Wendy Barrie

Wendy Barrie, born Marguerite Wendy Jenkins on 18 April 1912 in British Hong Kong, was a British actress who built a career spanning film, Broadway, radio, and television. Her father, Francis Charles John Graigoe Jenkin KC, had worked for the Great Western Railway before joining the Royal Fusiliers in 1902, and her mother was Ellen McDonagh. Barrie received her education at a convent school in England and later at a finishing school in Switzerland. She became a naturalized American citizen in 1942 and died on 2 February 1978 in Englewood, New Jersey, following a stroke that had left her debilitated for several years. She was buried at Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York.

Barrie's screen career began in 1932 with the film Threads, an adaptation of a stage play. She subsequently appeared in several productions for London Films under Alexander and Zoltan Korda, most notably the 1933 historical drama 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 British production directed by Scott Darling. The following year she relocated to the United States, making her Hollywood debut opposite Spencer Tracy in the Fox romantic comedy It's a Small World, then appearing alongside Lawrence Tibbett in Under Your Spell. Loaned to MGM, she starred opposite James Stewart in the 1936 film Speed. By 1939 she had appeared in 20th Century Fox's The Hound of the Baskervilles with Richard Greene and Basil Rathbone, as well as RKO's Five Came Back with Lucille Ball. During 1939 and into the early 1940s, she appeared in several entries in both The Saint and The Falcon mystery film series alongside George Sanders. Her film work ultimately comprised more than 15 British productions and more than 30 Hollywood pictures, concluding with a final motion picture in 1954. In recognition of this body of work, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1708 Vine Street, dedicated on 8 February 1960.

In 1942, Barrie appeared on Broadway in the drama The Morning Star, marking her single credited stage appearance in that medium. That same year she became a naturalized American citizen.

Her radio career ran concurrently with her film work. She was a cast member of The Jack Haley Show, which aired on NBC from 1937 to 1938 and on CBS from 1938 to 1939. She served as an assistant on the Blue Network's Star for a Night from 1943 to 1944, and was among the quizmasters on Detect and Collect, which ran on CBS in 1945 and on ABC from 1945 to 1946. In 1956 she hosted the Wendy Barrie Show on WMGM in New York City, and she continued hosting a widely syndicated radio interview program into the mid-1960s.

Barrie was among the early figures in American television. Beginning 17 November 1948, she hosted Picture This on NBC, a run that concluded 9 February 1949. During 1948 and 1949 she also hosted The Adventures of Oky Doky, a children's comedy featuring a cowboy puppet, on the DuMont Television Network. The Wendy Barrie Show, a talk program regarded as one of the first of its kind on American television, debuted in November 1948 and aired across ABC, DuMont, and NBC before ending in September 1950. That program was succeeded by Through Wendy's Window in August 1950, a fifteen-minute NBC program in which Barrie interviewed celebrities and discussed fashion. On 13 September 1952, she debuted as hostess of Stars in Khaki and Blue, a prime-time talent program for members of the Armed Forces on NBC, which concluded its brief run on 27 September 1952. She also served as the original Revlon saleswoman on The $64,000 Question during the program's first months on air, promoting Living Lipstick to the point that the product sold out nationally. On 11 January 1954, a new edition of The Wendy Barrie Show premiered from the studios of WHIO-TV in Dayton, simulcast on WKRC-TV in Cincinnati and WTVN-TV in Columbus, before her contract was terminated in October 1954.

In her personal life, Barrie was reportedly engaged to gangster Benjamin Siegel, with whom she had a daughter named Carolyn, and she was at one time married to textile manufacturer David L. Meyer.