Barbara Knudson

(Biograhical interview courtesy of Boyd Magers)

Barbara Ann Knudson knew she'd be in show business from the beginning. Born December 4, 1927, in Las Vegas, Nevada, she laughs, "I think I drove everybody crazy from the time I was five or six. I just thought I should be Shirley Temple. There was a theatre billboard and whenever Shirley Temple was on that billboard, mother literally had to walk me a different way because I would get so upset because Shirley was up there and I wanted to be. Mother tells the story that I literally threw rocks at the billboard. I would become uncontrollable because Shirley Temple was on that board. In bed at night, in the dark, I would pretend I was a starlet. Many years later, I realized anything you really set your mind out to do, somehow or another, it happens. I did become a starlet. But I did not know to ask to star. (Laughs)"

High school plays, cheerleading and Las Vegas little theatre eventually led to Barbara being part of the Birdcage Theatre's stock company at the Last Frontier, which also included, imported from Hollywood, Isabel Jewel, King Donovan and Barbara's husband-to-be, Bill Henry. "Bill had been quite an up and coming actor with Robert Taylor, Loretta Young and that whole group. He'd been with 20th Century Fox. He was thirteen years older than me. Bill was quite a surfer and a swimmer. I think a lot of that came from Les Henry, his father, who was with the Los Angeles Athletic Club years and years ago. They had connections with the Olympics and Bill was kind of in that atmosphere as a young boy and actually lived in Hawaii for several years."

"We did the Birdcage Theatre thing; I got my professional dollar bill from them and of course, joined SAG. Bill's brother was Thomas Browne Henry, who looked nothing like Bill as they had different fathers. Thomas Browne resembled his mother very, very much. He was older than Bill but I don't know how many years. But they certainly were not similar in appearance."

"Now Thomas Browne was at Pasadena Playhouse, of all things, which is where I always wanted to go. When we stated doing rehearsals out at the Last Frontier, Bill would pick me up to take me to rehearsal, so we got to be friends. And he mentioned that his brother was at the Pasadena Playhouse because I told him I was saving my money to go there. Lo and behold, Bill decided to drive down, visit his parents who lived in Pasadena, and that I could go down and stay overnight with his mom and dad and go to the Pasadena Playhouse, to see it. But the whole time I'm watching this play, I'm sitting there so envious. I wanted to be up there."

"Well, about five to ten days later, we get a phone call from Thomas Browne Henry. He said two agents had contacted him, wanted to know who the girl was with Bill that night and was she an actress, was she interested in acting, where did she come from? Of course, we told them I was a local Las Vegas girl, and I was in the stock company there. Those two people happened to be talent scouts from Paramount and 20th Century Fox. I didn't think anybody in the world even knew I was there. And now they were interested in testing me."

"I chose Paramount over Fox, for whatever reason. They thought I was a young Miriam Hopkins-that's what they were shooting for. When I saw my test I was just sick! You know, you never like yourself on film. But-after I'd returned home to Las Vegas, I got a call that they were going to sign me to a contract. They wanted me down there by December of 1949, just before my twenty-first birthday. I was going with Bill by this time. He stepped in and we didn't go down til January."

"I used to want to change my name, because I had been this imaginary type of a child. I wanted so bad to have my name fancy. Different. Because you don't ever like your own name. But Paramount insisted on leaving it the same way when I first went there under contract. I was just so floored, all these things were happening, that I wasn't going to argue about that. But I often felt, had I been able to change my name, I could pretend to be somebody else. I'm very happy pretending to be somebody else. But now they'd say, here's Barbara Knudson…then I'd get stage fright. But if they'd said, 'Here comes Cherie LaSalle,' I'd have walked up and been her. But anyway, that was the beginning, all from accidental things, like being picked for the Birdcage Theatre, Bill Henry happening to be there, his brother being at the Pasadena Playhouse, I happened to go to one performance, happened to be seen…then went to Paramount."

"I believe I was making $125 a week, which was big money in those days. I made it past the first year when they have options and they were starting to drop people. People that had been there longer than me and I thought were as talented, if not more so, were being dropped as the options came up. I remember passing through those options. Then when it came around to the third one, they dropped me. So I was there a little over two years."

"Bill was very happy in Las Vegas. He never wanted to go back to Hollywood. If it hadn't been for what happened to me, Bill Henry would never have gone back down there. He was perfectly happy and settled in here. He loved just being local. He was a lifeguard at the Last Frontier Hotel pool and he probably would have done great things in Vegas. He was so personable and everybody loved him. He would have been perfectly happy to stay here in Las Vegas. But when I went to Hollywood, he felt compelled to follow me."

