Barrie Youngfellow, Star of ‘It’s a Living,’ Dies at 75

Martin Holmes April 4, 2022, 8:15 am

Barrie Youngfellow It's A Living — Lorimer Telepictures / Courtesy: Everett Collection

Barrie Youngfellow, a veteran actor best known for playing Jan Hoffmeyer Gray in the 1980s sitcom It’s a Living, has died. She was 75.

The beloved sitcom star passed away last Monday (March 28), as confirmed by her family in an online obituary. “She was the best of friends and had many loyal ones. Loved a good story and a nice bottle. Had a great laugh that confirmed her sense of life. Even during her decline, she could shoot off a good one liner,” her family wrote. A cause of death has not been revealed.

Youngfellow was born on October 22, 1946, in Cleveland, Ohio. Her career in show business began in local productions of Peter Pan before she transitioned to television in the 1970s. One of her first roles was in a 1973 episode of The New Temperatures Rising Show, after which she went on to appear in numerous TV shows of the 1970s and 80s, including The Streets of San Francisco, Fernwood 2 Night, WKRP in Cincinnati, Barney Miller, The Jeffersons, and Three’s Company.

Her big break came in 1980 when she was cast as the sharp-tongued Jan Joffmeyer Gray on the ABC sitcom It’s a Living. She appeared in the show during both its original 1980-82 run and its first-run syndication from 1985-89. It’s a Living producers Paul Junger Witt and Tony Thomas would later cast Youngfellow in the pilot episode of Blossom as the mother of Mayim Bialik‘s lead character; however, she did not continue with the project when it was picked up by NBC.

In addition to her TV series work, Youngfellow also starred in several films and made-for-TV movies, including Nightmare in Blood, Vampire, It Came Upon the Midnight Clear, and Moviola: The Scarlett O’Hara War, where she portrayed Joan Crawford. Her final on-screen appearance came in 1998 in an episode of Law & Order.