Barbara Read
Birth : 1917-12-29, Port Arthur, Ontario, Canada
Death : 1963-12-11
History
Born in Port Arthur, Ontario, Canada, Barbara Read was the daughter of a contractor. Under contract to Columbia, she was paid but never used for a single picture. She quit in disgust. She was later signed by Universal and was cast as one of the Craig sisters inThree Smart Girls (1936) along with Deanna Durbin and Nan Grey. This was Barbara's first and best remembered film. Her career was over by the time she married actor William Talman, of "Perry Mason" fame, in 1953. The couple had two children: Barbara ("Barbie") and William III ("Bobo"). The marriage was turbulent as both she and Talman suffered from alcohol problems. They divorced in 1960 with Barbara gaining custody of the children. Talman took over custody a year later when Barbara's alcoholism and mental/emotional problems became overbearing. Committed suicide at her Laguna Beach, California home when she turned on the gas jets of her stove and sealed the doors and windows. She left a suicide note blaming "ill health". Barbara Read bore a powerful likeness to Deanna Durbin, whose sister she was portraying in "Three Smart Girls".
Date of Death: 11 December 1963, Laguna Beach, California (suicide)
Story
Santa Claus appoints a young bear as his helper in delivering toys to the animals in the forest, and he becomes known as Santabear.
Abbie Miles (as Barbara Reed)
A man is bent on taking revenge on those responsible for his fiancée's death.
Martha Higby (as Barbara Reed)
A man takes over the identity of a dead man while on the lam from a crime he didn't commit.
Peggy Sullivan (as Barbara Reed)
The adventures of a boy and his dog in a small town.
Margo Lane (as Barbara Reed)
While investigating the theft of a valuable jade statue known as "The Missing Lady" -- and the subsequent murder of an art dealer -- imperceptible sleuth Lamont Cranston aka the Shadow (Kane Richmond) finds himself being blamed for the crime. It doesn't help the Shadow's claims of innocence when more bodies begin piling up. Good thing he knows exactly who's guilty among an increasingly smaller group of suspects.
Mitzi
A dance hall girl is murdered and her body robbed of a quantity of gold obtained illegally. The killer flees into Death Valley and encounters the rightful owner of the gold and her sweetheart.
Margo Lane (as Barbara Reed)
Falsely accused of murdering a crooked newspaper reporter, suave detective Lamont Cranston -- aka the Shadow -- vows to track down the real killer.
Margo Lane (as Barbara Reed)
The Shadow (Kane Richmond) cracks a case of missing jewels, murder and plastics.
Mary Dale
Racketeer Gillin is paroled from prison and immediately goes to work trying to make an illegal buck from America's war effort. With rationing in effect the black market tire business is booming. Gillen's mob sets up car lots around town where they peddle stolen tires and "new" tires milled in the gangster's factories from cheap faulty materials. People begin to die in crashes as the defective tires fail. Bill Barry leads his fellow defense plant workers on a crusade to uncover the source of the black market rubber and bring the guilty to justice. Although clearly intended to warn the public about black market tire smuggling, Rubber Racketeers holds it own as a saga of mobsters versus an irate public.
Linda Pearson
Thanks to a fib intended to ward off an annoying real estate developer, a young bachelor finds himself engaged to three different women and pursued by a fourth, a gangster's sister.
Helen Middleton
Two theatrical producers plan to get even with a demanding actress by tricking her into starring in the worst play they can find.
Helen Yates
Two married couples become engulfed in a storm of emotional fury when Doctor Leslie Yates runs into writer Doris Wilding, his old college flame, whom he has not seen in ten years. After reminiscing about their past, Doris and Leslie make a dinner date with their respective spouses. On the eve of the Yates's dinner party, Leslie's wife Helen brings home a magazine article written by Doris, which sparks Leslie's memory of his separation from her.
Janet Marlowe
Jed Marlowe is a brilliant, scheming, unscrupulous criminal lawyer whose specialty is defending criminal he knows is guilty but gets them off through loop-holes or bribery. Then his daughter, misled by her father’s courtroom performance, but unaware of his back-room tactics, marries the killer her father has just unjustly save from the electric chair. What’s a poor father to do?
Dotty Spencer
A young girl begins to wonder if she really fits into the upper-class sorority she's trying to join.
Claire Saunders
Doctor in jungle works on cure for fever.
Patricia Hammond
A former actor poses as the son of a wealthy man and gets involved in a murder in which the real son is the suspect.
Clarice Stockbridge
Two screwy characters travel to Hollywood and cause mischief.
Nan
An actor plots "the perfect crime" by confessing to murders he didn't commit.
Lucy
After the First World War a group of German soldiers try to readjust to civilian life. A sequel to 'All Quiet on the Western Front'.
Rhoda Cooper
At a family reunion, the Cooper clan find that their parents' home is being foreclosed. "Temporarily," Ma moves in with son George's family, Pa with daughter Cora. But the parents are like sand in the gears of their middle-aged children's well regulated households. Can the old folks take matters into their own hands?
Aileen Fenno
Story of a dog that is fanatically devoted to its master.
Kay Craig
The three Craig sisters Penny, Kay, and Joan, go to New York to stop their divorced father from marrying gold digger Donna Lyons and re-unite him with their mother.
