Adrienne Barbeau Recalls Entertaining Soldiers Overseas for 3 Months as a Teen Before Landing First Broadway Show (Exclusive)

Angela AndaloroSat, October 17, 2026 at 9:59 PM UTC

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Ilene Kristen, Barry Bostwick and Adrienne Barbeau in 2011Credit: AlamyThe beloved scream queen got her start in musicals including ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ and ‘Grease’ -

Adrienne Barbeau is best known for starring in several iconic horror films, but she got her start in musicals

The actress, 81, talks to PEOPLE about originating Rizzo in 1972’s Grease on Broadway

Barbeau is currently touring the globe promoting her latest film, Oddities

After over 60 years in the entertainment industry, Adrienne Barbeau is grateful for the friends she’s made along the way.

Speaking with PEOPLE about her latest film, Oddities, the 81-year-old actress reflects on her beginnings in the industry. Barbeau says she “didn’t grow up going to the movies very much or watching TV very much,” but waded into acting by joining community theater around 15 and quickly fell in love with musical comedies.

“I was rehearsing at night and performing at night and other things in high school, cheerleading and all of that,” she tells PEOPLE.

“A week after I graduated high school, the community theater that I was working with had put together a musical comedy review, and we applied to the State Department. And I got on my very first airplane ride and flew from Sacramento to Japan, and we entertained the armed forces for three months, all throughout Southeast Asia,” Barbeau tells PEOPLE.

Adrienne Barbeau in the early 1970sCredit: Art Zelin/Getty

After returning from the tour, Barbeau headed to college. While she enjoyed entertaining, she didn’t see it as a possible career.

During her freshman year, however, a friend suggested that she try her luck in New York. She was unsure at first, but decided to take the plunge, promising herself, “If I’m not working as an actor by the time I’m 25, I’ll go back, and I’ll get my degree, and I’ll teach acting.”

“But by the time I was 25, I was in the union, and I was doing musicals. My first Broadway show was in 1968, so I would have been 23, and that was Fiddler on the Roof. And I did Fiddler for two and a half years because I had a steady job doing what I love,” she explains. “And then I did Grease, and then Grease led to Norman Lear bringing me out here to do Maude, and that led to all of the other stuff.”

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Adrienne Barbeau in 2024Credit: Chad Salvador/Variety via Getty

Barbeau played Rizzo in the 1972 Broadway musical Grease. The production also featured Barry Bostwick as Danny Zuko, Carole Demas as Sandy Dumbrowski, Timothy Meyers as Kenickie and more.

“Grease was a whole other thing because it had an enormous impact on my life, not only in that it introduced me to Norman Lear and then Maude and everything that followed, but all of the actors in Grease were all about the same age. We were all about the same place in our careers,” she notes.

“They have remained my closest friends ever since 1972 when we opened,” Barbeau continues. “Grease was different because it was new. We were getting visibility. I never had an agent until after I was nominated for the Tony.”

Barbeau remembers that point in her career as “a wonderful time.”

“It was a wonderful time in New York, too, for that matter,” she adds. “I used to ride my bicycle from the village up to 45th street to do Fiddler and then walk across the village, because Grease was in the East Village and I lived in the West Village. And so, it was a joyful time.”

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”