Barbara Hale

Barbara Hale (1922-2017) was an American actress best known for her role as confidential secretary Della Street in the television series Perry Mason (1957–1966), earning her a 1959 Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series. She reprised the role in 30 Perry Mason movies for television (1985–1995). Her film roles included The Window (1949), in which she starred as the mother of a boy who witnesses a murder.


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. W. 615. Photo: R.K.O. Radio.


Spanish postcard in the Hollywood (California) series, no. 49.


Dutch postcard, no. 201. Photo: Universal Film.

Lady Luck

Barbara Hale was born in DeKalb, Illinois, in 1922. She was the daughter of Wilma (née Colvin) and Luther Ezra Hale, a landscape gardener. She had one sister, Juanita, for whom Hale's younger daughter was named. In 1940, Hale graduated from Rockford High School in Rockford, Illinois, and then attended the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, planning to be an artist.

Her performing career began in Chicago when she started modelling for a comic strip called 'Ramblin' Bill' to pay for her education. She was also one of the original 'Dr Pepper' girls featured in the soda company's calendars in the 1940s and 1950s. Hale moved to Hollywood in 1943, and under contract to RKO Radio Pictures, made her first screen appearance (uncredited) in Gildersleeve's Bad Day (Gordon Douglas, 1943).

She continued to make small uncredited appearances in films, until her first credited role alongside Frank Sinatra in Higher and Higher (Tim Whelan, 1943). She even sang with him in the film. Hale had leading roles in such films as West of the Pecos (Edward Killy, 1945) with Robert Mitchum, and Lady Luck (Edwin L. Marin, 1946) opposite Robert Young which she described as her first 'full stardom' and 'her fifth A picture', and The Window (Ted Tetzlaff, 1949).

Her roles in 1950s films such as the adventure Lorna Doone (Phil Karlson, 1951); the comedy The Jackpot (Walter Lang, 1951) with James Stewart; the drama A Lion Is in the Streets (Raoul Walsh, 1953), and the Western Seminole (Budd Boetticher, 1953) with Rock Hudson continued Hale's run of successful films during that decade.

The Western The Oklahoman (Francis D. Lyon, 1957), co-starring Joel McCrea, would mark Hale's last leading role in a film. She seldom appeared in film after this time, but Hale was part of an all-star cast in Airport (George Seaton, Henry Hathaway, 1970), playing the wife of an airline pilot played by Dean Martin. Hale's final appearance in a feature film was in the drama Big Wednesday (John Milius, 1978) as Mrs. Barlow, the mother of the character played by Hale's real-life son William Katt.


Dutch postcard, no. 3324. Photo: Columbia.


Belgian postcard. Photo: Universal.

Legal secretary Della Street

Barbara Hale was considering retirement from acting when she accepted her best-known role as legal secretary Della Street in the television series Perry Mason, starring Raymond Burr as the titular character. The show ran for nine seasons from 1957 to 1966, with 271 episodes produced. She appeared in 263. The role won Hale a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series.

In 1985, Hale and Burr (by then the only surviving cast members from the original series) reprised their roles for the TV movie Perry Mason Returns. The film was such a rating hit, that a further 29 TV movies were produced until 1995. Hale continued her role as Della in the four telefilms produced after Burr's death in 1993, subtitled A Perry Mason Mystery (and starring Paul Sorvino as Anthony Caruso in the first film and Hal Holbrook as 'Wild' Bill McKenzie in the remaining three).

Hale is thus the only actor to feature in all 30 films. Hale's career became inextricably linked with that of Perry Mason co-star Burr; she guest-starred in Murder Impromptu, a 1971 episode of his next series, Ironside. Her last on-screen appearance was a TV biographical documentary about Burr that aired in 2000.

In 1945 during the filming of West of the Pecos, Hale met actor Bill Williams (birth name Herman August Wilhelm Katt). They were married for 46 years from 1946 until Williams' death from cancer in 1992. The couple had two daughters, Jodi and Juanita, and a son, actor William Katt. Williams made guest appearances on four episodes of Perry Mason in the 1960s. Their son, William Katt played detective Paul Drake, Jr., alongside Hale in nine of the Perry Mason TV movies from 1985 to 1988.

Hale guest-starred in Katt's series, The Greatest American Hero in which William Katt played the title role, aka Ralph Hinkley; Hale played Hinkley's mother in the 1982 episode, Who's Woo in America. Barbara Hale died at her home in Sherman Oaks, California, in 2017, of complications from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. She was 94 years old. She is interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills) next to her husband.


Belgian postcard, no. AX-156. Photo: R.K.O. Radio - Films.


Belgian postcard by Nieuwe Merksemsche Chocolaterie S.P.R.L., Merksem (Anvers), no. C 18. Photo: Columbia. Larry Parks and Barbara Hale in Jolson sings again (Henry Levin, 1949).


Vintage postcard. Photo: Columbia.

Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch and English) and IMDb.