Colleen Zenk

Colleen Zenk is an American actress.

In 1975, Zenk moved to New York City and made her stage debut as well began screen tests for Indiana Jones, Grease, and Superman.

She is known for her role as Barbara Ryan in the CBS daytime soap opera, As the World Turns, a role she played from September 1978 until the show ended in September 2010.

She received three Daytime Emmy Awards nominations for her performance.

Zenk was born in Barrington, Illinois, and studied drama at The Catholic University of America.

Her goal was to be a dancer, but a knee injury ended her dancing career.

She appeared in print ads and TV commercials at the beginning of her career, including several commercials for Kellogg's.

After 12 failed soap opera screen tests, Zenk finally landed the role of Barbara Ryan in the CBS daytime soap opera, As the World Turns in 1978.

After auditioning for several soap operas, including The Edge of Night, Guiding Light and Search for Tomorrow, Zenk was signed to a contract at As the World Turns and assumed the role of Barbara in 1978.

In 1980, she made her big screen debut appearing in the horror film, Christmas Evil.

For a brief period in the mid-1980s, the character of Barbara, as written by award-winning head writer Douglas Marland, became a complex romantic vixen.

In 1980, Zenk co-starred on Broadway with musical theatre legends Chita Rivera and Donald O'Connor in the sequel to Bye Bye Birdie titled Bring Back Birdie.

In 1982 she appeared with Albert Finney and Carol Burnett, in the musical film Annie directed by John Huston.

In 1982, Zenk was also the focus of a commercial for L'eggs pantyhose.

In 1993, Zenk went to star along with fellow daytime performers Deidre Hall and Leslie Charleson in the leading roles of the NBC made-for-television movie Women on the Ledge.

Zenk's most notable role was as Barbara Ryan on As the World Turns.

In 2001, then head-writer Hogan Sheffer took the character in a drastically different direction after the character suffered burns in a fire which destroyed her face (and more deception by then-husband Craig Montgomery).

She was nominated for a Lead Actress Daytime Emmy Award in 2001, 2002.

Sheffer won the Emmy Outstanding Writing in 2001, 2002, 2004 and 2005, in part with stories featuring Zenk's work.

In the summer of 2005, Zenk came out of her self-imposed musical theater retirement and starred as Dolly Levi in a regional tour of Hello Dolly! at the Academy Theater in Meadville, Pennsylvania, and the Pocono Playhouse.

Due to overwhelming audience response, she was asked to reprise the role that fall at the Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope, Pennsylvania.

Sheffer was quoted in a 2006 interview in a cover-feature article in The New Yorker that he wanted to give Zenk, whom he felt was an "under-utilized gem of an actress", more to do than just pour coffee with children underfoot.

Zenk was prominently featured in the show's special 50th anniversary episode "Seven Divas on a Bus" in April 2006, and also in several special comedy episodes over the years.

In June 2007, three weeks after her initial three surgeries for oral cancer, in the 50th anniversary production at Little Theatre on the Square of Sullivan, Illinois.

The production was Stephen Sondheim's Follies, and Zenk played Phyllis Stone.

Recovering from tongue reconstruction and on heavy pain medication due to radiation burning and side effects, Zenk sang and danced with the 35-piece orchestra, and brought down the house.

She played the role for 32 years, until the show ended in 2010.

In the early years of Zenk's run on As the World Turns, her character, Barbara, was tormented by her criminal ex-husband, James Stenbeck (played by Anthony Herrera).

and 2011, and also voted Best Villain by Soap Opera Digest in 2003.

In April 2011, only four months after more cancer surgery to her tongue, she debuted her one-woman show Colleen Zenk: LIVE at Bob Egan's New Hope, to great critical acclaim.

She was featured in a new Off-Broadway show from the Araca Group, Odyssey – The Epic Musical at the American Theatre of Actors in October 2011.

Then, the long-awaited New York debut of her one-woman show Still Sassy premiered at Feinstein's at the Regency in New York City October–November 2011.

She was one of the many producers of the Broadway revival of Godspell.

In late 2012, she starred in the off-Broadway world premiere of the stage version of the bestselling memoir, Marrying George Clooney, Confessions from a Mid-life Crisis.

She kicked off the 2012–2013 theatre season for CAP21 in their "Concerts for CAP21" Benefit Series with a "standing room only" night of her one-woman show Still Sassy.

In 2013, she portrayed iconic actress Tallulah Bankhead in the Regional Premiere of Matthew Lombardo's play Looped at STAGEWORKS/Hudson.

The world premiere of Michael Slade's play Family Shots at the Human Race Theatre Company in 2015 earned her a Lead Actress in a Play DayTony nomination.

That same year, she played Polly Wyeth in back-to-back productions of the Pulitzer Prize nominated play Other Desert Cities by Jon Robin Baitz, directed by Dan Foster at Theatre Workshop of Nantucket and the Hudson Stage Company in New York.

In June 2018, Zenk returned to the role of Dolly in Hello, Dolly! at The Little Theatre on the Square.

In 2020, Zenk made several appearances on the YouTube show The Locher Room, which facilitates discussions with entertainment figures, including actors, writers and producers from soap operas.