Patricia Tallman spent decades doubling for other actresses before audiences ever learned her name. Then she stepped in front of the camera as Barbara in Night of the Living Dead, played the telepath Lyta Alexander across five seasons of Babylon 5, ran a television studio, and eventually built a coaching business for the same fans who grew up watching her. Few careers move through that many separate worlds. Hers did, and each chapter still draws its own audience today.
Patricia Tallman is an American actress and former stunt performer, born September 4, 1957, in Pontiac, Illinois. She is best known for playing Barbara in the 1990 remake of Night of the Living Dead and Lyta Alexander in Babylon 5, and she later served as an executive at Studio JMS before shifting to writing and life coaching.
Quick Facts
| Born | September 4, 1957, Pontiac, Illinois |
| Education | Carnegie Mellon University (BFA, Theatre Arts) |
| Occupations | Actress, stunt performer, author, studio executive, coach |
| Years active | 1980–present |
| Known for | Night of the Living Dead (1990), Babylon 5, Star Trek |
| Spouses | Jeffrey Willerth (m. 1999–div. 2008); Glenn Morrissey (m. 2022) |
| Notable partner | J. Michael Straczynski, Babylon 5 creator (2002–2013) |
| Children | One son, Julian |
Early Life and Training
Tallman grew up the eldest of four children in a family that moved several times around Illinois, settling eventually in Glen Ellyn. Her father, Jerry Tallman, worked as a radio entertainer, and she made her first on-air appearance at age two, singing alongside him. By fifteen, she was already doing summer stock ten shows in eleven weeks at the Red Barn Theatre in Saugatuck, Michigan.
She carried that early stage discipline into Carnegie Mellon University, where she earned a BFA in theatre arts and worked her way through school performing in eighteen musicals with the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera. Carnegie Mellon later recognized her with an award for Outstanding Achievement in Acting — a marker of the technical range she’d bring to both stunt work and film years later.
Breaking Into Hollywood: Stunts Before Stardom
Tallman’s first screen credit came in George Romero’s Knightriders, an early sign of the horror-adjacent world she’d keep returning to. But it was stunt work that paid the bills and opened doors. She spent years as a stunt double for leading actresses, including standing in for Laura Dern during Jurassic Park, and later for Gates McFadden and Nana Visitor on Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine.
The stunt community wasn’t an easy one for women to break into during that era, and Tallman has spoken about the physical toll and long, often uncredited hours that came with the job — eighteen-hour shooting days weren’t unusual. That grounding in physical performance became part of what distinguished her later acting: directors trusted her with action, not just dialogue.
Night of the Living Dead (1990): Becoming Barbara
Tom Savini’s 1990 remake of Night of the Living Dead gave Tallman her breakout lead role. Where the 1968 original cast Barbara as a passive, near-catatonic character for most of the film, the remake — with a screenplay co-written by original director George Romero — rebuilt her into someone who fights back. Tallman’s version of Barbara became one of the more discussed reinterpretations in horror remake history, credited by genre fans with shifting the character toward the “final girl” archetype that later slasher films leaned on heavily.
Three decades later, this remains one of the two roles horror audiences bring up first when her name comes up, and it’s a common entry point for people discovering her filmography for the first time.
Generations: Her Soap Opera Chapter
Before Babylon 5 made her a genre television fixture, Tallman worked on Generations, an NBC daytime soap that ran from 1989 to 1991. It’s a short-lived and often-overlooked credit compared to her science fiction and horror work, but it shows a different register entirely — daytime drama rather than genre performance. Fans researching her full range, rather than just the con-circuit highlights, tend to find this the least documented part of her career.
Babylon 5: Lyta Alexander
Tallman joined Babylon 5 in its pilot movie, The Gathering, and returned as a full-time cast member for the show’s final three seasons, playing Lyta Alexander — a commercial telepath who evolves into one of the series’ more powerful and morally ambiguous figures. The role gave her a five-year arc rare for genre television at the time, and it remains the credit most closely tied to her name.
Off-screen, Tallman was in a relationship with series creator J. Michael Straczynski from 2002 to 2013, a detail fans frequently search for alongside questions about the show’s production history. She’s since written about her Babylon 5 years extensively, including the show’s twentieth and twenty-fifth anniversary reunions.
Army of Darkness and Star Trek Crossovers
Tallman also took on the Horror Hag / Evil Ash role in Sam Raimi’s Army of Darkness, a smaller but frequently cited credit among horror-comedy fans. Alongside her stunt work, she appeared, often uncredited, in episodes across Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Star Trek Generations — sometimes acting, sometimes doubling for the shows’ lead actresses on the same production.
Beyond Acting: Studio Executive and Author
Tallman’s career didn’t stop at performing. She went on to serve as CEO and executive producer of Studio JMS, moving into the production side of the industry most actors never enter. She’s also an author: her memoir, Pleasure Thresholds: Patricia Tallman’s Babylon 5 Memoirs, covers her stunt and acting years, with a particular focus on her time on Babylon 5, and was updated with a revised edition covering the show’s later reunions and her current business ventures.
Life Today: Magical Living and Quest Retreats
Tallman now runs Magical Living, a personal development and coaching business aimed specifically at “sci-fi and fantasy nerds,” along with Quest Retreats, which organizes adventure travel experiences. It’s a notable pivot — from stunt work and genre acting into speaking, workshops, and one-on-one coaching — and she remains active on the convention circuit, where she signs copies of her memoir at no charge.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Patricia Tallman married? Yes. She married Glenn Morrissey in 2022. She was previously married to actor Jeffrey Willerth from 1999 to 2008.
What is Patricia Tallman known for? She’s best known for playing Barbara in the 1990 remake of Night of the Living Dead and Lyta Alexander in Babylon 5. She’s also recognized for her stunt work and, more recently, for her coaching business, Magical Living.
Was Patricia Tallman a stunt double in Jurassic Park? Yes. She worked as a stunt double for Laura Dern during the filming of Jurassic Park (1993).
Did Patricia Tallman date J. Michael Straczynski? Yes. Tallman and Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski were partners from 2002 to 2013.
What TV shows did Patricia Tallman appear in besides Babylon 5? She appeared in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, the soap opera Generations, and did stunt or voice work across several other productions.
The Range Behind the Name
Patricia Tallman’s career resists a single label. She’s been the person taking the physical risk for someone else’s close-up, the actress carrying a horror remake on her own performance, a five-season presence on one of science fiction’s most respected shows, a studio executive greenlighting other people’s projects, and now a coach helping fans of that same genre work through their own personal growth. Few names in genre entertainment cover that much ground — which is likely why, decades later, people are still searching for her.
Conclusion
From stunt double to horror lead, from Babylon 5‘s Lyta Alexander to studio executive, and now to author and coach, Patricia Tallman’s career spans more ground than most performers touch in a lifetime. Each phase built on the one before it — the stunt training that made her a physical, believable Barbara, the discipline that carried her through five seasons on Babylon 5, and the industry knowledge that eventually put her behind the scenes rather than in front of the camera.
For fans, that range is exactly the appeal: whether you found her through a horror remake, a cult sci-fi series, or her current coaching work, there’s a whole other chapter of her career worth discovering. Which role do you know her best for — Barbara, Lyta Alexander, or something else entirely?
