Judith Barsi's Real Name: Judith Eva Barsi

Quick answer: Judith Barsi was born Judith Eva Barsi on June 6, 1978, in Los Angeles. She was a child actress in commercials, television, and Jaws: The Revenge (1987). She is remembered as the voice of Ducky in The Land Before Time (1988). She was killed in July 1988, at age 10, along with her mother, in what authorities described as a murder-suicide committed by her father (Library of Congress; Los Angeles Times).

Real name and early life

The Library of Congress name authority files her as "Barsi, Judith, 1978-1988." Its citation reads "child actress; born June 6, 1978, in Los Angeles, California; birth name, Judith Eva Barsi; died July 25, 1988, in Canoga Park, California, as a result of homicide." It adds that she was active as an actress and voice actress from 1984 to 1988.

A 1988 Los Angeles Times report says she was the only child of Maria and József Barsi, who had separately left Hungary after the 1956 Soviet occupation. Her mother encouraged her toward a performing career from an early age. The paper says a commercial crew spotted 5-year-old Judith ice-skating at a rink and hired her on the spot.

Career highlights

According to her agent, quoted in the Times, Judith appeared in 72 commercials. She often played children younger than her real age because she was small for her age. Her television credits included Growing Pains, Cheers, Remington Steele, St. Elsewhere, Cagney & Lacey, and the TV film Fatal Vision. Her feature debut came in Jaws: The Revenge (1987), as Thea, part of a shoot in the Bahamas.

Her best-known work came out after her death. She voiced Ducky, the cheerful young dinosaur with the catchphrase "Yep, yep, yep!", in Don Bluth's animated The Land Before Time, released in November 1988. She also voiced the orphan Anne-Marie in Bluth's All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989).

Her death came after a long period of family violence that friends and her agent had witnessed, as the Los Angeles Times reported. It led the Los Angeles County children's services commission to review how her case had been handled. The Times reported that she and her mother were found in their West Hills home on July 27, 1988. LOC records her date of death as July 25, 1988.

Name notes for searchers

She worked under her birth name, Judith Barsi; Eva is her middle name. Some early reports gave her age as 11, but her June 1978 birth date means she was 10 when she died. Fans most often search for her as "the voice of Ducky."