Barbara Rhoades is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 actress, known primarily for her comedy and mystery roles, especially as lady bandit Penelope "Bad Penny" Cushings in The Shakiest Gun in the West

The Shakiest Gun in the West

The Shakiest Gun in the West is a 1968 Western comedy film starring Don Knotts. It was directed by Alan Rafkin and written by Jim Fritzell and Everett Greenbaum.The film is a remake of The Paleface, a 1948 movie starring Bob Hope and Jane Russell....

(1968). She had a memorable role as Jodie Dallas's

Jodie Dallas

Jodie Dallas is a fictional character from the 1977 American situation comedy Soap. He was played by Billy Crystal. The son of central character Mary Campbell, Jodie works as a television commercial director. Jodie was among the first gay characters on American television...

 future wife, Maggie Chandler, in the TV series Soap

Soap (TV series)

Soap is an American sitcom that originally ran on ABC from 1977 to 1981.The show was created as a parody of daytime soap operas, presented as a weekly half-hour prime time comedy. Similar to a soap opera, the show's story was presented in a serial format and included melodramatic plot elements such...

.

Biography

Born and raised in Poughkeepsie, New York, Rhoades began acting in the late 1960s.

She has had guest roles on various television series including It Takes a Thief, Ironside

Ironside (TV series)

Ironside is a Universal television series which ran on NBC from September 14, 1967 to January 16, 1975. The show starred Raymond Burr as the wheelchair-using Chief of Detectives, Robert T. Ironside. The character's debut was in a TV-movie on March 28, 1967. The original title of the show in the...

(3 episodes, including "Dora", as actress who is paid to fake an attempted rape), Mannix

Mannix

Mannix is an American television detective series that ran from 1967 through 1975 on CBS. Created by Richard Levinson and William Link and developed by executive producer Bruce Geller, the title character, Joe Mannix, is a private investigator. He is played by Mike Connors...

, Columbo, Kojak

Kojak

Kojak is an American television series starring Telly Savalas as the title character, bald New York City Police Department Detective Lieutenant Theo Kojak. It aired from October 24, 1973, to March 18, 1978, on CBS. It took the time slot of the popular Cannon series, which was moved one hour earlier...

, Alias Smith and Jones

Alias Smith and Jones

Alias Smith and Jones is an American Western series that originally aired on ABC from 1971 to 1973. It stars Pete Duel as Hannibal Heyes and Ben Murphy as Jedediah "Kid" Curry, a pair of Western cousin outlaws trying to reform...

, Love, American Style

Love, American Style

Love, American Style is an hour-long TV anthology produced by Paramount Television and originally aired between September 1969 and January 1974...

, The Odd Couple

The Odd Couple (TV series)

The Odd Couple is a television situation comedy broadcast from September 24, 1970 to July 4, 1975 on ABC. It starred Tony Randall as Felix Unger and Jack Klugman as Oscar Madison. It was based upon the play of the same name, which was written by Neil Simon.Felix and Oscar are two divorced men....

, The Six Million Dollar Man

The Six Million Dollar Man

The Six Million Dollar Man is an American television series about a former astronaut with bionic implants working for the OSI...

, Maude

Maude (TV series)

Maude was an American television sitcom that was originally broadcast on the CBS network from September 12, 1972 until April 22, 1978.Maude starred Beatrice Arthur as Maude Findlay, an outspoken, middle-aged, politically liberal woman living in suburban Tuckahoe, Westchester County, New York with...

, Trapper John, M.D.

Trapper John, M.D.

Trapper John, M.D. is an American television medical drama and spin-off of the film MASH, concerning a lovable surgeon who became a mentor and father figure in San Francisco, California. The show ran on CBS from September 23, 1979, to September 4, 1986....

, and Murder, She Wrote

Murder, She Wrote

Murder, She Wrote is an American television mystery series starring Angela Lansbury as mystery writer and amateur detective Jessica Fletcher. The series aired for 12 seasons from 1984 to 1996 on the CBS network, with 264 episodes transmitted. It was followed by four TV films and a spin-off series,...

. In 1989, she was cast as Jessica Gardner on the NBC

NBC

The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

 soap opera

Soap opera

A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...

