Actor / Director Profile

Sunny and vivacious to a tee, lovely, well-coiffed Barbara Britton looked like she stepped out of magazine as she entered our homes daily as the 'Revlon Girl' on 50s and 60s TV. She sparkled with the best of them and captured that "perfect wife/perfect mother" image with, well, perfect poise and perfect grace. Co-starring opposite some of Hollywood's most durable leading men, including Randolph Scott (multiple times), Joel McCrea, Gene Autry, Jeff Chandler and John Hodiak, it's rather a shame she was rather obtusely used in Hollywood films but thankfully her beauty and glamour, if not her undeniable talent, saved the day in the end.It all began for the radiant blue-eyed redhead in equally sunny Long Beach, California on Sepjtember 26, 1919. Attending Polytechnic High School, she later taught Sunday school and majored in speech at Long Beach City College with the designs of becoming a speech and drama teacher. Her interest in acting, however, took hold and she began to pursue the local stage. Her own personal 'Hollywood' story unfolded when, as a Pasadena Tournament of Roses parade representative of Long Beach, she was seen on the front pages of the newspaper, scouted out and signed by Paramount movie agents.Barbara debuted with Secret of the Wastelands (1941), a Hopalong Cassidy western. She continued in both bit parts and with modest but somewhat showy roles in such fare as Louisiana Purchase (1941), So Proudly We Hail! (1943) and Till We Meet Again (1944). Underserved for most of her film career and confined as a pretty, altruistic, genteel young thing in such durable films as The Great John L. (1945), The Virginian (1946), The Return of Monte Cristo (1946), Albuquerque (1948), Champagne for Caesar (1950) and The Bandit Queen (1950), Barbara wisely turned to the stage and TV in the 1950s.After co-starring with Richard Denning in "Mr. & Mrs. North" (1952) she became Revlon's lovely pitchwoman and remained on view for 12 years with the company. In between she appeared on the top dramatic shows of the day, and co-starring intermittently in films with The Raiders (1952), Bwana Devil (1952), Dragonfly Squadron (1954) and Night Freight (1955) before ending her film career with The Spoilers (1955) opposite Jeff Chandler and Rory Calhoun.Various Broadway shows included "Getting Married," her debut in 1951, "Wake Up, Darling (1956), and "Thee and Me" (1965). Other stage credits in the dinner theatre and summer stock venues included "Last of the Red Hot Lovers", "Barefoot in the Park", "No, No, Nanette" and "40 Carats". More and more time was spent raising her family (her husband was a doctor and psychiatrist) and Barbara was only occasionally seen in the 1970s. Much of her work would be in regional or dinner theater productions, sometimes appearing with two of her four children in such shows as "40 Carats" and "A Roomful of Roses".Sadly, her two younger children died while very young. Oldest daughter, Christina Britton, became a model, actress, operatic singer, music therapist and romance novelist while son, Thedore (Ted), appeared on episodic TV and became a yoga instructor. One of Barbara's last roles was on the daytime soap "One Life to Live" (1968) in 1979, a year before the vivacious actress died of gastric cancer at age 60.