Lynn Bari (December 18, 1913 – November 20, 1989) was a stunning and prolific fixture of 20th Century Fox during the 1930s and ’40s. Often cast as the sophisticated “other woman,” Bari specialized in portraying sultry, statuesque characters who were as likely to steal a scene as they were to steal a husband.
Bari’s journey at Fox began in the chorus line and as an uncredited extra, but her sharp screen presence soon led her to more substantial roles. While she occasionally played the leading lady in films like China Girl (1942) and the drama The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1944), she truly excelled in B-movie noirs where she played cold-blooded villainesses. Her performances in Shock (1946) and Nocturne (1946) solidified her reputation as one of the era’s most effective and elegant “man-killers.”
During World War II, Bari’s appeal reached a fever pitch; she was famously voted the second most popular pinup girl among American GIs, trailing only the legendary Betty Grable. As the 1950s arrived and film roles began to shift, she seamlessly transitioned into the new medium of television. She became an early pioneer of the sitcom, starring as a high-powered construction executive in Boss Lady (1952) and later guest-starring in westerns like Overland Trail, where she portrayed the famous outlaw Belle Starr.
Despite her onscreen persona as a tough, gun-toting temptress, Bari was famously terrified of firearms in real life. She once joked about her typecasting, saying, “I seem to be a woman always with a gun in her purse… I go from one set to the other shooting people and stealing husbands!” With a career spanning roughly 150 films, she remains a definitive icon of Hollywood’s Golden Age glamour.
