Joanna Barnes, ‘The Parent Trap’ Actress, Dead at 87

Joanna Barnes, best known as the foil in the original The Parent Trap, died on April 29. The actress, who was also a novelist and columnist, was 87. Barnes had a long career in Hollywood from the late 1950s until the 1980s and had a cameo in the 1998 Parent Trap with Lindsay Lohan.

Barnes died at her home in The Sea Ranch, California, after “multiple health problems,” her friend, Sally Jackson, told The Hollywood Reporter. Survivors include her sisters Lally and Judith and stepchildren John, Laura, and Louise.

Barnes was born in Boston on Nov. 15, 1934. She attended Milton Academy and Smith College before moving to Los Angeles to pursue acting. She began in television in the 1950s, appearing in Ford Theatre, Playhouse 90, Conflict, Maverick, Cheyenne, and Colt. 45.

In 1958, Barnes appeared on the big screen in Violent Road, featuring her future Parent Trap co-star Brian Keith. She earned a Golden Globe nomination for New Star of the Year thanks to her role as the snooty Gloria Upson in Auntie Mame. In 1959, she starred as Jane in Tarzan, the Ape Man, starring Denny Miller as Tarzan.

Disney cast Barnes in The Parent Trap in 1961. She played Vicki Robinson, the gold digger who makes it difficult for Sharon and Susan, both played by Hayley Mills, to reunite their parents, played by Keith and Maureen O’Hara. After many years away from the screen, director Nancy Meyers and Disney cast Barnes in the 1998 remake as the mother of Elaine Hendrix’s gold digger.

Barnes’ other movies include The War Wagon, with John Wayne and Kirk Douglas; the Western The Purple Hills; Goodbye Charlie and Don’t Make Waves with Tony Curtis; and the dark comedy I Wonder Who’s Killing Her Now?. She was a popular guest star on television through the late 1980s, appearing in episodes of Judd for the Defense, Fantasy Island, The Betty White Show, SWAT, Murder, She Wrote, Hart to Hart, Remington Steele, Executive Suite, and Cheers.

Outside of acting, Barnes also published several novels, including The Deceivers, Who is Carla Hart?, and Silverwood. She wrote book reviews for The Los Angeles Times and a syndicated column for the New York News Syndicate. She published the home decorating book Starting from Scratch. Barnes was married three times, first to Richard Edward Herndon, then to actor Lawrence Dobkin. Her third husband was architect Jack Lionel Warner, to whom she was married from 1980 until he died in 2012.