From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Wendy Barrie (18 April 1912 – 2 February 1978) 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.
1954
as Guest Panelist
1950
1950
as Self
1943
as Ann Patterson
1943
as Anne Merriday
1943
as Edith Trimble-Pomfret
1942
as Betty Standing
1942
as Helen Reed
1941
as Bonnie Parker
1941
as Helen Reed
1941
as Emily Baldwin
1941
as Elna Johnson
1940
as Sally Ambler
1940
as Kay Mercedes
1940
as Diane North
1940
as Ruth Summers
1940
as Pamela Starr
1939
as Kitty Fraser
1939
as Joan Marplay
1939
as Alice Melbourne
1939
as Beryl Stapleton
1939
as Valerie 'Val' Travers
1939
as Ann Grayson
1938
as Gwen Dutton
1938
as Frances 'Frankie' Ballou
1937
as Valerie Wilson
1937
as Mary Morton
1937
as Kay
1937
as Polly Moore
1937
as Lauralee Curtis
1937
as Gloria Lee
1936
as Cynthia Drexel
1936
as Self
1936
as Jane Forbes
1936
as Jane Mitchell
1936
as Paula Gilbert
1935
as Marion Keller
1935
as Pauline Anders
1935
as Sue
1935
as Julie Fresnel
1935
as Jane Dale
1935
as Madeleine Sarteaux
1934
as Phyllis Harcourt
1934
as Karen Svenson
1934
as Mary Bogle
1933
as Joyce
1933
as Angela Fairdown
1933
as Lilian Gilbert
1933
as Jane Seymour
1932
as Lucie Kleiner
1932
as Phyllis Grey
1932
as Lady Mary Rose Wroxbury
1932
as Joyce Maynard
1932
as Iris Banner
1932
as Olive Wynn