 Generations. On television into the 2000s, she appeared on a 2003 episode of Law & Order

Law & Order

Law & Order is an American police procedural and legal drama television series, created by Dick Wolf and part of the Law & Order franchise. It aired on NBC, and in syndication on various cable networks. Law & Order premiered on September 13, 1990, and completed its 20th and final season on May 24,...

. She also had a recurring role as the private detective Maggie Chandler on Soap

Soap (TV series)

Soap is an American sitcom that originally ran on ABC from 1977 to 1981.The show was created as a parody of daytime soap operas, presented as a weekly half-hour prime time comedy. Similar to a soap opera, the show's story was presented in a serial format and included melodramatic plot elements such...

.

A tall (5-foot-10), voluptuous redhead, Rhoades appeared in a number of 1970s films. They include There Was a Crooked Man...

There Was a Crooked Man...

There Was a Crooked Man... is a 1970 western comedy starring Kirk Douglas and Henry Fonda and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. The film follows Paris Pitman , a charismatic criminal who ends up in jail, and his attempts to escape the prison of warden Lopeman...

(1970), opposite Kirk Douglas

Kirk Douglas

Kirk Douglas is an American stage and film actor, film producer and author. His popular films include Out of the Past , Champion , Ace in the Hole , The Bad and the Beautiful , Lust for Life , Paths of Glory , Gunfight at the O.K...

 and Henry Fonda

Henry Fonda

Henry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor.Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor. He also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins...

, and Up the Sandbox

Up the Sandbox

Up The Sandbox is a 1972 American comedy film directed by Irvin Kershner.Paul Zindel's screenplay, based on the novel by Anne Roiphe, focuses on Margaret Reynolds, a young New York City wife and mother who, neglected by her husband and bored with her daily existence, slips into increasingly bizarre...

(1972) starring Barbra Streisand

Barbra Streisand

Barbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...

. She played a police officer, "No Balls" Hadley, in 1977's The Choirboys

The Choirboys (film)

The Choirboys is a 1977 American comedy-drama film directed by Robert Aldrich, written by Christopher Knopf and Joseph Wambaugh based on Wambaugh's novel. It features an ensemble cast including Randy Quaid and James Woods...

and a Vegas hooker who picks up Art Carney

Art Carney

Arthur William Matthew “Art” Carney was an American actor in film, stage, television and radio. He is best known for playing Ed Norton, opposite Jackie Gleason's Ralph Kramden in the situation comedy The Honeymooners....

 along the road during his Oscar-winning performance in Harry and Tonto

Harry and Tonto

Harry and Tonto is a 1974 road movie written by Paul Mazursky and Josh Greenfeld and directed by Mazursky, starring Art Carney.-Synopsis:...

(1974). She also had a role in Neil Simon

Neil Simon

Neil Simon is an American playwright and screenwriter. He has written numerous Broadway plays, including Brighton Beach Memoirs, Biloxi Blues, and The Odd Couple. He won the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Lost In Yonkers. He has written the screenplays for several of his plays that...

's The Goodbye Girl

The Goodbye Girl

The Goodbye Girl is a 1977 American romantic comedy-drama film. Directed by Herbert Ross, the film stars Richard Dreyfuss, Marsha Mason, Quinn Cummings, and Paul Benedict...

(1977) and 1973's "Scream Blacula,Scream". In 2007, she appeared in the movie First Born with Elisabeth Shue

Elisabeth Shue

Elisabeth Judson Shue is an American actress and producer, most famous for her roles in the films The Karate Kid, Adventures in Babysitting, Cocktail, Back to the Future Parts II and III and Leaving Las Vegas, for which she won five acting awards and was nominated for an Academy Award, a Golden...

.

Rhoades joined the American soap opera One Life to Live

One Life to Live

One Life to Live is an American soap opera which debuted on July 15, 1968 and has been broadcast on the ABC television network. Created by Agnes Nixon, the series was the first daytime drama to primarily feature racially and socioeconomically diverse characters and consistently emphasize social...

in 2011, playing the recurring role of Irene Manning

Irene Manning (One Life to Live)

Irene Manning is a fictional character from the original daytime soap opera, One Life to Live. The character first appears on-screen May 27, 1978 originated by the actress Kate McKeown. In 1985, Andrea Evans portrayed her in flashbacks...

, childhood best friend of Victoria Lord

Victoria Lord

Victoria "Viki" Lord is the principal fictional character and matriarch of the Lord family on the ABC soap opera One Life to Live...

