Barbara McNair: Lost in the Crowd

Barbara McNair—like Nancy Wilson, Diahann Carroll, Gail Fisher, Della Reese and Freda Payne—was an enormously talented Black pop singer, variety show guest, and theater, TV and film actress whose career began to take off in the 1960s. And while you're likely familiar with the other women I just mentioned, McNair may not be known to you at all. Today, she seems all but a footnote in an era when soul surged and pop artists roosted in Las Vegas and in supper clubs. The songs she was given weren't always the best, she never landed her own TV drama or sitcom, and she probably worked too long as an opening act and TV variety show guest.

Or perhaps she had a lousy manager or just didn't have the personality to win larger audiences. Or as a Las Vegas hotel headliner in the 1960s, maybe the mob got their hooks into her early and didn't want her touring or getting too big, so they limited her opportunities. Or she may have just made bad career decisions.

Whatever the reasons that kept McNair from becoming a household name, she was still one of the first Black women to have her own TV variety show (the Barbara McNair Show, from 1969 to 1971), appeared as a guest on many TV cop shows and sitcoms, and was Sidney Poitier's wife in They Call Me Mister Tibbs! (1970) and its sequel, The Organization (1971). She also had a prolific recording career, first with Broadway standards and then with Motown.

Her ill-fated heroin-possession arrest in 1972 at the Playboy Club in New Jersey did serious damage, even though charges were dismissed when it turned out she had merely signed for a package and didn't know its contents. Work slowed considerably after and, in 1987, McNair filed for personal bankruptcy with debt totaling nearly $500,00. She died in 2007 after a seven-year battle with throat cancer.

Here are clips of McNair in action:

Here's Barbara McNair on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1965...

Here's McNair for Coca-Cola in 1965...

Here's McNair in 1967 singing When the Sun Comes Out...

Here's McNair singing It Happens Every Time in 1969...

Here's McNair with Freda Payne in 1970 singing Do You Know the Way to San Jose? Dig the harmony lines...

Here's McNair singing More Today Than Yesterday in 1970...

And here's Barbara McNair pre-taping TV's Center Stage with Duke Ellington in November 1966. It's unclear if this show ever aired or if it was a half-color/half black-and-white pilot for the variety show she ended up hosting between 1969 and 1971...