Barbara Anderson (actress)

Barbara Anderson (actress)

Barbara Anderson (born 27 November 1945, in New York City) is an American actress who is best known for portraying police "Officer Eve Whitfield" in the television series Ironside, and for her seven appearances as the secret agent "Mimi Davis" during the final season of the American TV series Mission: Impossible. Anderson was born and spent her early years in New York City, but during her teenage years, she resided in the Memphis, Tennessee, area, where her parents had moved.

While she was a resident of Memphis, Anderson competed in and won the title of Miss Memphis in 1963.

She decided to move to Los Angeles to find work as an actress. She was successful at this, and in 1966, one of her first TV appearances came in an early, first-season episode of Star Trek, "The Conscience of the King". Anderson also starred in the pilot for the TV series Mannix, which was filmed in 1966.

In 1967, Anderson became one of the four original cast members of the TV series Ironside, and the lead actress in this series (for the first 105 episodes). Anderson played the role of police Officer "Eve Whitfield" of the San Francisco Police Department, where she was one of three people chosen to assist the wheelchair-using former Chief of Detectives for San Francisco, "Robert Ironside", who was played by Raymond Burr. Anderson continued in her role as Officer Whitfield for four seasons. In 1968, Anderson won the television Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in Drama Series for her work in Ironside.

In 1971, Anderson left Ironside, and full-time TV series acting, because she wanted to devote time to her new marriage to the Scottish-born former actor, and stockbroker, Don Burnett. Anderson and Burnett remain married as of November 2009. They have no children.

She next acted in some guest roles in TV series including performances as the wife of a man who inherits a notoriously haunted house in the Night Gallery episode "Fright Night" and as a witness to a mob hit in the Harry O episode "Material Witness." She then accepted a recurring role (seven episodes) in the final season of Mission Impossible. Since then, she has acted in several made-for-TV movies and in guest roles in some regular TV series. However, Anderson's last acting appearance on TV or in films was in 1993, in the TV movie Return of Ironside, where she reprised her role as Eve Whitfield, now the mother of a daughter.