Barbara was raised in Los Angeles, born to an actress mother who worked as a dancer in the movies during the 1920s and 1930s. Barbara herself married young, raising four children in Culver City and Granada Hills while working as a nurse in a general surgeon’s office for 17 years.
After retiring, she continued to work one day a week for a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills, allowing her to spend time with her first grandchild.
In 1984, a few years after she and her first husband divorced, Barbara’s life took a happily unexpected turn. While attending the wedding of mutual friends (fittingly, the groom was a McDonald’s franchisee), Barbara met Leonard Vanderhoop.
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