British postcard in the Cameo Series, London, no. KC05. Photo: Dorothy Wilding.
British postcard in the Colourgraph series, no. C.170. Photo: Dorothy Wilding.
A blackmail family drama
Joan Barry was born Ina Florence Marshman Bell in Carlisle, in 1903. She was the daughter of Francis Marshman Bell and wife Norah Cavanagh.
She had her first role at the age of 15, a small part in 'Luck of the Navy'. Barry appeared at St James's Theatre, London when seventeen.
From 1922 Joan Barry acted in silent cinema. She first acted in the comedy The Card (A.V. Bramble, 1922). It is an adaptation of the 1911 novel 'The Card' by Arnold Bennett.
She already had the female lead in her next film, Hutch Stirs 'em Up (Frank Hall Crane, 1923), starring Charles Hutchison as cowboy hero Hurricane Hutch and Joan as a damsel in distress.
After the blackmail family drama The Happy Ending (George A. Cooper, 1925), Barry's last silent film performance was in The Rising Generation (George Dewhurst, Harley Knoles, 1928) with Alice Joyce.
British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 557a. Photo: Dorothy Wilding.
British postcard in the Film Partners Series, London, no. PC 115. Photo: Paramount British. Jack Buchanan and Joan Barry in A Man of Mayfair (Louis Mercanton, 1931).
Dubbing the voice of Anny Ondra
Joan Barry memorably dubbed the voice of Anny Ondra in the early Alfred Hitchcock thriller Blackmail (1929), which halfway production was turned into a sound film. The film is about a London woman who is blackmailed after killing a man who tries to rape her.
The limited sound technology available at the time meant that Barry had to dub the Czech actress in real-time as she performed the role. Ondra mimicked the lines while Barry talked into a microphone "and somehow they managed to synchronize", as Ronald Neame remarked in Kevin Brownlow and David Gill's series Cinema Europe. The film was a critical and commercial hit.
Two years later, Barry appeared on-screen for Hitchcock in Rich and Strange (Alfred Hitchcock, 1931) with Henry Kendall. The next years, she continued to appear in a mixture of leading and top supporting roles, most memorably in the thriller Rome Express (Walter Forde, 1932), starring Esther Ralston and Conrad Veidt.
She retired from the screen after her first marriage to Henry Hampson in 1934. On 3 October 1936, she married her second husband, Henry Frederick Tiarks III (1900-1995), a wealthy merchant banker also marrying for the second time.
They had two children. One of them, Edward Henry Tiarks, died when he was only six months old in 1943. The other, Henrietta Joan Tiarks, married Robin Russell, the Marquess of Tavistock, who eventually became the 14th Duke of Bedford. She is now Henrietta, Dowager Duchess of Bedford. Joan Barry was the Godmother of James Macintyre Boyd.
In 1989, Joan Barry passed away in Marbella, Spain, at the age of 85.
British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 557.
British postcard by Film Weekly, London, no. 112.
British postcard in the Cameo Series, London, no. K 5. Photo: Dorothy Wilding.
Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.
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