 (Erika Slezak

Erika Slezak

Erika Alma Hermina Slezak is an American actress, best known for her role as Victoria Lord on the American daytime soap opera One Life to Live...

).

Selected filmography

Film
Year	Film	Role	Notes
1968	The Shakiest Gun in the West The Shakiest Gun in the West The Shakiest Gun in the West is a 1968 Western comedy film starring Don Knotts. It was directed by Alan Rafkin and written by Jim Fritzell and Everett Greenbaum.The film is a remake of The Paleface, a 1948 movie starring Bob Hope and Jane Russell....	Penelope 'Bad Penny' Cushings
1973	Scream Blacula Scream Scream Blacula Scream Scream Blacula Scream is a 1973 blaxploitation horror film, made under the working titles Blacula Is Beautiful and Blacula Lives Again!. This is the only sequel to the 1972 film Blacula...	Elaine
	Little Cigars Little Cigars (film) Little Cigars is a movie released in 1973 by American International Pictures, about a gang of midgets who team up with a gangster's mistress, played by Golden Globe nominee Angel Tompkins, to go on a crime spree...	Helen	Credited as Barbara Rhodes Alternative title: The Little Cigars Mob
1974	Harry and Tonto Harry and Tonto Harry and Tonto is a 1974 road movie written by Paul Mazursky and Josh Greenfeld and directed by Mazursky, starring Art Carney.-Synopsis:...	Stephanie
1977	The Choirboys The Choirboys (film) The Choirboys is a 1977 American comedy-drama film directed by Robert Aldrich, written by Christopher Knopf and Joseph Wambaugh based on Wambaugh's novel. It features an ensemble cast including Randy Quaid and James Woods...	No Balls Hadley
1980	Serial Serial (1980 film) Serial is a comedy film from 1980 produced by Paramount Pictures. The screenplay, by Rich Eustis and Michael Elias, is drawn from the novel The Serial: A Year in the Life of Marin County by Cyra McFadden, published in 1977...	Vivian
Television
Year	Title	Role	Notes
1968	The Virginian The Virginian (TV series) The Virginian is an American Western television series starring James Drury and Doug McClure, which aired on NBC from 1962 to 1971 for a total of 249 episodes. Filmed in color, The Virginian became television's first 90-minute western series...	Josie	1 episode
1970	The Partridge Family The Partridge Family The Partridge Family is an American television sitcom about a widowed mother and her five children who embark on a music career. The series originally ran from September 25, 1970 until August 31, 1974, the last new episode airing on March 23, 1974, on the ABC network, as part of a Friday-night lineup...	La Von	1 episode
1971	Bewitched Bewitched Bewitched is an American situation comedy originally broadcast for eight seasons on ABC from 1964 to 1972, starring Elizabeth Montgomery, Dick York and Dick Sargent , Agnes Moorehead, and David White. The show is about a witch who marries a mortal and tries to lead the life of a typical suburban...	Aretha	1 episode
1972	McCloud	Susan	1 episode
1972	Mission: Impossible Mission: Impossible Mission: Impossible is an American television series which was created and initially produced by Bruce Geller. It chronicled the missions of a team of secret American government agents known as the Impossible Missions Force . The leader of the team was Jim Phelps, played by Peter Graves, except in...	Vicki Wells	1 episode
1973	Night Gallery Night Gallery Night Gallery is an American anthology series that aired on NBC from 1970 to 1973, featuring stories of horror and the macabre. Rod Serling, who had gained fame from an earlier series, The Twilight Zone, served both as the on-air host of Night Gallery and as a major contributor of scripts, although...	Julie	1 episode
1974	Happy Days Happy Days Happy Days is an American television sitcom that originally aired from January 15, 1974, to September 24, 1984, on ABC. Created by Garry Marshall, the series presents an idealized vision of life in mid-1950s to mid-1960s America....	Bubbles McCall	1 episode
1975	Petrocelli Petrocelli Petrocelli is an American legal drama which ran for two seasons on NBC from September 11, 1974 to March 31, 1976.-Plot:Tony Petrocelli was an Italian-American Harvard-educated lawyer who grew up in South Boston and gave up the big money and frenetic pace of major-metropolitan life to practice in a...	Virginia Halima	1 episode
1976	The Blue Knight (TV Series) The Blue Knight (TV series) The Blue Knight was a CBS Crime TV series, running in 1975 and 1976, starring George Kennedy as Officer Bumper Morgan. The show was a based on a novel by author Joseph Wambaugh and produced by Lorimar Productions.- Plot :...	Carrie	4 episodes
