Barbara Bain

Friends, I have now read the Wikipedia page for The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan’s Island, which Barbara Bain was in, and it’s a lot. I’m not entirely sure what character she was playing, but I think she’s a scientist who creates robot basketball players to defeat the Harlem Globetrotters? Maybe? In case you’re wondering where the plot to Space Jam came from. It features a third actress playing Ginger, Martin Landau as a rival millionaire, and let’s not forget Gilligan sinking the winning shot because of course he does. It is not the proudest moment in Bain’s career, I’m sure, and it’s kind of amazing that you can still ask her. She has been moved way up the schedule, because she is as of this writing alive at the age of 93.

Bain has a BA in sociology, but she then started dancing. She studied with Martha Graham. Then, she decided she didn’t want to be a dancer and did some modeling. She went to the Theater Studio then from there to the Actors Studio. She married Martin Landau, and they toured with a Paddy Chayefsky play before settling in Hollywood, where Bain joined the Actors Studio West. She taught there while working in Hollywood.

Okay, it turns out I had never in fact seen Mission Impossible. (Bain has never seen the movies, because they have nothing to do with the show.) I actually did take the time to watch a few episodes, since I found it streaming. I like that her character, Cinnamon Carter, is more than just Former Model Cinnamon Carter. She is a full member of the team who does real work for it while also acknowledging that, yeah, at least some of her job has to do with being eye candy. She’s contributing to the work of the team, but she’s also distracting distractable guards by being a lady-type person.

Now, it wasn’t the first place I saw her—she did two episodes of Perry Mason, if nothing else—but the place I remember her from is her episode of My So-Called Life. She plays Vivian Wood, Angela’s maternal grandmother. She is, to be frank, an awful person. She adopted Patty, Angela’s mother, but she doesn’t seem to like Patty very much. She twists the Chases into hosting her anniversary party, which her own husband ends up not attending, and drives Graham crazy over food. She undermines Patty’s parenting, too, though I’m sure she’d never think that of herself. But Bain is magnificent in the role; she’s beautiful and completely confident in herself.

She’s still working. Now, we’ve spoken repeatedly about how people are allowed to retire, especially if they’re well above the average life expectancy, but I do find it kind of impressive that someone of her age is still going. Her most recent credit is from a Billy Crystal show that I literally forgot existed from this year. She’s honestly got an impressive array of credits, from Mike Hammer to Ben 10. And if I’m extremely disappointed that her Walker, Texas Ranger credit is not the episode where Walker tells the kid he has AIDS, well, it’s still yet another stop on a career that is well worth discussing.