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Lynn Bari

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Lynn Bari
Lynn Bari in the 1940s
Born
Marjorie Schuyler Fisher

(1919-12-18)December 18, 1919[1]
Roanoke, Virginia, U.S.
DiedNovember 20, 1989(1989-11-20) (aged 69)
Santa Monica, California, U.S.
OccupationActress
Years active1933–1968
Spouses
Walter Kane
​
​
(m. 1939; div. 1943)​
​
​
(m. 1943; div. 1950)​
Nathan Rickles
​
​
(m. 1955; div. 1972)​
Children2

Lynn Bari (born Marjorie Schuyler Fisher, December 18, 1919 – November 20, 1989) was an American film actress who specialized in playing sultry, statuesque man-killers in roughly 150 films for 20th Century Fox, from the early 1930s through the 1940s.[2]

Early years

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Bari was born on December 18, 1919, in Roanoke, Virginia, to John Manard Fisher of Lynchburg, Virginia, and his wife Marjorie Babcock Halpen, a native of Albany, New York. Her father was a successful auto sales manager who for many years worked for a Roanoke car dealership, Harper Motor. In 1925, he left his job and moved the family to his hometown, Lynchburg, where he opened a car dealership of his own. Two years later, heavily in debt and struggling to make a sizeable profit, he took his own life while away on a business trip by jumping out of a hotel window. After selling everything to settle debts his widow was left with little money to support herself and her two children: John, her eldest and Marjorie. To make ends meet, she arranged for her sister, Ellen, who with her husband lived in Melrose, Massachusetts, to take in her and her children. Failing to find work in Melrose she moved to Boston, where she met and soon married Reverend Robert Bitzer, a Religious Science minister, in March 1929.

Bari later recalled other children at school in Boston made life miserable for her brother and her, making constant fun of their obvious Southern accents. Determined to eliminate hers, she became involved with amateur theatrics and took elocution lessons. She was enthusiastic when at the age of 13 she was told her stepfather had been reassigned to Los Angeles, where he later became the head of the Institute of Religious Science.[3]

When she was 14 and attending drama school, Bari adopted the stage name Lynn Barrie, a composite of the names of theater actress Lynn Fontanne and author J. M. Barrie.[4] After reading a story about the Italian city of Bari, she decided to change the spelling.[citation needed]

Career

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In the film Blood and Sand (1941)
Bari and Edward G. Robinson in Tampico (1944)
William Bendix, Bari, and Doug McClure in Overland Trail (1960)

Sixteen year-old Bari was one of 14 young women "launched on the trail of film stardom" August 6, 1935, when they each received a six-month contract with 20th Century Fox after spending 18 months in the company's training school. The contracts included a studio option for renewal for as long as seven years.[5]

In most of her early films Bari had uncredited parts usually playing receptionists or chorus girls. She struggled to find starring roles in movies. Rare leading roles included China Girl (1942), Hello, Frisco, Hello (1943), and The Spiritualist (1948). In B movies, Bari was usually cast as a "man-killer", as in Orchestra Wives (1942), or a villainess, notably Shock and Nocturne (both 1946). An exception was the dramatic lead in The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1944). During World War II, according to a survey taken of GIs, Bari was the second-most popular pinup girl after the much better-known Betty Grable.[citation needed]

Bari's film career fizzled out in the early 1950s when she was just in her early 30s, but she continued to work at a limited pace over the next two decades, playing matronly characters rather than temptresses. She portrayed the mother of a suicidal teenager in a 1951 drama On the Loose and a number of supporting parts.

Bari's last film appearance was as the mother of rebellious teenager Patty McCormack in The Young Runaways (1968).

She quickly took up the rising medium of television during the 1950s; she starred in the live television sitcom Detective's Wife, which ran during the summer of 1950.[6][7] In 1952, Bari starred in her own sitcom Boss Lady, a summer replacement for NBC's Fireside Theater. She portrayed Gwen F. Allen, the beautiful top executive of a construction firm.[8]

In 1955, Bari appeared in the episode "The Beautiful Miss X" of Rod Cameron's City Detective. In 1960, she played female bandit Belle Starr in the debut episode "Perilous Passage" of Overland Trail.[9]

Her final TV appearances were in episodes of The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. and The FBI.

Commenting on her "other woman" roles, Bari once said "I seem to be a woman always with a gun in her purse. I'm terrified of guns. I go from one set to the other shooting people and stealing husbands!"