Barbara and Bill were married in 1952 in a marriage that lasted just a few months over ten years. They had one son, Billy, in 1958.

Barbara had a small role in Paramount's "Union Station" (1950) and then they allowed her to go on the road with "Born Yesterday", playing the lead opposite Lon Chaney Jr. "Lon was such a heavy drinker. He was very unpleasant that way. Of course, he was the star of the stars, and at rehearsal, the theatres were having him help direct. He directed me behind every piece of furniture there was. I remember complaining, after rehearsal, and they told me very nicely, very politely, but very definitely, that he was the star and that's the way he wanted it done. He'd been doing it all over the country and that's the way it would be staged. But I stole all the reviews. It just happened to be the right vehicle for me. He was just furious. The night after the reviews came out, he did everything he could possibly do, he'd start talking to me, under his breath as I was doing my lines. He would whisper something, off scene, or whatever, at me. Finally, I had about fifteen or twenty minutes of that and I decided to get Lon at his own game. Every time he'd talk to me, I'd say, 'What?' I'd look at him like what did you say? And he didn't know what to do. So he got in the middle of the card game scene. He'd always tell me a certain thing in the card game because that was such a highlight. But I knew it was wrong, I knew I was missing a big laugh and I refused to do that. I just did it the way I wanted and he got so unglued he practically forgot what he was doing. I just decided he wasn't going to do that to me anymore."

A small party scene in one of Rock Hudson's films led to a contract with Universal-International. Roles in "Iron Man" (1951) and "Son of Ali Baba" (1952) followed. Under contract there for two years, this was also the time period Barbara married Bill Henry. "Universal didn't really like someone to be married. I came back and that was the end of that, when the options came up. Tony Curtis and John Hudson were at Universal too. John was such a nice person, fine actor. The one you were afraid of all the time was Hugh O'Brian. God, talk about a strange person. He was friendly, but he was strange."

Moving to television-and several western series-was odd for Barbara because, "I was scared to death of horses! There was one scene in a 'Lone Ranger' (1949-1957) where I had to ride out on a horse. Even though they had the wranglers like six feet away, I was scared. I got out there and I remember the director, Earl Bellamy, said to me, 'You earned your entire money in that last five minutes.' I said, 'Yes, I did!' I was scared to death of horses. I would have done a lot more westerns, had I not been afraid of horses."

Of her early TV westerns, Barbara doesn't recall much about the "Hopalong Cassidy" episode she did in 1952. "I remember being fascinated with him, 'cause everybody always admired him. I just remember trying to keep my eyes open, because the lights were so bright out on the desert."

"I remember more about Gene Autry. I was a dance hall gal. Gene was always so pleasant and cheerful, but the funny thing was he could absolutely not remember the names of cities when he was filming. He would do this whole big line and he'd get to a town name and he'd forget it. And they'd say cut. (Laughs). I was in this buckboard with Pat Buttram. Pat and I are in this overturned thing, and the shot is for Gene to jump over and help me out of this buckboard. I have to jump down about four and half feet. Gene has to get me out of this thing. Prior to that, we left really early, early in the morning. I had grabbed my things, met the limo and gone out on location. We get ready for the scene and I have this big long dress and I put my shoes on but I'd brought two left shoes. So I thought, there wasn't anything that was so major that I couldn't wear those. Now, I had to jump out of this buckboard. Pat gets me out and we jump down and I have this left shoe on my right foot and it's just killing me. Autry does his line but forgets the town he has to say. 'Cut!' Then he'd do the next take. Gene would say 'They're on the road to…uh…' 'Cut!' About this time, my foot is killing me, my whole leg is out of joint because I'm jumping down on this left shoe. Finally, they ended up, practically saying 'thataway'. It was San Dimas, but he could not remember it. (Laughs) That same day, I was sitting by the wardrobe trailer, touching up my makeup. I had this little pillbox hat, made out of cardboard. There was a big two by four, leaning against the trailer, and I guess people walking back and forth in the trailer rocked this board. It fell and hit me smack on the head. If it hadn't been for that hat, I don't know if I'd be here today. (Laughs) Running around with a foot in the wrong shoe and getting hit on the head with a board and everything else in the same film. (Laughs) But I remember Gene, because we had a lot of fun on the set, and Pat was such a wonderful person."

