General Hospital star Barbara Tarbuck died at the age of 74 in L.A. on Monday, December 26, the Hollywood Reporter confirmed. Tarbuck’s daughter, producer Jennifer Lane Connolly, told the publication that the actress passed away of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disorder, a rare brain disease.
Tarbuck is best known for playing Lady Jane Jacks on the soap for more than a decade from 1996 to 2010. She also appeared in five episodes of American Horror Story: Asylum as Mother Superior Claudia from 2012 to 2013. (Watch her talk about being cast in the show in the video above.) Other credits include NYPD Blue, Nip/Tuck, Glee, NCIS, The Golden Girls, Mad Men and Dexter. Her last acting role was in the 2015 comedy-drama Come Simi.
The Detroit native studied acting at Wayne State University in Michigan and later at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art on a Fulbright Scholarship.
Besides TV and film, Tarbuck had a passion for regional theater and Broadway. She performed in shows such as David Mamet’s The Water Engine, Jules Irving’s Landscape and Silence and Neil Simon’s Brighton Beach Memoirs.
Tarbuck is survived by Connolly, son-in-law Samuel Chawinga and two grandsons.
