Hollywood's Handsomest Men?

What sayeth thou, fair readers?

Who's That Girl?

That's right, kids, it's Perry Mason's stalwart Della Street doing her best Barbara Nichols impression! (Photos from the Barbara Hale Annex.) Before she became Raymond Burr's girl Friday, Barbara Hale had been a fine arts student, a model, and finally, a B-movie leading lady. If films like West of the Pecos (1945) and Emergency Wedding (1950) were about as routine as their titles would suggest, they at least led to Hale becoming a popular, dependable presence, if not quite a "star."



But it was her role as the efficient, loyal Della Street which made Barbara Hale familiar to millions of television viewers from 1957 through 1966. For her work, Hale won the 1959 Supporting Actress Emmy, and was nominated again in 1961. After the Perry Mason series went off the air, Hale continued to act sporadically, devoting much of her time to her family: her husband of 46 years, Bill Williams, and their three children. Her son, William Katt, became an actor, beloved to children of the 1970's as The Greatest American Hero. And, of course, Barbara guest starred as his mom. From 1986 until his death in 1994, Hale also regularly appeared with Raymond Burr in a series of made-for-TV movies reprising their roles as Perry Mason and Della Street.


Retired since 2000, Barbara Hale lives quietly and happily in California. On behalf of hard-working, trustworthy, dependable, yet glamorous, working gals everywhere, we salute you, Miss Hale! We hope that you're enjoying your 88th!

MISS BARBARA "Della Street" HALE
April 18, 1922

Gail Force

"I just don't have an actress's soul. I think mine has a dollar sign on it." - GAIL PATRICK

Cool, collected, chic - those were Gail Patrick's trademarks in her films of the 1930's and 1940's. She appeared in everything from musicals (Mississippi, 1935) to westerns (Wanderer of the Wasteland, 1935) to whodunits (The Preview Murder Mystery, 1936), and the majority of her output was in "B" productions - but the silky, professional elegance she brought to her roles as the haughty second lead in a quartet of "A"-list comedies cemented Patrick's reputation as the Art Deco Bitch nonpareil. She was Carole Lombard's scheming sister in My Man Godfrey (1936); Ginger Rogers' sparring partner in Stage Door (1937); Irene Dunne's rival for Cary Grant's affections in My Favorite Wife (1940); and, in Love Crazy (1941), Myrna Loy's nemesis vis-à-vis William Powell.

GAIL PATRICK IN COSTUME FOR LOVE CRAZY (1941)

Strangely, Patrick's career stalled during the 1940's. Perhaps it was that lack of an actress' soul, and ambition; or because her brittle, satin-smooth, cold-as-ice persona was too firmly rooted in the Deco Thirties to make the translation to the gutsier, wartime Forties. Retiring from films in 1948, she successfully transitioned to the business world, running her own children's clothing company and selling her product (all self-designed) to her movie star friends and colleagues. She then became a very successful producer, along with her third husband, Thomas Cornwell Jackson, of the Perry Mason television series.

GAIL PATRICK JACKSON WITH PERRY MASON STAR RAYMOND BURR AND AUTHOR EARLE STANLEY GARDNER

Obviously, Patrick retained the patrician good looks and regal bearing which made her a movie star, albeit a second-tier one. Those qualities were also on display in our last Mystery Guest entry - and it would have been a clean sweep of wrong guesses, had dark horse Stewie G not nabbed the prize at the finish line. Congratulations - your harlequin unitard is on the way, Stewie!

GAIL PATRICK
June 20, 1911 - July 6, 1980