Biography

Joan Barclay

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Born Mary Elizabeth Greear, the actress best known as Joan Barclay came out to Hollywood when her mother, anxious to leave Minnesota's cold climate, put "Florida" and "California" in a hat and let young Mary Elizabeth draw. One of her earliest acting jobs was a role in The Gaucho (1927) with Douglas Fairbanks, who wanted to make her his next leading lady even though she was only 12(!). She was under contract to Warners in the early 1930s and to RKO in the 1940s, and co-starred in many "B" westerns and serials in the interim. She left movies in the mid-'40s to marry a wealthy man in the rent-a-car business, the first of her three husbands.
- IMDb mini biography by: Tom Weaver

Tutored. Never went to public school.
Married three times. First husband, Paul Fitzgerald, was a Marine. Second husband, and the father of her two children, Leroy D. Hillman, was an heir to a family fortune. Her marriage to third husband, George Sullivan, lasted 18 years until his death.
Had two children by husband Paul Hillman, Lloyd and Donna. Her son died in a car accident in 1967.
Titian-haired beauty billed as Geraine Greer for several years before taking on the name "Joan Barclay".
Played featured or leading lady to many westerns film greats: Tom Tyler, Buster Crabbe, Tim McCoy, Rex Bell, Ken Maynard, Kermit Maynard, Tim Holt, Bob Steele and Hoot Gibson.

The one who was the nicest to me was [James Cagney]. He used to take me and sit me down in his dressing room at Warners and say, "Now, Geraine, you have an opportunity here that you seem not to realize. You should go take acting lessons, singing lessons, dancing lessons, and you could become a star." I said, "Well, yeah, Jimmy, thanks a lot, I'll do that." And of course it went in one ear and out the other, I didn't do one darn thing about it. I was just frivolous-minded, and as long as I was working and making money, I didn't mind just being a nobody.
The shooting was fast and hectic in those days. I was used to it, and I enjoyed it.
[on Bela Lugosi] Very nice man but I met his wife [Lillian Arch] and son [Bela Lugosi Jr.] and they both looked like they belonged in horror pictures. Big, tall, skinny . . .
[on Sam Newfield and Sigmund Neufeld] Two little Jewish men that were on Gower Gulch. They had a little tiny office and they'd stand in the doorway, looking out.
Samuel Goldwyn chased me around a desk one day. Nothing came of it. I seemed to elude people. Maybe, if I'd gotten into the picture business deeper and gotten to be a big star, I would have had more problems.

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