She believed she understood who she was—until one haunting confession turned her world upside down.
Beneath the glossy surface of childhood stardom lay a maze of deception, hidden identities, and staggering betrayals. The reality? Her adoption was never planned. Her name wasn’t even selected by her parents.
And the people who raised her may not have wanted a child at all. But the most devastating truth came years later, when she uncovered a long-buried family secret that reshaped everything she thought she knew about her past.
She entered the world on May 8, 1964, at the now-shuttered French Hospital in Los Angeles. As a newborn, she was adopted by Barbara Crane and Paul Gilbert. The couple would later welcome another adopted child, a son named Jonathan. At the time, Barbara was a young actress whose career had taken an early pause, while Paul was a comedian, actor, and former circus aerialist originally from Buenos Aires.
When she turned six, Barbara and Paul ended their marriage. Despite the split, the actress held deep affection for her adoptive father, once calling him “the most brilliant, energetic, humorous, loving, and fair person” she’d ever known. Paul passed away in 1976, with the official cause listed as a stroke. But the real story wouldn’t come to light until much later.
The Truth Behind Her Past
In her memoir Prairie Tale, the actress detailed her early life, including the story she was told as a child: that her birth father was a Rhodes Scholar named David Darlington, and her mother, Kathy Wood, had been a world-class ballerina. But when she started digging into her past, a far different reality emerged.
In fact, her birth father, David, was a stock car driver and sign painter. Kathy was indeed a dancer—but never held the title of prima ballerina.
Both had previously been married and had children from other relationships. When Kathy unexpectedly became pregnant again, they knew they weren’t prepared to raise another child. That decision ultimately led to the adoption.
A Startling Truth About Her Adoption
Perhaps even more jarring than her biological history was what she discovered about the adoption itself. After Paul’s death, her godmother Mitzi dropped a bombshell: Barbara and Paul had never planned on adopting a child. When the couple returned home with a newborn, relatives were caught off guard. “We weren’t planning on adopting a child,” Barbara would later confess.
According to the story, Barbara received a call one day saying a baby girl was available. Paul was out of town when she reached him, and he reportedly replied, “Go get it.” The actress later described how unsettling it felt to be referred to as “it,” a term Barbara later clarified was used because the baby hadn’t yet been born at the time of the call.
Eventually, Barbara elaborated that she and Paul had struggled with infertility and had been undergoing treatment. Still, the topic of adoption hadn’t been formally discussed—until that unexpected call changed everything.
Generations of Secrets
The most heartbreaking discovery came decades later. She had grown up believing her father died from a stroke. But at age 45, she learned the truth: Paul had died by suicide. It was a family secret that had remained hidden for decades. Desperate for answers, she had hired a private investigator, eventually uncovering that Paul—a World War II veteran—had been battling chronic pain and had spoken of ending his life while receiving care from the VA.
In a 2020 CBS Sunday Morning interview, the actress opened up about how those hidden truths impacted her and how determined she is to break that pattern. “I would never put my kids through the damage that comes from secrets like that,” she said.
In conclusion, her journey—from being surrendered at birth to becoming a household name—is one marked by pain, persistence, and emotional reckoning. Given up by parents unable to support another child, then unknowingly raised by adoptive parents who hadn’t planned for her, her early years were steeped in secrecy.
But her resolve to uncover the truth—about her heritage, her father’s death, and her own story—allowed her to confront the pain and offer her children something different: honesty, healing, and a legacy shaped not by silence, but by truth.