Barbara Parkins (born on May 22, 1942) is a Canadian television and film actress.

Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, at the age of sixteen Parkins and her mother moved to Los Angeles, where she enrolled at Hollywood High School and began to study acting. Her earliest employment was as a backup singer and dancer in the nightclub acts of major stars, including comedian George Burns. She made her film debut in a low-budget crime caper, 20,000 Eyes, in 1961, and also guested in a number of television series, including Leave It to Beaver, The Untouchables, and Perry Mason.

Parkins was involved in two of the most highly publicized projects of the 1960s—the ABC primetime serial Peyton Place and the film adaptation of Jacqueline Susann's best-selling trash novel, Valley of the Dolls.

In Peyton Place, Parkins received lead billing for her role as small town bad girl Betty Anderson. As initially conceived, the character was scheduled to die in a car crash six weeks into the season, but audience reaction to Parkins was overwhelmingly favorable, and it was decided to keep her in the story line. She was the only female star to remain with the series throughout its entirety (1964-1969). In 1966, she was nominated for an Emmy Award as Best Actress in a Lead Role in a Dramatic Series, but lost to Barbara Stanwyck for The Big Valley. Eventually shedding her "other side of the tracks" image, Betty endured many of the trials and tribulations of soap opera life, and the character achieved such popularity that when the show ended its run, producer Paul Monash developed a spin-off series, The Girl from Peyton Place, for Parkins. However, when co-star Ryan O'Neal, who played her husband, declined to participate, the project was shelved.

In Valley of the Dolls, Parkins played Anne Welles, the naive small-town girl described as "the good girl with a million dollar face and all the bad breaks"—a character based on author Susann. The film was trashed by the critics, although Parkins was one of the few to emerge unscathed. Nonetheless, it was a huge commercial success and eventually became a campy cult classic. Susann herself, who hated the movie, felt Parkins was the only redeeming feature in it.

Parkins' career never quite lived up to its early promise. After discovering London in 1968 when she served as a bridesmaid at the wedding of Dolls co-star Sharon Tate and director Roman Polanski, Parkins decided to move to England, where she starred in several productions. Among them were Puppet on a Chain, Shout at the Devil, and The Mephisto Waltz, with Alan Alda and Jacqueline Bisset. Parkins tried to capitalize on her sex symbol image by posing for nude pictorials in the May 1967, February 1970, and May 1976 editions of Playboy Magazine. She spent most of the mid-70s appearing on American television in several mini-series, including Jenny: Lady Randolph Churchill with Lee Remick, Captains and the Kings with another Dolls co-star, Patty Duke, and The Testimony of Two Men with William Shatner. She also appeared in guest shots on Fantasy Island, The Love Boat, Hotel, and Vega$.

In the late 1970s, Parkins moved to France and married, and in the late 1980s she gave birth to her only child, daughter Christina.

In the 1980s, she continued to work in television movies, including To Catch a King, in which she portrayed the Duchess of Windsor, and opposite Sharon Stone in The Calendar Girl Murders. She returned to the role of Betty Anderson in Peyton Place: The Next Generation, a one-shot sequel to her popular series, in 1985.

In 1991, she starred in a Canadian mystery series entitled Scene of the Crime, then spent most of the remainder of the decade in semi-retirement. She emerged in the late 1990s to participate in two Susann-inspired projects, the biopic Scandalous Me and a segment of the Lifetime series Intimate Portrait. In 1995 she was chosen by Empire magazine as number 81 on their list of 100 Sexiest Stars in film history.

She has not worked as an actress for the past few years. In 2006, she participated with Ted Casablanca on the audio-commentary for the DVD release of Valley of the Dolls and attended the release party on June 13, 2006.

Barbara Parkins is best remembered as an icon of the sixties who had starring roles in two of the era's more notorious productions, "Peyton Place" (1964) and Valley of the Dolls (1967). After arriving in Hollywood as a teenager, Parkins soon began appearing on episodic television programs such as "Wagon Train" (1957) and "Perry Mason" (1957). She also appeared with George Burns as a dancer in his nightclub act. She was soon offered the pivotal role of "Betty Anderson" in what would become television's first prime time soap opera, "Peyton Place" (1964). The show was an immediate success and turned Parkins, along with costars 'Ryan O'Neal (I)' and Mia Farrow into household names. Parkins was nominated for an Emmy Award as Best Actress and stayed with the series for its entire 5 year run. Her popularity was further solidified when, in 1967, she starred in the motion picture Valley of the Dolls (1967), which became a huge box office hit. She became close friends with her Dolls costar, Sharon Tate and traveled to London to be her bridesmaid when Tate married director Roman Polanski in 1968. Parkins fell in love with England, UK. After Tate's murder in 1969, Parkins decided to leave Hollywood and took up residence in London. There, she appeared on the BBC and starred in such international productions as _Puppet on a Chain (1970)_, Christina (1974) and Shout at the Devil (1976). Her career, however, was no longer the prime focus of her life. She married in the late 1970's and lived in France for awhile. When her marriage ended, Parkins returned to the United States and gave Hollywood another try. She appeared in popular tv shows of the day such as "Love Boat, The" (1977), 0077008, and "Hotel" (1983). She also filmed Bear Island (1979) with Donald Sutherland (I) and Vanessa Redgrave and Breakfast in Paris (1982). Parkins joined other original cast members for a Peyton Place reunion movie in 1985. Her career, however, was once again put on hold when her daughter Christina was born. Parkins has made infrequent appearances since the late 1980's although she did return to weekly television for a brief stint in the CBS TV series "Scene of the Crime" (1991) which was filmed in the city she was born, Vancouver. In 1997, Parkins was the guest of honor at a 30th anniversary screening of Valley of the Dolls (1967) in San Francisco. During a question and answer segment with columnist Ted Casablanca she announced to the sold out audience that she planned to retire. The following year, however, she appeared in Scandalous Me: The Jacqueline Susann Story (1998) (TV), based on the life of Valley of the Dolls' controversial author. Whether Parkins will resume her career full time or really retire is unknown at this time.