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Lynn Bari

Lynn Bari

Birthday: 1913-12-18 | Place of Birth: Roanoke, Virginia, USA

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Lynn Bari (born Margaret Schuyler Fisher, December 18, 1913 – November 20, 1989) was a film actress who specialized in playing sultry, statuesque man-killers in roughly 150 20th Century Fox films from the early 1930s through the 1940s. 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. In most of her early films, Bari had uncredited parts usually playing receptionists or chorus girls. She struggled to find starring roles in films, but accepted any work she could get. Rare leading roles included China Girl (1942), Hello, Frisco, Hello (1943), and The Spiritualist (1948). In B movies, Lynn was usually cast as a villainess, notably Shock and Nocturne (both 1946). An exception was The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1944). During WWII, according to a survey taken of GIs, Bari was the second-most popular pinup girl after the much better-known Betty Grable. Bari's film career fizzled out in the early 1950s as she was approaching her 40th birthday, although she continued to work at a more limited pace over the next two decades, now playing matronly characters rather than temptresses. She portrayed the mother of a suicidal teenager in a 1951 drama, On the Loose, plus a number of supporting parts. Bari's last film appearance was as the mother of rebellious teenager Patty McCormack in The Young Runaways (1968) and her final TV appearances were in episodes of The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. and The FBI. She quickly took up the rising medium of television during the '50s, which began when she starred in the live television sitcom Detective's Wife, which ran during the summer of 1950, and in Boss Lady In 1955, Bari appeared in the episode "The Beautiful Miss X" of Rod Cameron's syndicated crime drama City Detective. In 1960, she played female bandit Belle Starr in the debut episode "Perilous Passage" of the NBC western series Overland Trail starring William Bendix and Doug McClure and with fellow guest star Robert J. Wilke as Cole Younger. From July–September 1952, Bari starred in her own situation comedy, Boss Lady, a summer replacement for NBC's Fireside Theater. She portrayed Gwen F. Allen, the beautiful top executive of a construction firm. Not the least of her troubles in the role was being able to hire a general manager who did not fall in love with her. 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!"

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Known For

Acting

Year
Title

Role

1962
Trauma

as    Helen Garrison

1958
Damn Citizen

as    Pat Noble

1955
Abbott and Costello Meet the Keystone Kops

as    Leota Van Cleef

1954
Francis Joins the WACS

as    Louise Simpson

1952
Has Anybody Seen My Gal?

as    Harriet Blaisdell

1952
I Dream of Jeanie

as    Mrs. McDowell

1951
I'd Climb the Highest Mountain

as    Mrs. Billywith

1948
The Amazing Mr. X

as    Christine Faber

1946
Nocturne

as    Frances Ransom

1946
Home Sweet Homicide

as    Marian Carstairs

1946
Margie

as    Miss Isabel Palmer

1946
Shock

as    Nurse Elaine Jordan

1944
Tampico

as    Katherine Hall

1943
Hello, Frisco, Hello

as    Bernice Croft

1942
The Falcon Takes Over

as    Ann Riordan

1942
China Girl

as    Captain Fifi

1942
The Magnificent Dope

as    Claire Harris

1942
Orchestra Wives

as    Jaynie Stevens

1942
Secret Agent of Japan

as    Kay Murdock

1941
The Perfect Snob

as    Chris Mason

1941
Blood and Sand

as    Encarnacion

1941
Sleepers West

as    Kay Bentley

1941
We Go Fast

as    Rose Coughlin

1941
Sun Valley Serenade

as    Vivian Dawn

1940
Free, Blonde and 21

as    Carol Northrup

1940
Kit Carson

as    Dolores Murphy

1940
Lillian Russell

as    Edna McCauley

1940
City of Chance

as    Julie Reynolds

1940
Earthbound

as    Linda Reynolds

1940
Charter Pilot

as    Marge Duncan