Who Killed Barbara Colby? The Case That Still Haunts Hollywood
Who Killed Barbara Colby? The Case That Still Haunts Hollywood
Hi everyone, Scott with Dearly Departed Tours. This next story comes from the archives of Findadeath.com. It was put together several years ago by my friend Mark Langlois, and when I was going over the files, I found this story that just isn’t very well known, so I thought I would put it to video. I thank Mark Langlois for all his hard work, research, and writing, and here we go.
Broadway and television actress Barbara Colby is best known today as Sherry, the streetwalker in the 1975 episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show in which Mary Richards goes to jail for not divulging her sources. In that memorable scene, Mary is processed into the jail system, and Barbara’s character provides a cynical, sharp-edged contrast to Mary’s naive confusion. When Mary asks what she is in for, Sherry dryly quips, “What’d they get you for, impersonating a Barbie doll?” Barbara then asks, “I think I’m going to sleep; which bunk do you want?” When Mary replies that she doesn’t care, Barbara simply states, “I know, that’s why you’re here.”
Barbara’s toothy smile, husky voice, and sharp acting skills made her instantly memorable to audiences. In fact, she was so well-liked that the producers brought her character back as an aspiring designer who presents her friend Mary Richards with a very memorable, albeit chaotic, outfit. The comedic timing was impeccable, and even in her minor roles, Barbara possessed a magnetic screen presence that commanded attention. She could deliver a line with such effortless grace that it transformed standard sitcom scripts into something far more nuanced and human.
Barbara Colby first discovered theater in New Orleans during high school. After graduation, she attended Bard College on the Hudson in her native New York, and then she returned to Manhattan after school where she worked, as actors and actresses do, as a restaurant server and a secretary. But her focus was always on the stage. Barbara’s sister, Renee, shared with us, “Barbara had a lot of personal rejections in her early life. She found the theater, and she surmounted it all.”
Barbara had a solid five years of success on and off Broadway, earning praise from audiences and critics alike. Her sense of humor and personality gained her a circle of acting friends including Jack Klugman, Ron Rifkin, Marsha Mason, and Liv Ullmann. In fact, in her autobiography, Liv Ullmann recalled, “I received the prize as the year’s best actress from the New York critics. Barbara let me address the dress; it had a faint smell of incense. Barbara doesn’t drink, eats only vegetables, meditates often for long periods, and takes life and her place in it very seriously.”
Barbara’s sister Renee remembers that Barbara had a fondness for spirituality, physics, and the tarot. Renee said that Barbara believed in fate and that everything had a purpose. Barbara eventually fell in love and married Bob Levitt Jr., the son of Ethel Merman and her second husband, Bob Levitt Sr. Barbara’s sister Renee recalls, “Bob and Barbara were a fantastic couple. They called themselves ‘Tubby’ and ‘Lulu.’ Bob was definitely more into fun and was the child; Barbara was the fun but mature one.”
By the early 70s, Barbara was continuing her stage career and becoming a very familiar face on television. She made her 1971 prime-time debut on Columbo in an episode called “Murder by the Book,” where she gets bumped off by Jack Cassidy. She also appeared in episodes of Medical Center, Kung Fu, and Gunsmoke. Barbara’s friend Jack Klugman suggested her for the part of a cynical and funny resort bartender in a 1971 episode of The Odd Couple. Barbara’s career was really taking off, but her marriage to Bob Levitt was ending, and a divorce was in the works.
Barbara’s sister Renee recalls, “They were the kind of couple that you hear is breaking up and you can’t fathom it. I don’t think Bob shared all of her metaphysical pursuits; I sensed Barbara moved on with life faster than he did. It was a loving, mutual split.” Following the separation, Barbara moved into a secluded home in the hills of Topanga Canyon. Since the 1950s, Topanga Canyon has been the gravitating spot for nature lovers, counter-culture bohemians, artists, and musicians, as well as occasional undesirables. Sometimes, if you stand still enough, you can still hear the wind chimes and smell the nag champa incense wafting from the now multi-million dollar houses. It was a place of deep reflection, a sanctuary where Barbara could escape the frantic pace of the Hollywood lifestyle and reconnect with her spiritual interests.
In 1975, with the success of The Mary Tyler Moore Show spin-off Rhoda, Cloris Leachman was given a spin-off of her own for her self-obsessed, scatterbrained character, Phyllis Lindstrom. In the new sitcom, Phyllis would be suddenly widowed and forced to work at a photography studio in her hometown of San Francisco. Despite being 14 years younger, Barbara Colby was hired to play Phyllis’s boss, Julie Erskine, and had completed filming three episodes. Barbara’s sister Renee shared, “The comedy thing was new for her. She preferred live theater, I think, because it’s more challenging to make it through without stopping. She was good at the comedy thing, but it was new.”
When you watch Phyllis, that character, Julie, is truly Barbara. The smile she gives to Phyllis after teaching her some lesson—that is Barbara. In one poignant exchange, she says, “I assume that you and Lars had a good life, a good marriage, and that you loved each other very much, or else you wouldn’t be acting like such a yo-yo.” Barbara’s ability to infuse kindness into a sharp observation made her character deeply likable. She had a unique talent for making the audience feel as though they were being let in on a private joke, creating a warmth that radiated from the screen even during her most sarcastic lines.
Barbara began teaching an acting class in the Palms area of West Los Angeles. On Thursday night, June 24, 1975, Barbara left the safety of her home in Topanga Canyon to teach her class in a studio approximately 30 miles away. Palms is in very close proximity to Culver City and Venice, California, thus the sometimes conflicting location information from various news sources of the time. The class ended at approximately 11:50 p.m. Barbara and her actor friend, James Kiernan, were walking to their cars parked in a parking lot adjacent to the school. It was normal for Barbara and her pals to congregate in the parking lot after class and chat. Her friend Ron Rifkin would have been there too, but he stayed home sick that evening.
