Island," and Scooter's Mom in the 3-D animated film "Fly Me to the Moon." She can be heard in a myriad of video games, including "God of War" and "Halo 4."
Barbeau is the author of three books: the best-selling memoir "There Are Worse Things I Could Do," "Vampyres of Hollywood," and, most recently, "Love Bites."
Barbeau is the proud mom of identical twin sons, William and Walker Van Zandt. She lives in Los Angeles, but travels to Japan whenever she can to visit her older son, Cody Carpenter.
