Christine Barker was raised in a military family and spent her childhood moving across Europe and the United States. By the time she started high school, her father had retired from the US Navy and the family returned to Santa Fe, New Mexico, a place they have called home since the 1880s. She devoted herself to the study of dance and at 20 made the brave decision to move to New York City to pursue a career in dance and theater. She appeared in the productions of Promises, Promises, Seesaw, and No, No Nanette before being cast in the London production of the Tony-award-winning A Chorus Line, which opened at the Royal Drury Lane Theater in 1976. She eventually joined the Broadway cast in New York City. Her theatrical life was shaped by Alvin Ailey, Tommy Tune, and finally Michael Bennett. She was working on Broadway when the AIDS epidemic hit and witnessed the tragedy unfold in the theater wings, fashion houses and finally in the hospitals of New York City. In addition to her theater credits, Christine has appeared in numerous national television commercials. She holds an MFA in Writing from Sarah Lawrence College and currently lives in Connecticut.
“A heart-rending debut infuses a graceful personal narrative with
cultural history.... Third Girl From The Left is a timely chronicle
of vulnerable people who are marginalized by their government,
ignored by the media and maligned by a ‘moral majority’ whose
echoes reverberate in today’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ era.... Barker’s
memoir becomes an elegy—for the third girl on the left, and the men
she loved so well.”
*New York Times Book Review*
“Third Girl from the Left is a beautifully written memoir of life
on the Broadway stage at the onset of the 1980s AIDS epidemic. This
compelling, and remarkably hopeful story is particularly relevant
now. With uncompromising truth, Christine Barker makes tangible the
unraveling of dreams, as she dances in A Chorus Line while her
older brother, Laughlin, together with his life partner Perry
Ellis, builds the designer’s fashion business. Time is an enemy and
choices dwindle as the author is an eyewitness to a disaster that
shapes her future even as it claims the lives of men she
loves.”
*Mara Liasson, National Public Radio Correspondent, NPR*
“Christine Barker’s Third Girl from the Left is a gorgeous show-biz
tapestry from the late golden years of the Broadway musical; it is
the story of a dazzled ingénue dancer’s passage through that world;
and it is also, at the same time, an intimate, profoundly mature
portrait of the loves and dependencies among one American family
gripped by the devastating AIDS crisis of the nineteen-eighties.
Beautifully written, beautifully choreographed, and
heartbreaking.”
*Vijay Seshadri, 2014 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for 3 Sections,
James Laughlin Award winner for The Long Meadow, and author of Wild
Kingdom and The Disappearances*
"Third Girl from the Left is bursting with life, friendship,
love, family, dancing, and deaths, made crueler by the shame,
silence and ostracism of gay men, including the author's brother.
What makes this book so special is that these lives and deaths
during the Reagan era are rendered with clarity, intelligence and
are vivid and intimate as if they were happening now to the
grateful reader. This is a wonderful book, illuminating, moving,
impossible not to keep reading, until, sadly, you are at the end.
Histories like these will save us from forgetting."—Myra Goldberg,
author of Whistling, A New York Times Book Review Notable Book"Look
Up! A new writer has just emerged. Christine Barker, the author of
Third Girl from the Left, deserves a solo bow center-stage. Her
book is authentic and enthralling. I slipped into this restrained
and emotional backstage memoir and discovered a complete totem of
truth. It resonates deeply in my soul. Thank you, Christine, for
writing down this important story."—Tommy Tune, actor, singer,
dancer, choreographer, producer, director, winner 10 Tony awards,
National Medal of the Arts, star on Hollywood Walk of Fame"Third
Girl from the Left is a moving, uplifting, and ultimately tragic
memoir of love and loss in the heady New York theater scene of the
1970s and 80s. Christine Barker left small-town Santa Fe to realize
her dreams. She built an extraordinarily successful career on
Broadway only to find her world slowly and relentlessly devastated
by the AIDS epidemic, which took away her colleagues, friends, and
loved ones. Barker is an important witness to this heartbreaking
decade and the disease that destroyed a generation of artists. I
highly recommend this beautifully written, honest, and utterly
unforgettable memoir."—Douglas Preston, #1 New York Times
bestselling author of The Lost City of the Monkey God and The
Monster of Florence
"Christine Barker has written a beautifully crafted book about a
life in the theater and the world of fashion set in the vibrant,
yet turbulent time of AIDS, that I simply could not put down.
Filled with many people I also knew, and who will also be familiar
to the reader, this is not only a wonderful piece of history, but
also a heart-rending memoir that simply begs to be read."—Jeffrey
Banks, two-time Coty Award and CFDA Award-winning designer and
author of Perry Ellis: An American Original"The world I knew at the
onset of AIDS as a New York physician, and research director of
Elizabeth Taylor/Mathilde Krim's AIDS foundation, is vividly
captured in Third Girl from the Left. There's the fear, ignorance,
and abandonment, a distortion of love by those turning away, and so
many AIDS stigma deaths. The time and place and people described
cannot be forgotten."—Jeffrey Laurence, MD, Professor of Medicine
in hematology/oncology at NY Presbyterian Hospital-Cornell,
Director of Laboratory for AIDS virus research"This beautiful and
haunting memoir recalls a period in our recent history with
unyielding honesty. Christine Barker vividly weaves the unrelenting
demands of a dancer's life with the onset of a mysterious and
bewildering disease that those of us who lived through will never
quite get over. Her resilience and determination remain intact
throughout this harrowing period, depicted in an uplifting and
remarkable book, that I recommend highly."—Victor Garber,
award-winning star of film, television, and stage"Christine
Barker's extraordinary memoir is a journey back in time to the
thrill of her days dancing on Broadway; to understanding her elder
brother's life as a gay man in a very anti-gay US; and to the shame
and secrecy surrounding the advent of the AIDS crisis. Third Girl
from the Left deftly weaves the personal and the political,
ultimately reminding us of our responsibility to one another.
Barker's astute storytelling, punctuated with deep, deep love, will
move and enlighten all readers. This is a hard book to put
down."—Carolyn Ferrell, author of Dear Miss Metropolitan and Don't
Erase Me"A beautifully told tale of the New York theatre world, the
fashion industry, and the AIDS pandemic. Christine Barker gives the
reader a front row seat to a time of great creativity and
heartbreak. She writes with honesty, compassion and
clarity."—Michael Kors"Enthralling... gorgeously written...
unflinching... emotionally wrenching."—Bay Area Reporter
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