Barbara Loden
Barbara Loden (July 8, 1932 – September 5, 1980) was a Broadway Tony award-winning American stage and film actress, model, and stage/film director. She was the first woman to write, direct and star in her own feature film, Wanda, which won the International Critics Award at the 1970 Venice Film Festival. Loden also directed several off-Broadway plays.
Loden was a life member of the famed The Actors Studio and appeared in several projects directed by second husband, noted film director, Elia Kazan, including Splendor in the Grass. Loden appeared as a regular sidekick on the irreverent The Ernie Kovacs Television Show, where she would get pies thrown in her face or pretend to be “sawed in half”.
Career highlights
Barbara Loden made her New York theater debut in 1947 in Compulsion and also appeared on stage in The Highest Tree with Robert Redford as well as Night Circus with Ben Gazzara and in the stage version of Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean.
She made her television debut on The Ernie Kovacs Show as a “scantily clad” sidekick to Kovacs, a job that her first husband television producer and film distributor, Larry Joachim helped her to attain. According to Loden, she owed a lot to Ernie Kovacs, as another producer on the show had initially vetoed Kovacs' decision to hire her. In interviews, Loden said he had “felt sorry” for her and said, “You can be on the show anyway.” He gave her the job of stunt sidekick, rolling around in a rug or getting hit in the face with a pie.