1976	Sanford and Son Sanford and Son Sanford and Son is an American sitcom, based on the BBC's Steptoe and Son, that ran on the NBC television network from January 14, 1972, to March 25, 1977....	Gladys	3 episodes
1978	The Love Boat The Love Boat The Love Boat is an American television series set on a cruise ship, which aired on the ABC Television Network from September 24,1977, until May 24,1986.The show starred Gavin MacLeod as the ship's captain...	Di Di Donnelly	1 episode
1979	Hanging In Hanging In Hanging In is an American sitcom that aired on CBS in 1979, executive produced by Norman Lear.-Synopsis:After his failed attempt to launch the sitcom Mr. Dugan, Lear reworked the project, finally coming up with Hanging In, the story of Lou Harper, a former pro football star who becomes president of...	Maggie Gallagher	6 episodes
1980–1981	Soap Soap (TV series) Soap is an American sitcom that originally ran on ABC from 1977 to 1981.The show was created as a parody of daytime soap operas, presented as a weekly half-hour prime time comedy. Similar to a soap opera, the show's story was presented in a serial format and included melodramatic plot elements such...	Maggie Chandler	10 episodes
1982	Magnum, P.I. Magnum, P.I. Magnum, P.I. is an American television series starring Tom Selleck as Thomas Magnum, a private investigator living on Oahu, Hawaii. The series ran from 1980 to 1988 in first-run broadcast on the American CBS television network....	Marcella Ziller	1 episode
1985	Cagney & Lacey Cagney & Lacey Cagney & Lacey is an American television series that originally aired on the CBS television network for seven seasons from October 8, 1981 to May 16, 1988...	Cece Wentworth	1 episode
1986	You Again? You Again? You Again? is an American situation comedy that was broadcast by NBC from February 27, 1986 to March 30, 1987 for two seasons.-Plot:You Again? stars Jack Klugman as Henry Willows, a man still embittered from his divorce ten years earlier, who had made no effort to see his son Matt during that time...	Maggie Davis	4 episodes
1988	Charles in Charge Charles in Charge Charles in Charge is an American sitcom series which starred Scott Baio as Charles, a 19-year-old student at the fictional Copeland College in New Jersey, who worked as a live-in babysitter in exchange for room and board...	Pat Walker	1 episode
1990	Father Dowling Mysteries Father Dowling Mysteries Father Dowling Mysteries is an American television mystery series that appeared between November 30, 1987 and May 2, 1991. For its first season, the show was on NBC; it moved to ABC network for its last two seasons...	Daphne Dumont	1 episode
1991	Over My Dead Body	Det. Loraine McBride	1 episode
1993	Diagnosis Murder Diagnosis Murder Diagnosis: Murder is a mystery/medical/crime drama television series starring Dick Van Dyke as Dr. Mark Sloan, a medical doctor who solves crimes with the help of his son, a homicide detective played by his real-life son Barry Van Dyke. The series began as a spin-off of Jake and the Fatman...	Marcy Blake	1 episode
1995	Marker Marker (TV series) Marker was an American hour long television drama that premiered on the UPN on March 20, 1995. It was set in and filmed in Hawaii.The series focused on Richard DeMorra , a man given a strange inheritance from his late father: markers which were given in the past by his father to those who had...	Woman	1 episode
2003	Law & Order Law & Order Law & Order is an American police procedural and legal drama television series, created by Dick Wolf and part of the Law & Order franchise. It aired on NBC, and in syndication on various cable networks. Law & Order premiered on September 13, 1990, and completed its 20th and final season on May 24,...	Kathy McGarity	1 episode
2011	One Life To Live One Life to Live One Life to Live is an American soap opera which debuted on July 15, 1968 and has been broadcast on the ABC television network. Created by Agnes Nixon, the series was the first daytime drama to primarily feature racially and socioeconomically diverse characters and consistently emphasize social...	Irene Manning Irene Manning (One Life to Live) Irene Manning is a fictional character from the original daytime soap opera, One Life to Live. The character first appears on-screen May 27, 1978 originated by the actress Kate McKeown. In 1985, Andrea Evans portrayed her in flashbacks...

External links