Barbara also worked on "Daniel Boone" (1964-1970). "Fess Parker was a sweetheart. We were close friends in a way. Fess was just starting out. Bill and I had a little apartment up in the Hollywood hills. Fess had his guitar and would play music. He was living somewhere in a room, up a little further. He would walk by and we would invite him in to eat. We realized he really didn't have square meals every day, so we'd tell him, come in and play, as a joke, come in and play and we'll have dinner, but you've got to bring your guitar. (Laughs) He was such a wonderful person and he still is."

Although Barbara still managed to do a few things in the business, she basically left and worked for Rand Brooks ambulance service for a few years and then became a dental assistant. One of her last roles was in the Northwoods film Rand Brooks produced independently in 1961 for $178,000, "Legend of the Northwest" (originally filmed as "Bear Heart"). It was later purchased by a Texas company and released in 1979. "They wanted Jane Withers. She was all set for that, but she had an appendicitis attack at the last minute. Rand thought of me and we did it with Denver Pyle. Marshall Reed was in that too. I'd worked with him in the 'Hopalong Cassidy'. He'd been around for all those years."

"I also remember Harry Lauter. I got caught with him driving a horse team. He couldn't drive horses worth a hoot. I thought sure we were going to go over a cliff two or three times."

One of Barbara's best friends in the business was Clayton Moore. "There was a group of about seven of us that were always together…Rand Brooks and his wife at that time, Lois, Clay and Sally…we spent a lot of time together. We had a joke…Clayton, Rand and I. We had a certain scene which was a hysterical thing! All I had to do was call up and say this one sentence, no matter what time of day or year and they immediately would say, 'Bobbie, is that you?' We did the first color 'Lone Ranger' episode, 'Wooden Rifle' (1956). Earl Bellamy was the director. We had this long shot of me coming out of the cabin with Rand. I come out with the rifle, walk all the way from the gate to the fence, ready to protect my husband and my son. It was a lengthy thing, but the last line was, with all humility, 'Oh, shucks, I wouldn't have shot you anyhow.' Now-everybody that knows me, knows foul words never leave my mouth! So here we are at the gate-a perfect shot, all I have to do now is pause, look back at the Lone Ranger and say, 'Oh shucks, I wouldn't have shot you anyhow.' But, clear as day, I said, 'Oh shi…' I didn't say the word, but I realized 'shi' was not 'shu' and I stopped. Earl says, 'Cut.' We all went hysterical! They tried to do it again…someone would laugh. Clayton would laugh. Earl says, 'Ten minute break.' (Laughs) Naturally, I finally got the shot, but the sun was really, really setting. Point of story, I could call Clay or Rand on the phone and say, 'Oh shi…' and immediately they'd know it was me. Once, Clay was in the hospital. I went down one night; I was, at that time, working in a medical office and had this nurse's uniform on. I went into the room where Clay was half asleep. He looked up and I said, 'Oh shi…' (Laughs) Dangerous thing. He started laughing so hard he nearly split whatever. (Laughs)"

"I was kind of angry at Clayton actually, because we had this little pact. If anything ever happened to Sally (his wife), we were going to get married. This was just all talk stuff, because of our closeness. So when Sally passed away, by then I'd made a different life here in Vegas and everything, been apart for ages, as far as the group of people, not just Clayton, but Rand Brooks and that group. When I found out he'd married this nurse, I was really angry. I met her and I thought, 'You promised you were going to marry me.' Because, actually, in the back of my mind, I think had I been down there and contacted him and said, 'Okay Clayton, all these years we said we were going to get married;' it might have happened."

Looking back at her career, Barbara chuckles, "I'm probably the only one you're ever going to talk to in this business that never, never, never, ever got put on a casting couch. I ran across it only one time. I was approached one time, and when it dawned on me what it was, I just started to cry and I got out of the situation. I was such a Pollyanna! I didn't let that bother me, I thought the parts would come to me anyway. When I look back, over the years, I realize I should have gone to these parties, this and that and the other…socialization, you're in the group. They like you. They don't personally want anything from you but they promote you, they love to promote people. What was sad is that I thought I'm engaged and I don't date. Then I was married after that. I wish I had put other things aside and concentrated on doing that to build a career. I used to want to be a female Gene Lockhart, who always was the bad guy but you felt sorry for him. I always thought I was a good comedienne too. I was Lola the waitress that Harry Von Zell had a little romance with down at the restaurant on the 'George Burns and Gracie Allen Show' (1950-1958). When I look back, had I not gone to work out of the business, I probably would have gotten a series. Because everybody that stuck in there, that had any kind of worth at all, did get their time. The only regret I have is that I let other things sidetrack me."