Barbara Babcock

Barbara Babcock (born February 27, 1937) appeared as Charmaine Gertrude Hollingsworth, Blanche's younger sister, in the Season 5 episode of The Golden Girls titled "Sisters and Other Strangers". A talented character actress, Barbara is perhaps best known for her roles as the sensuous Grace Gardner on the NBC-TV crime/drama series Hill Street Blues for which she won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress—Drama Series in 1981 and her role as Dorothy Jennings on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, for which she was nominated for an Emmy Award in 1993.

Early life
Although she was born in the United States, she spent a large part of her childhood in Tokyo, Japan, because her father Conrad Stanton Babcock, Jr. was a general in the United States Army. She learned to speak Japanese before English. She attended Miss Porter's School and later Wellesley College, where she was a classmate of Ali MacGraw.

Career
Babcock appeared in several episodes of television series between 1956 and 1967, including Star Trek from 1967–68. In 1968, she made her debut on the big screen in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer western movie Day of the Evil Gun, followed by roles in the films Heaven with a Gun, co-starring Glenn Ford, Bang the Drum Slowly, Chosen Survivors, The Black Marble, Back Roads and The Lords of Discipline. From 1978 to 1981, she played the role of Liz Craig on the CBS primetime soap opera Dallas.

Babcock won the 1981 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress—Drama Series for her work on Hill Street Blues. She appeared in 16 episodes of the NBC police drama as Grace Gardner from 1981 to 1986. She starred in the short-lived TV series The Four Seasons in 1984, Mr. Sunshine in 1986 and The Law and Harry McGraw in 1987.

Others of Babcock's notable films include Heart of Dixir, Happy Together, Far and Away and Space Cowboys.

From 1993 to 1998, she played the role as Dorothy Jennings on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, for which she was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 1993. She was voted one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the World by People magazine in 1994. After completion of the show in 1998, she appeared in the The Pretender, Chicago Hope, Frasier and Judging Amy. From 2001 to 2002, she played the role of the mother of Dana Delany's character in the FOX network drama series Pasadena. Since 2004 she has not done film or television roles.