Emmy Award-winning actress Julia Barr grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where she caught the acting bug at age 13, and became a star in her hometown. She was acting, singing and dancing in virtually every local production between the Fort Wayne Community Theatre, Civic Theatre, Wagon Wheel Playhouse and Enchanted Hills Playhouse.

She attended Purdue University, where she starred in such productions as Our Town, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Lover, The Killing of Sister George and Endgame. Then she shuffled off to Buffalo's Studio Arena Theatre, where she earned her equity card starring in Scapino and in A Girl in My Soup with Van Johnson. Ms. Barr then moved to New York and the work never stopped.

In June 1976 she landed the role of All My Children's Brooke English, and has played it ever since (except for a 15 month break when she toured with Katharine Hepburn and Dorothy Loudon in the national company of West Side Waltz). Her work on All My Children garnered her eight Emmy Award nominations (1980, 1981, 1990, 1991, 1993, 1994, 1998, 2001), and she won the trophy in 1990 and 1998 for Outstanding Supporting Actress. In 1990 she also took home a Soap Opera Digest Award for Best Supporting Actress. Among her other television credits are Gathering of One, The Adams Chronicles and Ryan's Hope. Her film credits include I, the Jury, and her off-Broadway credits include Kerouac.

Ms. Barr is committed to balancing her career as an actress with her passion and devotion to her family, husband Dr. Richard Hirschlag (an oral surgeon to whom she's been married since February 1982), and daughter Allison (born July 8, 1984). Allison, currently a college student, is also a familiar face to daytime television audiences: She played the role of Lizzie Spaulding on Guiding Light in 2002.

The Barr/Hirschlag household also includes two independent cats (Dinah and Goldie), a rabbit named Louis and a small pond of well-fed goldfish (Bob and Company). The newest addition to the family is Lucy, a Shepherd-Lab mix puppy whom they adopted from a local animal shelter in September 2002.

Since 1991, Ms. Barr has been a spokesperson for The Fund for Animals, a national organization founded in 1967 by author and animal advocate, the late Cleveland Amory (www.fund.org). They work on education, protection, care facilities and rights for both wild and domestic animals. Through her website, www.juliarosebarr.com, Ms. Barr promotes the organization and its cause by featuring topical advice and columns, interviews and information pertaining to the protection of animals.

She also spent several years as an active volunteer for The Coalition for the Homeless' First Step program, a job-readiness program for homeless women, for which she was honored in 1996.

Additionally, Ms. Barr studies voice and, in September 1996, made a splash singing the National Anthem to a full house at Yankee Stadium. In September 2002 she released her first music CD, a holiday collection of songs, From Our House…To Yours, on which her husband and daughter also sing. Ms. Barr and her husband produced the project, for which all proceeds go directly to The Fund for Animals.

In addition to singing, acting and charity work, she is committed to staying healthy and in shape with the help of a fitness trainer and strict exercise program.