Barbara Ann Fishel was born on April 18, 1918 in New York City, the daughter and first child of Thelma Minzie and Leslie H. Fishel. She graduated from Lawrence High School on Long Island in 1935, then attended Hunter and Adelphi colleges and graduated from New York University in 1939. She also attended the Bank Street Schools and was a nursery school teacher for several years in New York City, Baltimore, and Newark, New Jersey.
Dissatisfied with teaching, she began working at Doubleday's Bookstore in New York City, then moved to California where she was employed by CBS Radio in the clerical area and as a script girl. After a year with the Ralph Edwards show, she went to work for NBC-TV in Burbank where she moved from production assistant to associate director and then to assistant to the producer. She worked on a variety of programs from comedy and musicals to Academy Award extravaganzas. During this period she worked with performers such as Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin, Nat King Cole, Dinah Shore, and Art Carney.
In 1961 Fishel returned to New York, freelancing for a year on such shows as The Guiding Light. She then became a director in the contract department and associate producer for David Susskind's Talent Associates-Paramount, Ltd. In 1965 she joined ABC, and she worked in the production administration area and as a unit manager. During this period she worked with soap operas such as All My Children and Ryan's Hope and for the Jack Paar Show. In 1980 Fishel was struck by an automobile. She took disability leave to recuperate, after which she began working for Meet the Composer. She continued in this capacity until her final illness, and she died of cancer on May 30, 1986.
