Barbara Kingsbury was born in Bluefields, Nicaragua. Some sources give her birth year as 1947 or 1951, but most list 1945. Although she prefers to say 1953, public records state 1945. Her mother, Florencia Carrera, was a Nicaraguan of European and Native ancestry, and her father, Louis Kingsbury, was a U.S. employee of the American embassy in Nicaragua. Her parents separated when she was seven. Carrera had at least one elder half-sibling, a sister, Maisie Kingsbury. Sometime after the age of ten, Carrera moved to the United Statesto live with her father, who placed her in a school in Memphis. She moved to New York at the age of fifteen.
Career
Kingsbury began a career as a model at the Eileen Ford agency at the age of 17, at which point she changed her last name to her mother's maiden name, Carrera. In 1972, she appeared on the screen in a publicity role for Chiquita bananas. Her first film role was as a fashion model in Puzzle of a Downfall Child, which fared poorly at the box office. In 1976, she earned her first Golden Globe nomination for her role in The Master Gunfighter. She later played in such films as The Island of Dr. Moreau, Lone Wolf McQuade, Condorman, Point of Impact, Tryst and Embryo. For her portrayal of the villainess Fatima Blush in the James Bond filmNever Say Never Again, she earned a 1984 Golden Globe nomination for "Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture". She worked opposite Laurence Olivier in Wild Geese II the following year. On television, she played a part in the soap opera Dallas as Angelica Nero, and more prominently, in the historical miniseriesCentennial in 1978 and Masada in 1981. These roles brought her to the mainstream attention of American audiences. She also starred as Emma Forsayth in the miniseries in 1988. , and filmmaker Roger Steinmann on the set of her final role, Illusion Infinity Carrera has appeared on the pages and covers of such magazines as Vogue, Paris Match, Harper's Bazaar, and twice posed for Playboy. In 1997, she was appointed Ambassador-at-Large for Nicaragua by then-president Arnoldo Alemán. She is also an artist and her work has been showcased in the Makk Galleries, with Americo Makk, in Beverly Hills, California since the 1980s, and the Roy Miles Gallery in London, England. In May 2002, her works were exhibited at the Hollywood Entertainment Museum and have typically been sold for up to $8,000. Since Illusion Infinity, Carrera has not appeared in films or television.
Personal life
Carrera has been married and divorced three times, her spouses being:
Otto Kurt Freiherr von Hoffman, a German nobleman. They married in New York City in 1966 and divorced in 1972.
Uva Harden, a German fashion model and actor. Married in 1972, they divorced in July 1976.
Nicholas Mark Mavroleon, a Greek shipping magnate, a few years her junior, who is the younger and only surviving son of Manuel Basil Mavroleon by his second wife, Gioconda de Gallardo y Castro. They married on March 16, 1983, and later divorced.
