Barbara Hale

Acting

Barbara Hale

Born 1922-04-18 · DeKalb, Illinois, USA

Barbara Hale (April 18, 1922 - January 26, 2017) was 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 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).

Acting credits

Airport poster
6.5

An airport manager tries to keep his terminals open during a snowstorm, while a suicide bomber plots to blow up a Boeing 707 airliner in flight.

Airport

1970

The Seventh Victim poster
6.4

After young Mary Gibson discovers that her older sister Jacqueline has disappeared, she leaves her boarding school and heads to New York City to track down her sibling. But Mary gets drawn deeper into the mystery.

The Seventh Victim

1943

The Giant Spider Invasion poster
4.1

A black hole hits North Wisconsin and opens a door to other dimensions. Giant 15 meter spiders emerge from it, who have an appetite for human flesh! Two NASA scientists try to save the world.

The Giant Spider Invasion

1975

Lorna Doone poster
4.7

An English farmer leads a village uprising against their corrupt landlords.

Lorna Doone

1951

Big Wednesday poster
6.9

Three 1960s California surfers fool around, drift apart and reunite years later to ride epic waves.

Big Wednesday

1978

The Far Horizons poster
6.3

Virginia, 1803. After the United States of America acquires the inmense Louisiana territory from France, a great expedition, led by William Lewis and Meriwether Clark, is sent to survey the new lands and go where no white man has gone before.

The Far Horizons

1955

The Oklahoman poster
5.8

After his wife dies in childbirth, a doctor settles down in the small Oklahoma town of Cherokee Wells to raise his newborn daughter. Unfortunately, not all the citizens there are hospitable, especially when the doctor hires a pretty Indian teenager as his child's nanny.

The Oklahoman

1957

7th Cavalry poster
6.1

An officer accused of cowardice volunteers to bring back General Custers's body after Little Big Horn.

7th Cavalry

1956

Government Girl poster
5.7

An aviation engineer and a government secretary are thrown together by the war effort.

Government Girl

1943

Perry Mason: The Case of the Desperate Deception poster
6.8

Perry Mason ventures to Paris to defend a U.S. Marine Corps Captain accused of murdering a man suspected of being a Nazi SS Officer.

Perry Mason: The Case of the Desperate Deception

1990

The Boy with Green Hair poster
6.2

Peter, an orphaned boy, is adopted by Gramp Frye after his parents are killed in Europe while doing war relief work. The boy feels safe with his new caretaker, but when he is taunted for being an orphan, he gets demoralized. The next day Peter wakes up with green hair. Embarrassed and further ridiculed, Peter seeks solace in a nearby forest. To his surprise, he finds other orphans in the woods, who encourage him to spread news of the injustices of war.

The Boy with Green Hair

1948

Perry Mason: The Case of the Skin-Deep Scandal poster
7.2

The owner of a cosmetics company is unveiling a new cream which she claims she's been using. She's been keeping her age a secret and now reveals that she's 60 and owes her appearance to the cream. She's later killed and the formula missing. Her husband is arrested and Perry defends him.

Perry Mason: The Case of the Skin-Deep Scandal

1993

Around the World poster
6.3

Bandleader Kay Kyser takes his troupe of nutty musicians, goofball comics and pretty girl singers on a tour around the world to entertain the troops during World War II.

Around the World

1943

The Clay Pigeon poster
5.7

Jim Fletcher, waking up from a coma, finds he is to be given a court martial for treason and charged with informing on fellow inmates in a Japanese prison camp during WWII. Escaping from the hospital he tries to clear himself by enlisting the aid of Martha Gregory, widow of a service buddy he was accused of informing on. Helped also by Ted Niles, a surviving fellow prisoner, he gets closer to finding the answers he needs, and becomes ensnared in a grandiose scheme involving his Japanese ex-prison guard, $10,000,000 of US currency forged by the Japanese and a burgeoning crime network poised to wreak havoc throughout southern California.

The Clay Pigeon

1949

The Window poster
7.0

An imaginative boy who frequently makes things up witnesses a murder, but can't get his parents or the police to believe him. The only people taking him seriously are the killers - who live upstairs, know that he saw what they did, and are out to permanently silence him.

The Window

1949

Perry Mason: The Case of the Murdered Madam poster
6.8

Perry investigates the murder of a former madam and uncovers a multimillion dollar banking fraud in the process.

Perry Mason: The Case of the Murdered Madam

1987

Lady Luck poster
5.6

A woman marries a gambler with the hopes of reforming him, but things don't quite work out the way she planned.

Lady Luck

1946

Perry Mason: The Case of the Lethal Lesson poster
7.0

Ken Malansky, a law student of Perry Mason's, is accused of murdering a fellow student. Perry is reluctant to take on his case as the victim was the son of a close friend.

Perry Mason: The Case of the Lethal Lesson

1989

Perry Mason: The Case of the Fatal Fashion poster
7.3

An editor of a fashion magazine writes a column that destroys careers. She is also a brutal employer. An editor of a rival magazine visits, asking she not be the next victim. The first is found dead and the rival is charged with murder.

Perry Mason: The Case of the Fatal Fashion

1991

Last of the Comanches poster
6.2

It's 1876 and all the Indians are at peace except the Comanches lead by Black Cloud. When Black Cloud wipes out a town, only six soldiers are left and they head for the nearest fort. In the desert they are reinforced by members of a stagecoach and find some water at a deserted mission. Pinned down by Black Cloud they send an Indian boy who was Black Cloud's prisoner on to the fort while they try to bargain with Black Cloud whom they learn is without water.

Last of the Comanches

1953

Seminole poster
5.6

Lance Caldwell, a cavalry lieutenant, recounts his efforts to make peace with the Seminole Indian tribe, under an evil major.

Seminole

1953

Perry Mason Returns poster
7.2

When his former secretary is accused of a murder, Perry Mason gives up a judgeship to defend her.

Perry Mason Returns

1985

The Falcon Out West poster
5.3

When a Texas playboy is murdered in a New York City nightclub the Falcon investigates. When he learns that the victim was slipped rattlesnake venom, the trail leads to Texas, his own kidnapping and near death.

The Falcon Out West

1944

Perry Mason: The Case of the Grimacing Governor poster
6.4

The alleged suicide of a gubernatorial candidate triggers a series of mysterious deaths leading to the governor's mansion, and "Wild" Bill McKenzie, a friend of Perry Mason, is on the case.

Perry Mason: The Case of the Grimacing Governor

1994