Barry, Helen

1840

1904

English actress, born in Kent. She married Joseph Brandon, a Belgian, in 1855 when she was only 15. Brandon dissolved the marriage in 1870, after which Barry began her stage career. She performed predominantley in burlesque and comedy. Her first appearance on stage was as Princess Fortinbrasse in Dion Boucicault and James Planché's Babil and Bijou at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in 1872.After her second marriage to Alexander Rolls in 1877, Barry moved to Wales, but returned to the London stage in the 1880s. In 1880, she appeared in The World at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Her second husband died in 1882, just 5 years after their marriage. Barry remarried for a third time in early 1883, to Harry George Bolam, and moved to New York. Bolam died of pneumonia in 1883, and her first New York stage appearance was two months later as Margaret in Arkwright's Wife. Barry continued to appear on stage in both New York and London for the next decade. She died in 1904 in Connecticut, U.S.A.