Barbara Worth — Biographical Sketch (1927) 🇺🇸

Many stories have been written of the trials and tribulations of young girls trying to break into the movies. Barbara Worth has read a lot of them and wonders what they are all about. Miss Worth knew no trials nor tribulations. She broke in as a leading lady, and rarely has played anything but a leading rôle since. This despite the fact that she had had no previous stage experience, nor was she a beauty contest winner.

As a matter of fact, Miss Worth had no ambitions for a motion picture career. Like many others she was a visitor at Universal City one day just to see how pictures were made. One of the directors asked her to have a test made, and as a result she was immediately placed under contract.

In her first picture Miss Worth played the leading feminine rôle in “The Border Bandit,” and she has stuck largely to such characterizations since, with an occasional turn to light comedy. She has played opposite Hoot Gibson, Fred Humes, Edmund Cobb and other Western stars, though some of her best work on the screen was opposite Reginald Denny in such pictures as “Fast and Furious” and “Use Your Feet.” Others of her successful pictures were “The Prairie King,” “The Gunless Badman,” and “Broken Hearts of Hollywood.”

Miss Worth was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and received her early education there, but with the family she moved to Texas, where she spent several years on a ranch. She took readily to horses, and in Hollywood she is known as one of the best horsewomen in the motion picture colony.

A peculiar feature of Miss Worth’s picture career is that she has appeared for no other company but Universal, except on those few occasions when she was loaned for a production. She has always held a Universal contract. Though she nor any member of the family had motion picture or stage experience, Miss Worth is an accomplished musician, and a graduate of the class of one of the foremost dancing masters in the country. Although she has won fame because of her ability to wear modish gowns, she prefers to play rôles calling for characterization rather than beauty, and has a particular flare for light comedy.

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Barbara Worth

Universal Featured Player

Played Leads In:

• Fast and Furious
• The Prairie King
• The Gunless Badman
• Broken Hearts of Hollywood

Coming

• Use Your Feet

Collection: Motion Picture News, October 1927 (Booking Guide and Studio Directory)