Anecdotes

She played Fanny in the original London stage version of Noël Coward's play "Cavalcade", but was signed by Fox for a different role in the film adaptation. She sailed to New York on the Queen Mary and was taken to the Waldorf Towers. It was a stormy night, and when no one from the studio showed up to meet her, she sailed back to Britain the next day.

She and her husband are buried alongside Joe E. Brown in his grave site at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. Plot The Joe E. Brown family plot, Sunrise Slope, behind the Great Mausoleum to the left of Aimee S. McPherson.

She sued Harry Cohn of Columbia Pictures because he supposedly ordered her to be photographed in her garters behind a screen, but it was just a publicity stunt cooked up by Barnes and Cohn.

When the Jewish Barnes converted to Catholicism, Loretta Young acted as her sponsor/godmother.

Before her screen debut in 1929, she worked as a nurse, chorus girl, dance hostess and vaudeville comedienne. According with the IMDB, her debut was in 1923 at the age of 20 in a movie called PHONOFILM and her next movie was only in 1931.

She played poker with Clark Gable at the studio and at the actor's home.

In a 1973 interview on the Johnny Carson Show, she claimed to be 59 years old. However, according to her biographical details, we know she was actually 70 years old at the time of the interview.

She was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1501 Vine Street in Hollywood, California on February 8, 1960.

Had appeared with John Carradine in five films: L'île des angoisses (1938), Les trois louf'quetaires (1939), L'Aigle des frontières (1939), Barbary Coast Gent (1944) and La cinquième chaise (1945).

Had appeared with Cesar Romero in five films: Diamond Jim (1935), Code secret (1935), Adieu pour toujours (1938), Echec à la dame (1939) and L'Aigle des frontières (1939).

Mother of Mike Frankovich Jr. (born 1942), Peter Frankovich (born 1946) and Michelle Frankovich De Motte (born 1944). Aunt of Rayford Barnes.

Biography in: "American National Biography". Supplement 1, pp. 29-30. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Had appeared with Rosalind Russell in four films: Code secret (1935), La mariée célibataire (1940), Le dortoir des anges (1966) and Les gamines explosives (1968).

Had appeared with Merle Oberon in four films: La vie privée d'Henry VIII (1933), La dernière aventure de Don Juan (1934), Le Divorce de Lady X (1938) and Voyage sans retour (1940).

Roomed with Pat Paterson when both were struggling starlets in England.

Made 26 comedy shorts with Stanley Lupino