Barbara Loden

Barbara Ann Loden (July 8, 1932 – September 5, 1980) was an American actress and director of film and theater. Richard Brody of The New Yorker described Loden as the "female counterpart to John Cassavetes".

Born and raised in North Carolina, Loden began her career at an early age in New York City as a commercial model and chorus-line dancer. Loden became a regular sidekick on the irreverent Ernie Kovacs Television Show in the mid-1950s and was a lifetime member of the famed Actors Studio. She appeared in several projects directed by her second husband, Elia Kazan, including Splendor in the Grass (1961). Her subsequent performance in a 1964 Broadway production of After the Fall earned her a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress.

In 1970, Loden wrote, directed, and starred in Wanda, a groundbreaking independent film that won the International Critics Award at the 1970 Venice Film Festival. Throughout the 1970s, she continued to work directing Off-Broadway and regional theater productions, as well as direct two short films. In 1978, Loden was diagnosed with breast cancer, of which she died two years later, aged 48.