Phyllis Barry was an English film actress. Born in Leeds, England, Barry appeared in over 40 films between 1932 and 1947.

Career

Barry trained as a dancer in a John Tiller

John Tiller

John Thomas Ibbotson Tiller was a musical theatre director who was credited with inventing precision dance and was the originator of the 'Tiller Girls'.-Biography:...

 troupe. She then left England to appear on the stage in Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. Later she went to America and under the name of Phyllis du Barry toured the coast and finally appeared in Hollywood where she was given a film part.

Modern viewers will remember Barry for her role as a foreign spy who seduces Curly Howard

Curly Howard

Jerome Lester "Jerry" Horwitz , better known by his stage name Curly Howard, was an American comedian and vaudevillian. He is best known as a member of the American slapstick comedy team the Three Stooges, along with his older brothers Moe Howard and Shemp Howard, and actor Larry Fine...

 in the Three Stooges

Three Stooges

The Three Stooges were an American vaudeville and comedy act of the early to mid–20th century best known for their numerous short subject films. Their hallmark was physical farce and extreme slapstick. In films, the Stooges were commonly known by their first names: "Moe, Larry, and Curly" and "Moe,...

 short subject

Short subject

A short film is any film not long enough to be considered a feature film. No consensus exists as to where that boundary is drawn: the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all...

 Three Little Sew and Sews

Three Little Sew and Sews

Three Little Sew and Sews is the 36th short subject starring American slapstick comedy team the Three Stooges. The trio made a total of 190 shorts for Columbia Pictures between 1934 and 1959.-Plot:...

. Other films include The Prince and the Pauper

The Prince and the Pauper

The Prince and the Pauper is an English-language novel by American author Mark Twain. It was first published in 1881 in Canada before its 1882 publication in the United States. The book represents Twain's first attempt at historical fiction...

, One Rainy Afternoon

One Rainy Afternoon

One Rainy Afternoon is a 1936 romantic comedy film directed by Rowland V. Lee, starring Francis Lederer and Ida Lupino and featuring Hugh Herbert, Roland Young and Erik Rhodes...

, and Laurel and Hardy

Laurel and Hardy

Laurel and Hardy were one of the most popular and critically acclaimed comedy double acts of the early Classical Hollywood era of American cinema...

's Bonnie Scotland

Bonnie Scotland

Bonnie Scotland is a 1935 American film starring Laurel and Hardy, produced by Hal Roach for Hal Roach Studios and directed by James W. Horne...

.
.

Director King Vidor

King Vidor

King Wallis Vidor was an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter whose career spanned nearly seven decades...

 selected Barry to co-star as "the other woman" in the 1932 Samuel Goldwyn

Samuel Goldwyn

Samuel Goldwyn was an American film producer, and founding contributor executive of several motion picture studios.-Biography:...

 film Cynara

Cynara (film)

Cynara is a 1932 romantic drama film about a British lawyer who pays a heavy price for an affair. It stars Ronald Colman, Kay Francis, and Phyllis Barry and is based on the novel An Imperfect Lover by Robert Gore-Browne.-Cast :...

opposite Ronald Coleman

Ronald Coleman

Ronald Coleman may refer to:* Ronald Colman, English actor* Ronald D. Coleman, American politician* Ronald S. Coleman, United States Marine Corps Lieutenant General* Ronnie Coleman, American bodybuilder...

 and Kay Francis

Kay Francis

Kay Francis was an American stage and film actress. After a brief period on Broadway in the late 1920s, she moved to film and achieved her greatest success between 1930 and 1936, when she was the number one female star at the Warner Brothers studio, and the highest paid American film actress...

. In 1933, she starred alongside Buster Keaton

Buster Keaton

Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".Keaton was recognized as the...

 and Jimmy Durante

Jimmy Durante

James Francis "Jimmy" Durante was an American singer, pianist, comedian and actor. His distinctive clipped gravelly speech, comic language butchery, jazz-influenced songs, and large nose helped make him one of America's most familiar and popular personalities of the 1920s through the 1970s...

 in the comedy What! No Beer?

What! No Beer?

What! No Beer? is a 1933 comedy film starring Buster Keaton and Jimmy Durante, and directed by Edward Sedgwick. The studio had also paired Keaton and Durante as a comedy team during this period in The Passionate Plumber and Speak Easily....

for MGM. Her career never included other major productions.

Death

Barry died of barbiturate poisoning caused by the ingestion of phenobarbital

Phenobarbital

Phenobarbital or phenobarbitone is a barbiturate, first marketed as Luminal by Friedr. Bayer et comp. It is the most widely used anticonvulsant worldwide, and the oldest still commonly used. It also has sedative and hypnotic properties but, as with other barbiturates, has been superseded by the...

 on 1 July 1954.

External links