Lynn Bari
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!"
Filmography (131 Appearances)
Johnny Walker
The Young Runaways
The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.
The F.B.I.
Six Gun Law
Trauma
Everglades
The New Breed
Ben Casey
Michael Shayne
The Aquanauts
Law of the Plainsman
Bronco
Damn Citizen
Perry Mason
The Women of Pitcairn Island
Science Fiction Theatre
Abbott and Costello Meet the Keystone Kops
Climax!
Studio 57
Francis Joins the WACS
City Detective
Boss Lady
Has Anybody Seen My Gal?
I Dream of Jeanie
On the Loose
Sunny Side of the Street
I'd Climb the Highest Mountain
Lux Video Theatre
Detective's Wife
The Kid from Cleveland
The Amazing Mr. X
The Man from Texas
Nocturne
Margie
Home Sweet Homicide
Shock
Captain Eddie
Sweet and Low-Down
Take It or Leave It
Tampico
The Bridge of San Luis Rey
Hello, Frisco, Hello
China Girl
Orchestra Wives
The Magnificent Dope
The Falcon Takes Over
Secret Agent of Japan
The Night Before the Divorce
The Perfect Snob
Moon Over Her Shoulder
We Go Fast
Sun Valley Serenade
Screen Snapshots Series 21 No. 1
Blood and Sand
Sleepers West
Charter Pilot
Kit Carson
Pier 13
Earthbound
Lillian Russell
Free, Blonde and 21
City of Chance
City in Darkness
Pack Up Your Troubles
Hollywood Cavalcade
Hotel for Women
News Is Made at Night
Chasing Danger
The Return of the Cisco Kid
Pardon Our Nerve
Sharpshooters
Meet the Girls
I'll Give a Million
Always Goodbye
Speed to Burn
Josette
Battle of Broadway
Mr. Moto's Gamble
Walking Down Broadway
The Baroness and the Butler
City Girl
Love and Hisses
Lancer Spy
Wife, Doctor and Nurse
You Can't Have Everything
She Had to Eat
This Is My Affair
Café Metropole
Fair Warning
Love Is News
On the Avenue
Time Out for Romance
Woman-Wise
Crack-Up
Under Your Spell
Pigskin Parade
Ladies in Love
Sing, Baby, Sing
36 Hours to Kill
Private Number
Everybody's Old Man
My Marriage
King of Burlesque
Professional Soldier
Show Them No Mercy!
Pirate Party on Catalina Isle
Thanks a Million
Music Is Magic
Way Down East
The Gay Deception
Redheads on Parade
The Daring Young Man
Doubting Thomas
Spring Tonic
$10 Raise
George White's 1935 Scandals
Under Pressure
Charlie Chan in Paris
Caravan
Music in the Air
365 Nights in Hollywood
Handy Andy
Stand Up and Cheer!
Bottoms Up
Coming Out Party
David Harum
Search for Beauty
I Am Suzanne!
Dancing Lady
Meet the Baron