Joan Barry (American actress)

Mary Louise Baker (née Gribble; May 24, 1920 – October 1, 2007), known professionally as Joan Barry, was an American woman who won a paternity suit in California in 1943 against Charlie Chaplin.

For the British actress, see Joan Barry (British actress).
Joan Barry
Born
Mary Louise Gribble

(1920-05-24)May 24, 1920
Detroit, Michigan, U.S.
DiedOctober 1, 2007(2007-10-01) (aged 87)
New York City
Known forPaternity suit with Charlie Chaplin
Spouse
Russell Seck
​
​
(m. 1946; unknown 1952)​
[1]
PartnerCharlie Chaplin (1941–1942)
Children3

Early life

Born Mary Louise Gribble on May 24, 1920,[2]: 197  in Detroit, Michigan, to James Alfred Gribble and Gertrude Elizabeth McLaren. The Gribble family moved to New York City before June 1925. James Gribble worked as a machinist in Detroit, and as car salesman in New York. Another daughter, Agnes, was born in 1923. James died by suicide on December 10, 1927. Gertrude later married a man named John Barry. Barry went to California in 1938 to pursue an acting career.[2]: 197 

Chaplin affair and aftermath

Barry, 21 years old, began an affair with established director Charlie Chaplin, aged 52 years, in the summer of 1941;[3] Chaplin had his studio sign Barry at $75 a week ($1,490 today) with possibility of extension,[3] and came to consider her for the starring role in Shadow and Substance, a film proposed for 1942.[4] Chaplin spoke highly of her acting abilities; Chaplin biographer David Robinson writes in Chaplin: A Life of "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.” [5]: 512  Other sources, including FBI case records and Chaplin autobiographical writings, indicate the young actress to have had talent at her craft, as well as 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. Barry was accused of stalking Chaplin, and had even broken into his home on several occasions.[6] Other sources suggest that after a concerted effort by Chaplin and his studio to prepare Barry for the lead in Shadows, including orthodontic work and participation at the Max Reinhardt Workshop for acting, Chaplin lost his patience with Barry as an actress after she repeatedly missed classes and developed a drinking problem.[7]

FBI case files and other records recorded two terminated pregnancies during the affair.[8] After Barry gave birth to a girl, Carol Ann, on October 2, 1943,[2]: 205f  her mother filed a paternity suit against Chaplin. The suit proceeded to trial, and despite blood tests which showed Chaplin was not the father, Barry's attorney, Joseph Scott, succeeded in arguing that the tests were inadmissible.[9] Chaplin was ordered to support the child until her 21st birthday.[10] Federal prosecutors brought Mann Act charges against Chaplin related to Barry in 1944, of which he was acquitted.[3]

Personal life

Barry married Russell Seck, a railway clerk, in 1946. The couple had two sons, Russell and Stephen.[11] The boys moved to Ohio with their father in 1952.

The following year, when she was 33, Time noted that Barry was "admitted to Patton State Hospital... after she was found walking the streets barefoot, carrying a pair of baby sandals and a child's ring, and murmuring: 'This is magic'."[12] After her mother was committed, Carol Ann went to live with a legally appointed guardian and changed her name. She continued to receive monthly payments from Chaplin until her 21st birthday.

In Richard Attenborough's film Chaplin (1992), she is played by Nancy Travis.[13][14]

She is featured as a character in Wieland Schwanebeck's play Slapstick (2021), a comedy based on the encounter between Orson Welles and Charlie Chaplin that led to the film Monsieur Verdoux (1947).[15]

References
  1. "Joan's Happy in Role of Clerk's Wife" (PDF). Utica Daily Press. Utica, NY. 1947-01-20. Retrieved 2009-07-27.
  2. Maland, Charles J. (1989). Chaplin and American Culture. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-02860-5.
  3. "Mann & Woman". Time. April 3, 1944. Archived from the original on January 17, 2008. Retrieved August 21, 2007. Auburn-haired Joan Barry, 24, who wandered from her native Detroit to New York to Hollywood in pursuit of a theatrical career, became a Chaplin protegee in the summer of 1941. She fitted into a familiar pattern. Chaplin signed her to a $75-a-week contract, began training her for a part in a projected picture. Two weeks after the contract was signed she became his mistress. Throughout the summer and autumn, Miss Barry testified last week, she visited the ardent actor five or six times a week. By midwinter her visits were down to "maybe three times a week". By late summer of 1942, Charlie Chaplin had decided that she was unsuited for his movie. Her contract ended.
  4. Weissman, Steven (2008). "Fatal Attraction: Joan Barry". Chaplin: A Life. New York City: Arcade Publishing. Retrieved July 27, 2009.
  5. Robinson, David (1986) [1985]. Chaplin: His Life and Art. London, England: Paladin. ISBN 0586085440.
  6. Tveten, Michael (2020). Biology Stories: 50 Stories for Teaching and Learning Biology. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. p. 97. ISBN 9781475856941. Retrieved 6 December 2021.
  7. Gehring, Wes D. (2016). Movie Comedians of the 1950s: Defining a New Era of Big Screen Comedy. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. p. 49. ISBN 9780786499960. Retrieved 6 December 2021.
  8. Sweeting, Adam (16 February 2022). "The Real Charlie Chaplin review - not as revealing as its title suggests". The Arts Desk. Retrieved 18 May 2022.
  9. Maland, Charles J. (1989). Chaplin and American Culture. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. pp. 205–206. ISBN 978-0-691-02860-6. Carol Ann's blood group was B, Barry's was A, and Chaplin's was O. In California at this time, blood tests were not accepted as evidence in legal trials.
  10. Chilton, Martin (25 July 2020). "'Perverted, degenerate and indecent acts': Charlie Chaplin and the original A-list divorce scandal". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 17 May 2022.
  11. "Joan Barry Rift Denied". Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph. 12 May 1948. p. 3. Retrieved 8 June 2022.
  12. "Just Like the Movies". Time. August 17, 1953. Archived from the original on January 17, 2008. Retrieved August 21, 2007. Another Chaplin ex-protegee, 33-year-old Joan Barry, who won a 1946 paternity suit against the comedian, was admitted to Patton State Hospital (for the mentally ill) after she was found walking the streets barefoot, carrying a pair of baby sandals and a child's ring, and murmuring: "This is magic".
  13. Dlugos, J. Michael (2000). Mr. Mikey's Video Views; Volume One. p. 46. ISBN 9781552123164. Retrieved 8 June 2022.
  14. Gifford, Denis (April 2016). British Film Catalogue: Two Volume Set – The Fiction Film/The Non-Fiction Film. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781317740629. Retrieved 8 June 2022.
  15. Zittau, Haus (October 16, 2021). "Gerhart-Hauptmann-Theater Görlitz-Zittau: Charlie Chaplin trifft Orson Welles in der Uraufführung von Wieland Schwanebecks "Slapstick"". Theaterkompass (in German). Retrieved May 18, 2022.
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