Wendy Barrie was a British actress who worked in British and American films.
Wendy Barrie was a British actress who worked in British and American films.
Barrie was born in London to English parents. Her father, Francis Charles John Graigoe Jenkin KC (1883 – 1936), was an employee of Great Western (according to the 1901 census), who then joined the Royal Fusiliers in 1902. Her mother was Ellen McDonagh. Hollywood gave her a more exotic parentage with her father being a King's Counsel and her mother a Russian-Jewish actress who had performed in the world's first professional Yiddish-language theater troupe. She received her education at a convent school in England and a finishing school in Switzerland.
In 1932, Barrie made her screen debut in the film Threads, which was based upon a play. She went on to make a number of motion pictures for London Films under the Korda brothers, Alexander and Zoltan, the best known of which is 1933's The Private Life of Henry VIII, in which she portrayed Jane Seymour.
In 1934, she appeared in Freedom of the Seas and was contracted by Fox Film Corporation for a film directed by Scott Darling that was made in Britain. The following year, she moved to the United States and made her first Hollywood film for Fox opposite Spencer Tracy in the romantic comedy It's a Small World, followed by Under Your Spell with Lawrence Tibbett. Loaned to MGM, Barrie starred opposite James Stewart in the 1936 film Speed. In 1939 she starred with Richard Greene and Basil Rathbone in the 20th Century Fox version of The Hound of the Baskervilles, and with Lucille Ball in RKO's Five Came Back. During 1939 and the early 1940s, Barrie made several of The Saint and The Falcon mystery films with George Sanders. She made her final motion picture in 1954.
With the dawn of television, in the late 1940s, Barrie turned to roles in that medium.
In 1956, she had a disc jockey program, the Wendy Barrie Show, on WMGM in New York City. She also hosted a widely syndicated radio interview show into the mid-1960s.
After appearances in more than 15 films in Britain and more than 30 in Hollywood, Barrie's contribution to the industry was recognized with a motion pictures star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1708 Vine Street, near the corner of Hollywood and Vine. Her star was dedicated February 8, 1960.
Barrie became a naturalized American citizen in 1942. She was reportedly engaged to and had a daughter named Carolyn with the infamous gangster Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, and at one time was married to textile manufacturer David L. Meyer.
She died in Englewood, New Jersey, in 1978, aged 65, following a stroke that had left her debilitated for several years. She was buried in the Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York.
External links
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/nm0057412
Wikipedia: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q449766
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Filmography (Movies)
It Should Happen to You
Character:Guest Panelist
Release Date:15/01/1954
Submarine Alert
Character:Ann Patterson
Release Date:28/06/1943
Follies Girl
Character:Anne Merriday
Release Date:26/06/1943
Forever and a Day
Character:Edith Trimble-Pomfret
Release Date:21/01/1943
Eyes of the Underworld
Character:Betty Standing
Release Date:02/10/1942
A Date with the Falcon
Character:Helen Reed
Release Date:16/01/1942
Gangs Of The City
Character:Bonnie Parker
Release Date:30/10/1941
The Gay Falcon
Character:Helen Reed
Release Date:24/10/1941
Repent at Leisure
Character:Emily Baldwin
Release Date:04/04/1941
The Saint In Palm Springs
Character:Elna Johnson
Release Date:24/01/1941
Who Killed Aunt Maggie?
Character:Sally Ambler
Release Date:01/11/1940
Men Against the Sky
Character:Kay Mercedes
Release Date:06/09/1940
Cross-Country Romance
Character:Diane North
Release Date:12/07/1940
The Saint Takes Over
Character:Ruth Summers
Release Date:07/06/1940
Women in War
Character:Pamela Starr
Release Date:05/06/1940
Day-time Wife
Character:Kitty Fraser
Release Date:24/11/1939
The Witness Vanishes
Character:Joan Marplay
Release Date:22/09/1939
Five Came Back
Character:Alice Melbourne
Release Date:23/06/1939
The Hound of the Baskervilles
Character:Beryl Stapleton
Release Date:24/03/1939
The Saint Strikes Back
Character:Valerie 'Val' Travers
Release Date:08/03/1939
Pacific Liner
Character:Ann Grayson
Release Date:06/01/1939
Newsboys' Home
Character:Gwen Dutton
Release Date:24/12/1938
I Am the Law
Character:Frances 'Frankie' Ballou
Release Date:25/08/1938
Prescription for Romance
Character:Valerie Wilson
Release Date:12/12/1937
A Girl with Ideas
Character:Mary Morton
Release Date:01/11/1937
Dead End
Character:Kay
Release Date:27/08/1937
What Price Vengeance
Character:Polly Moore
Release Date:25/05/1937
Wings Over Honolulu
Character:Lauralee Curtis
Release Date:16/05/1937
Breezing Home
Character:Gloria Lee
Release Date:01/02/1937
Under Your Spell
Character:Cynthia Drexel
Release Date:06/11/1936
Screen Snapshots (Series 16, No. 1)
Character:Self
Release Date:11/09/1936
Ticket to Paradise
Character:Jane Forbes
Release Date:24/06/1936
Speed
Character:Jane Mitchell
Release Date:08/05/1936
Love on a Bet
Character:Paula Gilbert
Release Date:06/03/1936
Millions in the Air
Character:Marion Keller
Release Date:12/12/1935
A Feather in Her Hat
Character:Pauline Anders
Release Date:25/10/1935
The Big Broadcast of 1936
Character:Sue
Release Date:20/09/1935
College Scandal
Character:Julie Fresnel
Release Date:21/06/1935
It's A Small World
Character:Jane Dale
Release Date:12/04/1935
There Goes Susie
Character:Madeleine Sarteaux
Release Date:25/02/1935
Freedom of the Seas
Character:Phyllis Harcourt
Release Date:12/06/1934
Give Her a Ring
Character:Karen Svenson
Release Date:11/06/1934
It's a Boy
Character:Mary Bogle
Release Date:07/06/1934
This Acting Business
Character:Joyce
Release Date:19/12/1933
The House of Trent
Character:Angela Fairdown
Release Date:01/12/1933
Cash
Character:Lilian Gilbert
Release Date:08/10/1933
The Private Life of Henry VIII
Character:Jane Seymour
Release Date:17/08/1933
Where Is This Lady?
Character:Lucie Kleiner
Release Date:17/11/1932
The Barton Mystery
Character:Phyllis Grey
Release Date:01/11/1932
Wedding Rehearsal
Character:Lady Mary Rose Wroxbury
Release Date:01/10/1932
Collision
Character:Joyce Maynard
Release Date:18/07/1932
The Callbox Mystery
Character:Iris Banner
Release Date:29/03/1932
Threads
Character:Olive Wynn
Release Date:14/03/1932
Television Appearances
Images
