Barbara Tarbuck, an actress who appeared regularly on the TV soap operas “Santa Barbara” and “General Hospital,” the latter as Lady Jane Jacks, died Tuesday, Dec. 27, 2016. She was 74.

Barbara Tarbuck, an actress who appeared regularly on the TV soap operas “Santa Barbara” and “General Hospital,” the latter as Lady Jane Jacks, died Tuesday, Dec. 27, 2016, according to multiple news sources, including Soap Opera Digest. She was 74.

More recently, in 2012 and 2013, Tarbuck played Mother Superior Claudia for five episodes on “American Horror Story: Asylum.” Other television credits include episodes of “The Golden Girls,” “Knots Landing,” “Cagney & Lacey,” “Falcon Crest,” “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” and “The Practice.”


Her best-known role was as Lady Jane Jacks on 41 episodes of the daytime soap “General Hospital.”

Her acting credits weren’t limited to the small screen. She appeared in films including “Short Circuit” (1986), “The Death of the Incredible Hulk” (1990), “Walking Tall” (2004), and “Postcard From the Palace” (2014).

Click to get weekly celebrity death news delivered to your inbox.

Tarbuck was born Jan. 15, 1942, in Detroit, Michigan. She began performing as a young girl on a radio show titled “Storyland.” She received a master’s degree in theater from the University of Michigan and later trained on a Fulbright Scholarship to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

Tarbuck also enjoyed teaching acting.

“Teaching and acting and directing all feed one another in me,” she wrote on her website. “I am as stimulated and questioned by the young people in my life as I am by new material or a famous director’s notes.

“On stage, before the camera, and in the classroom are the questions, demands, disappointments, delights that feed my soul.”

We invite you to share condolences for Barbara Tarbuck in our Guest Book.