Barbara Hershey

On the set, she met and began a romantic relationship with actor David Carradine, who later starred in the television series Kung Fu (see Personal Life). In the same year, she acted in the controversial drama Last Summer, which was based on the novel by Evan Hunter. Hershey played Sandy in this film, the "heavy," influencing two young men, played by Bruce Davison and Richard Thomas, to rape another girl, Rhoda, played by Catherine Burns. Even though the film, directed by Frank Perry, received an X rating for the graphic rape scene, it earned a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for Burns.

During the filming of Last Summer, a seagull was killed. "In one scene," Hershey explained, "I had to throw the bird in the air to make her fly. We had to reshoot the scene over and over again. I could tell the bird was tired. Finally when the scene was finished the director, Frank Perry, told me the bird had broken her neck on the last throw." Hershey felt responsible for the bird's death and changed her stage name to "Seagull," as a tribute to the creature. "I felt her spirit enter me," she later explained, "It was the only moral thing to do." The name change was not positively received. When she was offered a part opposite Timothy Bottoms in The Crazy World of Julius Vrooder (1974) (AKA Vrooder's Hooch) Hershey had to forfeit half her salary, $25,000, to be billed under the name "Seagull," because the producers were not in favor of the billing. Read Less