Gene Barry

At 90 years old, Gene Barry has this physical status:

Gene Barry (born Eugene Klass, 1919-December 9, 2009) was an American stage, film, and television actor.

Barry is best known for his appearances in the films The Atomic City (1952) and The War of The World (1953) as well as his portrayal of the title characters in the TV series Bat Masterson and Burke's Law, among other things.

Early life

Barry was born Eugene Klass in New York City, the son of Eva (née Conn) and Martin Klass; both of his grandparents were Russian immigrants from Russia; all of his grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Russia. Barry grew up in Brooklyn and attended New Utrecht High School. As a youth, Barry demonstrated early artistic ability in singing and playing violin, and later spent two years at the Chatham Square School of Music in Greenwich Village on a scholarship for his vocal ability.

Personal life

Susan Claire Kalb (1923-2003), who appeared on Catherine Was Great, died on October 22, 1944, at age 25. Julie Carson, an actress best known by the stage name Julie Carson, was Kalb's mother.

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Career

Barry chose his professional name in honor of John Barrymore and made his Broadway debut as Captain Paul Duval in the 1942 revival of Sigmund Romberg's The New Moon. He later portrayed Falke in Rosalinda (1942), Nova Kovich in The Merry Widow (1943), Lieutenant Bunin in Catherine Was Great (1944), Dorante and Comte De Chateau-Gaillard in The Would-Be Gentleman (1946), The Doctor in Happy as Larry (1950), and played a variety of roles in the musical revue Bless You All (1950).

In 1950 Barry began appearing on television with the NBC Television Opera Theatre. In 1955 he appeared on the CBS Television anthology series Appointment with Adventure.

In 1951 Barry was hired for his first movie, in the role of Dr. Frank Addison in The Atomic City (1952). In 1953 he was cast as Dr. Clayton Forrester in the science fiction film The War of the Worlds (1953). (Much later, Barry also made a cameo appearance in Steven Spielberg's remake of War of the Worlds (2005), along with his co-star Ann Robinson from the film of 1953.)

When the situation comedy Our Miss Brooks was given a change of format in 1955, Barry was cast in a recurring role as the physical education teacher Gene Talbot, the new romantic interest of series star Eve Arden. The show was canceled in 1956, but Barry's character—a ladies' man with expensive tastes—served as the model for three shows in which he later starred.

Bat Masterson, a fictionalized recounting of the life of the real-life U.S. Marshal, gambler, and gunman (Masterson's life as a writer and bon vivant occurred long after the time-frame featured in the series) was broadcast by NBC-TV from 1958 to 1961. (In 1990 Barry recreated the role of Bat Masterson for two episodes of Guns of Paradise along with Hugh O'Brian as Wyatt Earp and the following year in The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw, also with O'Brian as Wyatt Earp.)

In his next TV series, Burke's Law, Barry played a millionaire homicide investigator who was chauffeured in his Rolls Royce as he solved crimes. This series was broadcast on ABC-TV from September 20, 1963, to May 5, 1965. For his performance in it, Barry won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in 1965. In 1965–66, the final season of the series, the title of the show changed to Amos Burke, Secret Agent. In 1994 a revival of the Burke's Law series returned to television for two seasons on CBS. Barry again played in the title role, this time as a widower working with his son Peter (Peter Barton). According to his co-star Gary Conway, who played Det. Tilson in the original series, the two had a lot of fun, on and off camera, despite having some difficulties with each other. After Conway left the show, he remained friends with Barry until his acting mentor's death.

Barry's third TV series was called The Name of the Game, in which he played the sophisticated publisher of a family of magazines, and he was one of three lead characters. The other two lead actors were Robert Stack and Tony Franciosa, who rotated with Barry week by week as the primary character in each week's program. This series was shown by NBC from 1968 to 1971. One of the magazines that Barry's character published was called People, several years before the actual People began publication.

Shortly before the filming of The Name of the Game series began, Barry played the villain—a wealthy psychiatrist—in Prescription: Murder, the two-hour TV movie that became the precursor of the TV series Columbo.

In 1972, Barry starred in the ITV television series The Adventurer, along with Barry Morse and Catherine Schell. He played Gene Bradley, a government agent of independent means who posed as a glamorous American movie star.

Barry returned to Broadway acting on two occasions—in 1962 in The Perfect Setup and in 1983 in the Broadway premiere of the musical La Cage aux Folles. Barry was nominated for a Tony Award for his portrayal of Georges in Cage.

For his contribution to live theatre, Gene Barry received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6555 Hollywood Boulevard. In 1975 Barry bought a home in Palm Springs, California. A Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars was dedicated to him in 1994.

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