Colleen Zenk

Colleen Zenk (born January 20, 1953) is an American actress best known for her role as Barbara Ryan in the daytime TV drama As the World Turns, a role she played from September 1978 until the show left the air in September 2010.

Television career

For much of Zenk's run on As the World Turns, her character, Barbara, was tormented by her criminal ex-husband, James Stenbeck (played by Anthony Herrera). For a brief period in the mid-1980s, the character of Barbara was taken in a different direction by head-writer, Douglas Marland, and became a romantic vixen. But for the most part, Barbara was a beleaguered heroine who faced one trial and tribulation after another. In 2001, then head-writer Hogan Sheffer took the character in a drastically different direction after the character suffered burns in a fire which destroyed her face (and more deception by then-husband Craig Montgomery). As a result, the character descended into hell and she became the show's villainess.

Sheffer was quoted in an 2006 interview in a cover-feature article in The New Yorker that he wanted to give Zenk, who he felt was an "under-utilized gem of an actress", more to do than just pour coffee with children underfoot. Viewers were impressed that Zenk, who so consistently played the put-upon heroine, was so believable as a villainess, and so were critics; she was nominated for a Lead Actress Daytime Emmy Award in 2001 and 2002.