Joan Barry (American actress)
| Joan Barry | |
|---|---|
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| Born |
Mary Louise Gribble May 24, 1920 Detroit, Michigan, U.S. |
| Other names | Mary Louise Baker (legal name at the time of her death according to the Social Security Applications and Claims Index) |
| Known for | Paternity suit with Charlie Chaplin |
| Spouse(s) | Russell C. Seck (1946) |
| Partner(s) | Charlie Chaplin (1941–1942) |
Mary Louise Baker (born Mary Louise Gribble; born May 24, 1920), known as Joan Barry, was an American actress who had a short-lived career in the industry. She is perhaps best known for winning a paternity suit in California in 1943 against Charlie Chaplin, after an affair between the two resulted in two terminated pregnancies and the subject of the suit, a live-born girl named Carol Ann. Chaplin supported the girl financially until her 21st birthday.
Barry was born May 24, 1920, as Mary Louise Gribble in Detroit, Michigan, to James A. and Gertrude E. Gribble. The Gribble family moved to New York City before June 1925. Her father worked as a machinist in Detroit, and as car salesman in New York. Barry's parents had another child, a girl named Agnes who was born in 1923. Her father committed suicide on December 10, 1927. Her mother married a man named John Berry. Barry went to California in 1938 to pursue an acting career.
Barry, 22 years old, began an affair with established Director Charlie Chaplin, aged 52 years, in the summer of 1941; Chaplin had his Studio sign Barry at $75 a week with possibility of extension, and came to consider her for the starring role in Shadows and Substance, a film proposed for 1942. Barry's initial contract was not associated with Shadows, but won Chaplin's favour for the part following an "excellent private reading." Indeed, Chaplin spoke highly of her acting abilities, as David Robinson captures in his biography, where he notes "Chaplin’s sincerity in believing that he could make Joan Barry into an actress…. [as] she had ‘all the qualities of a new Maude Adams’ and told his sons, ‘She has a quality, an ethereal something that’s truly marvelous…a talent as great as any I’ve seen in my whole life.” Other sources, including FBI case records and Chaplin autobiographical writings, indicate the young actress to have had both talent at her craft, emotional swings, and periods of erratic behavior. According to Chaplin and some Chaplin biographers the relationship ended with Barry's harassing him and displaying signs of the mental illness which would, in later life lead to her commitment. Other sources suggest that after a concerted effort by Chaplin and his studio to prepare Barry for the lead in Shadows (after Chaplin's purchase of the rights)—efforts that included orthodontic work and participation at the Max Reinhardt Workshop for acting—Chaplin's interest in Barry as an actress and partner dissolved when efforts to produce the movie stalled.
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