A light-colored van pulled up. Two men got out, approached them, and shot Barbara and James each a single time, got back in their van, and left. It was unprovoked. There was no robbery. They were each shot one time, and the killers just left. Shortly after, police received a call stating that a man was heard screaming and then gunshots. When the police arrived, Kiernan was found still alive with his head resting at Barbara’s feet. Barbara Colby was dead at the scene. Her official cause of death was a massive hemothorax, a gunshot wound of the left arm and chest, perforating the left lung. James Kiernan died from his gunshot wound in the hospital about 90 minutes later.
The day after the shooting, the LA Times reported a 40-minute crime spree in which three people—Barbara, Kiernan, and one other woman—were murdered. Six other people were threatened, molested, pistol-whipped, or robbed by masked assailants in three separate street attacks in that very same area on that very same evening. Six young men were arrested and questioned after the crime spree, but they were cleared with no connection found to Barbara or Kiernan’s murders. The police department issued a statement: “Because of the time element, the similarity of the crimes, and proximity, we were working on the possibility that perhaps the crimes were in some way connected, but as the investigation digs deeper and deeper, that appears unlikely now. But we are still not eliminating the possibility that the crimes are related.” As of today, the case remains unsolved.
On the Saturday after the murders, Barbara was given an afternoon closed-casket visitation service at Pierce Brothers Funeral Home at 1307 7th Street in Santa Monica. In the room next door from Barbara’s wake, Mrs. Gloria White’s funeral began at 3 p.m. Mrs. White was the third person slain on that same night in that same area. Renee recalls her sister’s service as almost surreal. “My siblings and I were celebrity-shocked. We stood there saying, ‘Oh look, it’s so-and-so,’ over and over again. We stood at the side, daring each other to go rub against or even talk to someone—Mary Tyler Moore, Cloris Leachman, Ed Asner, Valerie Harper.” After it was over, they opened the casket for the family. Renee recalls, “Barbara was not in her body anymore.”
She believed in reincarnation and the evolution of the soul. Regarding the crime, Renee said, “All of us believe it was fate for her and random to the world. I always figured karma would come around and that person or persons are rotting in jail somewhere for other crimes.” Barbara was cremated, and a memorial was held at Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum in Topanga Canyon. Renee recalls that many people eulogized her sister, but it was when some people put together a song for her and sang it on stage that she and her mother really lost it. Everybody wore white in celebration of Barbara’s passing to the next plane of existence.
Barbara’s sister Renee says only family and closest friends went on the boat with Barbara’s ashes. She was laid to rest in the ocean that she loved. When the ashes hit the water, they formed the shape of a human and then dissolved. It was very final.
Back in TV land, Cloris Leachman delivered a filmed tribute to her slain co-star that was to be aired before the third and final episode featuring Barbara. CBS executives decided to keep their sitcom time slot carefree and not air the spot. Barbara’s unaired tribute included these lines: “As some of you may know, shortly after we filmed tonight’s episode last July, Barbara Colby, who has played the part of Julie, was tragically killed. She was a superb actress and one of the most joyful and giving people I have ever known. We could have written out the character Julie, but this would not have fooled you, and more importantly, it would not have fooled us. And so, beginning next week, the part of Julie will be played by another actress. It was not easy to replace Barbara Colby as an actress, and it is impossible to replace her as a person.”
It has been over 45 years since Barbara’s murder, and she is still remembered and appreciated through video, YouTube, and the tribute page created by her sister Renee. Renee shared with us one more thought of her sister, Barbara Colby, that should be shared in this video: “As for memories, I recall being around 16 and visiting her in Los Angeles. I learned that she was my half-sister and I fell apart. I was hysterical. She laughed and told me how it didn’t matter if we were whole or half or nothing sisters. She comforted me like a mother would her child. She was my surrogate mom, and I was her surrogate kid. She made me feel so much better. For all her love of laughter, no one was more serious about the gift of life and what it was about than her.”
The legacy of Barbara Colby is not just one of a tragic, unresolved ending, but one of immense artistic potential cut short. She was a woman who navigated the complexities of Hollywood with a grounded sense of self, never losing sight of the spiritual and intellectual pursuits that defined her private life. Her colleagues remembered her not merely for her talent, but for her quiet intensity and the genuine care she showed to those around her. Even in the brief time she spent on the set of Phyllis, she managed to leave a permanent mark on the production team and her co-stars, who clearly grappled with the profound void left by her sudden absence.
There is a haunting beauty to the way her story has persisted in the collective memory of television enthusiasts. It serves as a reminder of the fragility of life and the stark contrast between the glitz of the entertainment industry and the harsh, unpredictable realities of the streets of Los Angeles during that turbulent era of the 1970s. The fact that her murder remains unsolved only adds to the melancholy surrounding her narrative, turning her into a symbol of lost innocence and potential.
Barbara was more than just the characters she played; she was a seeker of truth, a student of the human condition, and a beacon of joy to those fortunate enough to know her. Her life, though abbreviated, was lived with a deliberate focus on authenticity. Whether she was studying the tarot or perfecting a scene, she brought her whole self to the experience. For those reading this now, looking back through the lens of time, her story is a call to cherish the connections we have and the moments we are given, as we are all navigating our own paths through the unpredictable landscape of existence.
Thank you very much for watching this video. A special, huge thank you to Mark Langlois for gathering it all together for this video. I want to thank the people who are supporting this page by the Patreon or PayPal link below, which you can do too, and it would be very much appreciated. I want to especially thank Redwood Joe, Saldezo, Missy Busk—hey Missy—and Drive-In Fan. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you very much for your attention, and until next time, you heard me.
