By David Bauder
The Associated Press

Adrienne Barbeau

The face is familiar. That snake charmer on HBO's Carnivale ... it's Carol! Carol from Maude!

Adrienne Barbeau, best known as Bea Arthur's daughter in the caustic 1970s sitcom, has her highest-profile acting role in years in the surreal cable series.

She hadn't completely disappeared, but spent much of her time in the Los Angeles area with husband Billy Van Zandt raising her 19-year-old son Cody (from her marriage to director John Carpenter) and the 6-year-old twins born when she was 51 years old.

Barbeau, 58, has cultivated voiceover work in Hollywood, and taken roles that don't seriously conflict with parenthood. Her films include Escape from New York, Swamp Thing, The Fog and Cannonball Run - in which her buxom figure fueled fantasies among young male fans for years.

As she settles in for a chat about her career, Barbeau says the HBO series is her best role since originating the character of Rizzo in Grease on Broadway, for which she received a Tony nomination.

What makes this one of your best roles?

It's the totality of the experience. The people that I'm working with are just wonderful, all of them, from the executives down to the crew to the caterers. It's great fun to go to work everyday. The quality of the writing is exceptional.

What do you like about your character?

She's not a cop, she's not a judge, she's not a lawyer and she's not someone weeping because her child is in trouble. It's not often you get to play a carnival freak. It's the first time in my career I get to dance with snakes.

What's it like being preserved in prime-time perpetuity for a role you did 30 years ago?

I don't know, because, fortunately, it's not on TV in L.A. We have TiVo and I put my name in there and it never records anything off of Maude.

Ever watch any of the old "Maude" shows?

I don't. I never do. I have a few of them on VHS tape. Looking at those costumes and those hairstyles, that's a little too painful.

Do you ever see your TV mom?

I do. Right now I believe she's in South Africa performing, then she's on the way to London. We catch up by phone every six months or so. I keep in touch with Conrad Bain and I see Bea whenever I can.

Was that your favorite role?

No, it was not my favorite. It was a wonderful situation, and great people to work for. ... There are so many things that go into making something my favorite that have nothing to do with the character. It's the location. The people I'm working with. Was it a hard shoot? I've taken jobs just because they were filming in some country I wanted to see, even though I knew the script wasn't great.

What was your worst role?

I did a movie a few years ago (1987) called Open House, which I've never even seen. But I needed to earn a living and put food on the table. I think I played a real estate agent

What's the strangest thing a fan has done to prove his devotion?

There's a winery in Northern California that named a bottle of wine (after me). I think they named it Adrienne, but for some reason they didn't spell it the same way because they didn't want to run into copyright infringement. If I had known that I would have said this was an honor. Go ahead and spell it exactly the same way.