Wendy Barrie(1912-1978)
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Wendy Barrie was born in Hong Kong to an English-Irish father and a Russian Jewish mother. Her dad was the distinguished King's Counsel F.C. Jenkins which ensured that the family was well off. Wendy received her education at a
convent school in England and a finishing school in Switzerland. After
working in beauty parlors for a brief period she set her sights on the stage and made her first foray into acting at the
London Savoy Theatre in "Wonder Bar" (1930). Two years later, she was
"discovered" by producer
Alexander Korda while lunching
at the Savoy Grill. Having successfully auditioned for the part she was famously
cast as Jane Seymour, the third of the six wives at
the center of
La vie privée d'Henry VIII (1933),
starring Charles Laughton. Hollywood
soon beckoned and Wendy left England for America in 1934. During the
next decade and a bit, she found regular employment at Paramount
(1935), Universal (1936-38) and RKO (1938-42). A blonde, vivacious
lass with a certain innocent charm and an instinctive acting
ability, she tended to play mostly ingenue roles in minor films and often rose above her material. This led to her being given a
grittier role in the social drama Rue sans issue (1937) and Wendy's career
henceforth alternated between supporting roles in bigger pictures and
leads in B-movies.
From the late 1930s her parts became more varied, ranging from a gangster's moll in the crime melodrama Je suis la loi (1938) to a plane crash victim in Quels seront les cinq? (1939) and Richard Greene's love interest in Le chien des Baskerville (1939), with Basil Rathbone as "Sherlock Holmes". By the 1940s, Wendy's star began to fade. This was in no small part due to the bad publicity generated by her real-life role as mistress of notorious underworld figure Bugsy Siegel. As her pickings became ever slimmer she found herself relegated to perfunctory leads in various entries of "The Saint" and "Falcon" series at RKO. After appearing in a string of other decidedly mediocre productions she decided to embark on what turned out to be a successful new career as television host of her own pioneering talk show, Picture This (1948) (1948-50). Her relaxed, informal style brought her great popularity and plaudits from television critics like Jack Gould of the New York Times. Wendy's other claim to fame was as one of the first celebrities to make television commercials, famously with Revlon on 'The $64,000 Question'. During the 1960s, she also broadcast her own radio interview show from the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles. She was actively involved in various charities and was known to attend as guest speaker at philanthropic functions, freely giving of her time without remuneration. In the mid '70s, Wendy suffered a stroke which affected her mental state and she spent the last years of her life at a nursing home in Englewood, New Jersey, where she died in February 1978, aged 65.
From the late 1930s her parts became more varied, ranging from a gangster's moll in the crime melodrama Je suis la loi (1938) to a plane crash victim in Quels seront les cinq? (1939) and Richard Greene's love interest in Le chien des Baskerville (1939), with Basil Rathbone as "Sherlock Holmes". By the 1940s, Wendy's star began to fade. This was in no small part due to the bad publicity generated by her real-life role as mistress of notorious underworld figure Bugsy Siegel. As her pickings became ever slimmer she found herself relegated to perfunctory leads in various entries of "The Saint" and "Falcon" series at RKO. After appearing in a string of other decidedly mediocre productions she decided to embark on what turned out to be a successful new career as television host of her own pioneering talk show, Picture This (1948) (1948-50). Her relaxed, informal style brought her great popularity and plaudits from television critics like Jack Gould of the New York Times. Wendy's other claim to fame was as one of the first celebrities to make television commercials, famously with Revlon on 'The $64,000 Question'. During the 1960s, she also broadcast her own radio interview show from the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles. She was actively involved in various charities and was known to attend as guest speaker at philanthropic functions, freely giving of her time without remuneration. In the mid '70s, Wendy suffered a stroke which affected her mental state and she spent the last years of her life at a nursing home in Englewood, New Jersey, where she died in February 1978, aged 65.
