Jane Harnick says her mother, Barbara Barrie, died exactly the way the actress had always hoped.
Harnick, 60, an actress herself, said in an exclusive interview that Barrie, 95, ended her life with medical assistance in her Manhattan home last Wednesday. The “Suddenly Susan” star had received a terminal cancer diagnosis just three weeks earlier, making her among the first New Yorkers to use the state’s newly enacted “Medical Aid in Dying Act.”
“She was so grateful that it had been instituted in New York State really in the nick of time,” Harnick said about the law.
Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the controversial legislation in January, and it officially took effect in August. The law allows terminally ill adults to request life-ending medication from their doctors. Barrie had long supported such measures and had even considered traveling to Switzerland or Vermont, where medical aid in dying was already legal, before it became an option in her home state.
“For years and years, her whole life before she was ever sick with any illness, she always used to say, ‘When my time comes, I just want to take something and go to sleep,'” Harnick shared. “She just really believed that that was a human right.”
Barrie’s health declined rapidly after doctors delivered the terminal diagnosis earlier this month. She was hospitalized three weeks ago, where physicians informed her she qualified for the new program.
“We didn’t really know, but it just worked out that she went to the hospital three weeks ago. She was declared terminal, and they said, ‘You can do this now,'” Harnick recounted.
The actress spent her final days surrounded by family and engaging in familiar routines. She read the news, listened to her favorite radio station, and took an active role in planning her own memorial service.
“We were planning her death and her memorial at the same time and she was fine with it,” Harnick said. “She was weighing in on who should speak and what the music should be and she was really fine with that. She was ready to go. She knew 95 was old enough.”
Pain set in only at the very end, allowing the family to time the procedure precisely when Barrie needed relief.
“And then, at the very last day, she started to feel pain,” Jane continued. “And they were able to time it so that they could do it right then.”
Barrie died with her daughter, son Aaron Harnick, and son-in-law Adam Freifeld at her side. The family shared a final exchange before she lost consciousness.
“As she was falling asleep, we all just said, ‘We love you.’ And she said, ‘I love you too.’ And those were her last words,” Jane said.
Before her death, Barrie extracted one last commitment from her loved ones. She asked them to continue advocating for medical aid in dying, transforming her personal choice into a public cause.
“She was an advocate for a lot of things during her life, and to go out on this one is what she would have wanted,” Jane said.
Harnick emphasized that the decision was entirely her mother’s own, made with full family support.
“She had the most incredible life, she did everything she wanted to do, she had the family she wanted,” Jane said. “It was 100 percent her decision, and we all supported it. She’s an advocate for that right.”
Barrie built a celebrated career spanning decades in film, television, and theater. She earned an Academy Award nomination for her role in the 1964 film “One Potato, Two Potato” and appeared in numerous Broadway productions. Younger audiences knew her from her recurring role as Susan’s grandmother on the NBC sitcom “Suddenly Susan” in the late 1990s.
The actress had been a “huge advocate” for medical aid in dying long before her own illness, Harnick noted. She watched the legislative battle in New York closely and expressed particular gratitude toward Hochul for signing the bill into law.
“She wanted it to be her path,” Harnick said, explaining that her mother had prepared for this possibility years in advance.
Barrie’s family has not announced details for her memorial service.