In the 1960s, Bari toured in a production of Barefoot in the Park, playing the bride's mother.[10]

Personal life

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Bari was a Republican, who supported Dwight Eisenhower during the 1952 presidential election.[11]

In Foxy Lady (2010), an authorized biography by film historian Jeff Gordon written from interviews conducted shortly before her death, Bari suggested that, despite a 35-year career with over 166 film and television roles, a more promising career was sabotaged by unresolved problems with her domineering, alcoholic mother and her three marriages.[12]

Bari was married to agent Walter Kane, producer Sidney Luft, and psychiatrist Dr. Nathan Rickles. Bari and Luft married November 28, 1943.[13] They divorced December 26, 1950.[14] She and Rickles wed August 30, 1955;[15] they divorced in 1972. Bari's first child, a daughter with Luft, was born August 7, 1945, in St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica, California, but died the next day.[16] Two years later, she had a son, John Michael Luft (b. 1948). John Michael was the subject of "a bitter custody battle" between Luft and Bari.[17] A judge in Los Angeles ruled in Bari's favor in November 1958, ruling that the Luft household "was an improper place in which to rear the boy."[17]

After retiring from acting in the 1970s, Bari moved to Santa Barbara, California. In her last years, she suffered increasing problems with arthritis.

Death

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On November 20, 1989, Bari was found dead in her home in Santa Monica, California, of an apparent heart attack.[18] She was cremated and her ashes scattered at sea.[19]

Hollywood Walk of Fame

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Bari has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for movies at 6116 Hollywood Boulevard, and one for television at 6323 Hollywood Boulevard.[20]

Filmography

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Television

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[21]

Radio appearances

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Year Program Episode/source
1947 Rexall Summer Theater Starred (with Pat O'Brien) in summer replacement for The Durante-Moore Show[22][23]

1947

Suspense July 24, 1947 “Murder by an Expert”
1952 Screen Guild Theatre "Heaven Can Wait"[24]

References

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  1. ^ Foxy Lady: The Authorized Biography of Lynn Bari. BearManor Media. 2010.
  2. ^ "Lynn Bari - Movie and Film Biography and Filmography - AllRovi.com". www.allmovie.com. Archived from the original on August 7, 2011. Retrieved July 11, 2021.
  3. ^ "Bari, Timid In Role, Is Adventurous Cook". The Lawton Constitution. The Lawton Constitution. October 27, 1965. p. 11. Retrieved July 18, 2015 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  4. ^ Room, Adrian (2011). Dictionary of Pseudonyms: 13,000 Assumed Names and Their Origins (5th ed.). McFarland & Company. p. 47. ISBN 978-0-7864-4373-4. Retrieved July 19, 2015.
  5. ^ "The Hollywood Roundup". The Times. Indiana, Hammond. United Press. August 6, 1935. p. 35. Retrieved May 20, 2016 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  6. ^ "Private Eye". Chicago Tribune. July 23, 1950. Retrieved July 19, 2015.
  7. ^ "Flashback: Lynn Bari". Beaver County Times. January 10, 1993. p. 7. Retrieved July 19, 2015.
  8. ^ "TV News". July 4, 1952. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  9. ^ Briggs, Colin. "A Much Titled Lady". Classic Images. Retrieved July 19, 2015.
  10. ^ "Comedy Comes To Coliseum". Brownwood Bulletin. January 23, 1966. p. 21. Retrieved July 18, 2015 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  11. ^ Motion Picture and Television Magazine, November 1952, page 34, Ideal Publishers
  12. ^ Gordon, Jeff Adam (2010). Foxy Lady: The Authorized Biography of Lynn Bari. Duncan, Okla.: BearManor Media. ISBN 978-1-59393-523-8. OCLC 700515526.
  13. ^ "Marriages". Billboard. December 11, 1943. p. 31. Retrieved July 19, 2015.
  14. ^ "Divorces". Billboard. January 6, 1951. p. 28. Retrieved July 19, 2015.
  15. ^ "Actress Lynn Bari, Doctor Married". Toledo Blade. August 31, 1955. p. 5. Retrieved July 19, 2015.
  16. ^ "Daughter Born Tuesday to Actress Lynn Bari Dies". Chicago Tribune. August 9, 1945. p. 25. Retrieved July 19, 2015.
  17. ^ a b "Judge Rules Against Luft". The Victoria Advocate. November 23, 1958. Retrieved July 19, 2015.
  18. ^ Wilson, Scott (August 19, 2016). Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons, 3d ed. McFarland. ISBN 978-1-4766-2599-7. OCLC 1124407501.
  19. ^ "Overview for Lynn Bari". archive.is. February 25, 2016. Archived from the original on February 25, 2016. Retrieved July 11, 2021.
  20. ^ "Lynn Bari". Hollywood Walk of Fame. Retrieved July 19, 2015.
  21. ^ "Ripcord (TV Series 1961–1963) - IMDb". IMDb.
  22. ^ "Durante-Moore Replacement". Billboard. March 29, 1947. p. 7. Retrieved July 19, 2015.
  23. ^ "Rex Keeps Schnoz; Acc't Shifts to NBC". Billboard. May 24, 1947. p. 5. Retrieved July 20, 2015.
  24. ^ Kirby, Walter (April 6, 1952). "Better Radio Programs for the Week". The Decatur Daily Review. p. 52. Retrieved May 16, 2015 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
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