Barbara Hale
Biography
Barbara Hale is an American actress best known for her role as legal secretary Della Street on more than 250 episodes of the long-running Perry Mason television series and later reprising the role in 30 made-for-TV movies.
Hale was born in DeKalb, Illinois, to Luther Ezra Hale, a landscape gardener, and his wife, Wilma Colvin. She is of Scots-Irish ancestry. Hale graduated from high school in Rockford, Illinois, then attended the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, planning to become an artist. Her performing career began in Chicago when she started modeling to pay for her education. She moved to Hollywood in 1943, and made her first screen appearances playing small parts (often uncredited).
Hale was under contract to RKO Radio Pictures through the late 1940s. She appeared in Higher and Higher (1943) with Frank Sinatra; played leading lady to Robert Mitchum in West of the Pecos (1945); enjoyed top billing in both Lady Luck (1946) opposite Robert Young and The Window (1949) with Arthur Kennedy; and co-starred in Jolson Sings Again (1949), with Larry Parks playing Al Jolson and Hale as Jolson's wife, Ellen Clark. She played the top-billed title role in Lorna Doone (1951) and portrayed Julia Hancock in The Far Horizons (1955) with Fred MacMurray and Charlton Heston.
Her flourishing movie career more or less ended when Hale accepted her best known role, Della Street, secretary to attorney Perry Mason, in the TV series with Raymond Burr. The show ran from 1957 to 1966, and she reprised the role in several television movies. Her last performance to date was in 2000 at age 78. In 1967 she guest starred on the ABC series Custer. Hale also had a featured role in the 1970 ensemble film Airport, playing the wife of a jetliner pilot (Dean Martin).
Personal info
Gender
Female
Birthday
1922-04-18
Place of birth
DeKalb, Illinois, USA
Images
Cast
Airport
1970
6.40
The Window
1949
6.90
The Houston Story
1956
5.50
Last of the Comanches
1953
6.40
The Clay Pigeon
1949
5.50
7th Cavalry
1956
5.80
Jolson Sings Again
1949
6.00
Higher and Higher
1943
6.10
The Boy with Green Hair
1948
6.20
The Falcon in Hollywood
1944
6.00
The Falcon Out West
1944
5.50
Seminole
1953
5.44
Chester, Yesterday’s Horse
1973
0.00
The Giant Spider Invasion
1975
3.90
Perry Mason Returns
1985
7.00
The Far Horizons
1955
6.20
First Yank into Tokyo
1945
5.40
The Oklahoman
1957
5.60
A Lion Is in the Streets
1953
5.50
West of the Pecos
1945
4.10
The Jackpot
1950
6.90
The Red, White, and Black
1970
0.00
Buckskin
1968
5.30
And Baby Makes Three
1949
4.90
The Lone Hand
1953
5.20
Lorna Doone
1951
4.60
The First Time
1952
6.50
Lady Luck
1946
5.40
Heavenly Days
1944
0.00
Emergency Wedding
1950
5.50
Slim Carter
1957
0.00
Meet the Governor
1955
0.00
A Likely Story
1947
4.20
Unchained
1955
0.00
The Iron Major
1943
5.80
Government Girl
1943
5.20
Desert Hell
1958
0.00
Prunes and Politics
1944
5.00
Gildersleeve's Bad Day
1943
6.40
Around the World
1943
5.00
Goin' to Town
1944
0.00
The Young Runaways
1978
6.00
The Seventh Victim
1943
6.48
Big Wednesday
1978
6.92
The Flight of the Grey Wolf
1976
6.00