Barbara Tarbuck dead: General Hospital star dies aged 74

The actor died of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease at her Los Angeles home

Tarbuck has been a familiar face across a number of other American TV series, appearing on The Waltons, Dallas, Judging Amy, M*A*S*H, Cagney & Lacey, The Golden Girls, Star Trek: Enterprise, and Mad Men (Getty Images)

Barbara Tarbuck, who played Lady Lane Jacks on General Hospital for more than a decade, has died at the age of 74.

Her daughter Jennifer Lane Connolly told The Hollywood Reporter the actor died of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease at her Los Angeles home on boxing day. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disorder is a rare degenerative brain disease.

Tarbuck played the role of Jax Jacks’ mother Lady Jane Jacks on the massively popular ABC soap opera General Hospital from 1996 until 2010. She also portrayed the role of Mother Superior Claudia on American Horror Story: Asylum.

Besides from those two shows, Tarbuck has been a familiar face across a number of other American TV series, appearing on The Waltons, Dallas, Judging Amy, M*A*S*H, Cagney & Lacey, The Golden Girls, Star Trek: Enterprise, and Mad Men.

Born and raised in Detroit, Tarbuck embarked on a career in showbusiness from an early age, appearing on children’s radio show Storyland on CBS-owned station WWJ from the age of nine to 13. After studying acting at Wayne State University in Michigan, she went on to study at LAMDA in west London on a Fulbright Scholarship. After graduating she set off for New York to pursue a career in acting.

She has appeared in films such as Big Trouble, Curly Sue, Walking Tall and more. Away from the screen, Tarbuck taught acting at UCLA for years.

Tarbuck is survived by her daughter who is a producer, her son-in-law, Samuel Chawinga, and her two grandsons Cianan and Cuinn Chawinga.