Barbara Belford

Barbara Ann Belford (November 23, 1935 – June 3, 2010) was an American journalist and biographer. The second woman to earn tenure at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, she was a prolific journalist and published biographies of Violet Hunt, Bram Stoker, and Oscar Wilde.

Barbara Belford was born on November 23, 1935 in Oakland, California, the daughter of Professor Harold Graef Belford and actress Veronica Burns. She graduated with a BA from Vanderbilt University in 1957 and an MA from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1962. She joined Columbia as a professor in 1978. After Phyllis T. Garland, she became the second female professor to earn tenure at the journalism school. She retired in 1996. Her biography of Oscar Wilde was noted for its sexual frankness and for Belford's goal of debunking a number of points in Richard Ellman's biography.