Biography

Julia Barr is an American actress, most famously for her role playing Brooke English on the soap opera, All My Children. She played the role for over 30 years, first debuting as Brooke in 1976 and exiting the show in 2006. Barr made special appearances as Brooke, reprising her role in both 2010 and 2011. Barr grew up in Fort Wayne, and made her acting debut at the age of 13 in a production of Peter Pan. She graduated as a theater major from the University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, and went on to spent two years at the Studio Arena Theater in Buffalo, New York. She earned her equity card performing at the Studio Arena Theater and starred in a small role in "A Girl in My Soup" which also starred Van Johnson. Not long after marrying her first husband, Barr moved to New York City and continued working in the theater until she was cast as mafia daughter Serena Szabo on Ryan's Hope. The role was supposed to be a two year contract, but the character was written off after only six months. Barr was then cast as the spoiled rich niece of Phoebe Tyler on All My Children, replacing Elissa Leeds as Brooke English. Her character quickly became a fan favorite and garnered eight Emmy nominations for her performance, winning in 1990 and again in 1998. Barr married husband Richard Hirschlag in 1982, and had a daughter, Alison in 1984. In her spare time Barr works with a variety of animal rights organizations and is a spokesperson for The Fund For Animals. Most recently, she has signed a contract to reprise her famous role as Brooke English in Prospect Park's online version of All My Children.
- IMDb mini biography by: Nikki Blackburn

The most important thing in any profession is to be true to yourself because things can come and go, and change for better or worse. You have to have a good foundation for who you are and what you feel about things to weather the ups and the downs. Particularly in this business, it can take you up and down, and you have to love it and be true to yourself.

I happen to look at some old tapes recently online on YouTube and it was all the fallout after the death of Brooke and Tom's daughter, Laura. That storyline, and I feel it's true of most of the story lines that dealt with serious issues, was really covered on multiple levels. They examined the complexity of what this does to people and their relationships--how Tom was affected and Adam was affected, and it was great writing. If you have good writing like that, there's nothing you can't do. I think that was some of my best work.