Barbara Minkus
BARBARA MINKUS began in show business in NYC in Julius Monk's review, Bits and Pieces. She went on to receive rave reviews touring as Fanny Brice in Funny Girl throughout the United States. She played Lucy in the original NY recording cast of You're a Good Man Charlie Brown. On Broadway, Barbara starred in The Education of Hyman Kaplan, directed by the great George Abbott.
On television, she was a regular for six seasons of Love American Style, played Gittel the Witch in ABC’s Curiosity Shop, and was the voice of Ms. Pacman in the ABC cartoon series, Pacman. She made numerous television appearances over the years on The Danny Kaye Show, The Tonight Show, and made a record 20 appearances on The Merv Griffin Show.She also guest-starred on HBO’s award-winning Getting On.
After taking time out to raise her family, Barbara returned to theatre at The Santa Monica playhouse to appear in Funny You Don't Look Like A Grandmother. She then brought Picon Pie to the Playhouse, playing Molly Picon, a role she helped research, and which she later reprised Off-Broadway. In L.A., she starred as Jennie Grossinger in the musical, Saturday Night at Grossinger’s, and did the role in Ft. Lauderdale Florida.
Other musical theatre performances include Miss Lynch in Grease at the Muni Theatre in St. Louis, and Yente in Fiddler on the Roof at both the Muni and the Starlight Theatre in Kansas City. She also starred in the LA and Off-Broadway Musical, Don’t Leave It All to Your Children.
Barbara co-wrote and starred in I’m Not Famous: A Musical Journey with Barbara Minkus at the Santa Monica Playhouse for a ten month run then retitled and retooled the show
“18 Minutes of Fame”: She presented it in LA at The Pico Playhouse and The Braid. She then did the show at The Triad in NYC and in 2024 at The York Theatre in NYC adding new Hyman Kaplan stories about George Abbott, Tom Bosley and Hal Linden.
Barbara recently starred in Kander and Ebb’s “70 Girls 70” at Group Rep in Los Angeles
When the Covid shutdown began, Barbara started her YouTube Show for almost two years which is a song and story series “About Life” doing 25 songs and the stories about the songs youtube.com/BarbaraMinkusChannel also visit Barbara at www.barbaraminkus.com