Wendy Barrie

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 The Private Life of Henry VIII.

From the late 1930s her parts became more varied, ranging from a gangster's moll in the crime melodrama I Am the Law (1938) to a plane crash victim in Five Came Back (1939) and Richard Greene's love interest in The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939), with Basil Rathbone as "Sherlock Holmes".

(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 Dead End (1937) and Wendy's career henceforth alternated between supporting roles in bigger pictures and leads in B-movies.

Appeared with George Sanders in five films: The Saint Strikes Back (1939), The Saint Takes Over (1940), The Gay Falcon (1941), The Saint in Palm Springs (1941) and A Date with the Falcon (1942).

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.

Calling it "the most valuable possession in the world," Barrie took the oath of citizenship before Federal Judge Paul J. McCormick, in Hollywood, on Friday 9 January 1942. She was attired in the uniform of the women's ambulance and transport corps. (United Press, "Actress Happy To Be Citizen", The San Bernardino Daily Sun, San Bernardino, California, Saturday 10 January 1942, Volume 48, page 1.).

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'.

In 1950, she performed as a substitute for Jean Arthur in "Peter Pan", along with Boris Karloff, at the Imperial Theatre, New York City.

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.