Detroit Native Barbara Tarbuck, ‘General Hospital’ Star, Dies

Detroit native and soap opera star Barbara Tarbuck has died. Tarbuck was best known for her character Lady Jane Jacks on ABC’s “General Hospital” for more than a decade, and also appeared as Mother Superior Claudia in five episodes of “American Horror Story: Asylum” from 2012-2013, died Monday, Dec. 26, at her home in Los Angeles, her family said.

Tarbuck’s daughter, producer Jennifer Lane Connolly, told The Hollywood Reporter that her mother suffered from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a degenerative brain disorder that leads to dementia and, ultimately, death. She was 74.

As a youngster growing up in Detroit, Tarbuck was a child star, performing at the age of 9 on the WWJ-AM children’s radio show, “Storyland,” and learned her craft from actors with “The Lone Ranger,” “The Shadow” and “The Green Hornet.”

Before heading to New York, where she launched her professional career, Tarbuck attended Wayne State University in Detroit, graduating in 1963. She earned her master’s degree from the University of Michigan, and was the lead actress in the inaugural season of Indiana University’s touring company. She received a Fulbright Scholarship to study at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts.

Tarbuck appeared on another daytime serial, NBC’s “Santa Barbara,” where she played another nun, Sister Allegra, and had a recurring role as a doctor on CBS’s primetime soap opera “Falcon Crest.” Her other credits included “The Waltons,” “Dallas,” “M*A*S*H*,” “Cagney & Lacey,” “Judging Amy,” “Star Trek: Enterprise,” “NYPD Blue,” “Nip/Tuck,” “Glee,” “The Golden Girls,” “Mad Men,” “Dexter,” “Police Squad!” and “Come Simi,” her last role in 2015.

She was passionate about theater, and appeared in the original production of Neil Simon’s “Brighton Beach Memoirs,” and has a number of regional theater credits on her resume, including “Stopping By,” the story she wrote and acted in about a 74-year-old woman who took her husband’s ashes to Burning Man, an annual gathering that takes place in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada.

Besides her daughter, she is survived by her son-in-law Samuel Chawinga and her gandsons, Cianan and Cuinn Chawinga.

Feature image via Shutterstock