Denise DuBarry

Denise DuBarry Hay was an American actress, film producer, businesswoman and philanthropist whose multifaceted career spanned over three decades of entertainment and direct‑response marketing. Born on March 6 1956 at the Fort Hood Army Base in Killeen, Texas, she spent much of her childhood moving through Central America—Honduras, Mexico, Guatemala and Costa Rica—where she became fluent in Spanish before the family finally settled in Granada Hills, California. The eldest of five children of Adrian Pierre DuBarry and Betty Louise King, Denise learned responsibility early, watching over her siblings while her mother worked, and at 14 she began taking acting lessons at night while helping in her father's paper export business. Her first on‑screen work appeared in the mid‑1970s, when she landed commercial spots for Michelob beer and Chevrolet Camaro and made guest appearances on series such as Wonder Woman and The Gong Show. A breakthrough came with the role of Lieutenant Samantha Green on the NBC World War II drama Black Sheep Squadron, and she earned a memorable supporting turn as Johanna Franklin in Hal Ashby’s 1979 film Being There. Throughout the 1980s she amassed additional TV credits—including Charlie's Angels, Trapper John, M.D. and Match Game ’78—and appeared in cult cinema like Monster in the Closet (1985). Parallel to her acting, DuBarry cultivated a passion for yoga, founding Malibu Yoga in 1986 and later partnering with Bikram Yoga studios in Palm Desert. In 1988 she co‑produced the award‑winning infomercial Play the Piano Overnight, followed by Play the Guitar Overnight, both earning Billboard Music Awards for Best Music Instruction Video. Together with her third husband, William (Bill) Hay, she co‑founded Thane International in 1990, serving as chief creative officer until 2005, and later launched Kaswit, Inc. and Blue Moxie Entertainment, producing projects such as the feature Shoot the Hero (2010). DuBarry’s personal life included three marriages—first to Connolly Kamornick Oyler (1975‑1976), then to actor Gary Lockwood (1982‑1988), with whom she had daughter Samantha Lockwood, and finally to William Hay in 1992, with whom she raised three more children. A dedicated philanthropist, she supported numerous charities until her untimely death from a rare fungal infection, Candida auris, at UCLA Medical Center on March 23 2019. She is survived by her husband, four children, and her parents.