British-born actress who appeared in both British and American films, but who found her greatest success in Hollywood second leads. After a variety of jobs, including nurse, chorus girl and milkmaid, Barnes entered vaudeville. She appeared in more than a score of short comedies with comedian Stanley Lupino before making her feature bow in 1931. ...
[on Robert Taylor when they co-starred in "There's Always Tomorrow"] A nice boy but bad teeth and rather simian features. He went back to MGM where they fixed his hairline and capped his teeth. The next I knew he was a big star in "Small Town Girl" and I was the featured player.
2
[In a 1990 interview] Look at some TV series which masquerade as glamor and see how much they have fallen into cheapness and tawdriness. So you ask me if I miss the business. I have to say it just isn't there any more. I've made all the comebacks I intend to, thanks very much!
3
I'm no Sarah Bernhardt. One picture is just like another to me as long as I don't have to be a sweet woman.
She sued Harry Cohn of Columbia Pictures because he supposedly ordered her to be photographed in her garters behind a screen, but it was just a publicity stunt cooked up by Barnes and Cohn.
6
She played Fanny in the original London stage version of Noël Coward's play "Cavalcade", but was signed by Fox for a different role in the film adaptation. She sailed to New York on the Queen Mary and was taken to the Waldorf Towers. It was a stormy night, and when no one from the studio showed up to meet her, she sailed back to Britain the next day.
7
When the Jewish Barnes converted to Catholicism, Loretta Young acted as her sponsor/godmother.
8
Roomed with Pat Paterson when both were struggling starlets in England.
9
She played poker with Clark Gable at the studio and at the actor's home.
10
Shares a large monument and grave site with Joe E. Brown at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.
11
She and her husband are buried alongside Joe E. Brown in his grave site at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.
12
Biography in: "American National Biography". Supplement 1, pp. 29-30. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
13
She was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1501 Vine Street in Hollywood, California on February 8, 1960.
$1.4 Million
