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Hers was one of the best known voices on the airwaves. By the age of 18, Barbra Fuller (born Barbara Deane Fuller) had been featured in 25 radio serials and had by her own count portrayed more than 1000 different characters. Though having earlier aspired to become a math teacher, she went into show biz instead and made her first radio broadcast at 11 years of age. Two years later, she was playing more ingénues in Chicago soap operas than any other teenager.
She was a regular performer on The Theater of Famous Radio Players, described by an authority on the subject as "a repertory company of radio's best professional actors." Her most popular roles included Claudia in One Man's Family (a role she went on to play for 14 years) and Barbara Calkins in Scattergood Baines for the Mutual Broadcasting System. In 1942, she moved to New York, where she set up base for two and a half years.
Barbra's father died when she was three. Raised by her mother, she went to school in Chicago and was said to have had a passion for reading non-fiction and travel books. Early in her career as a radio actress she would earn $12.50 per broadcast. As her popularity grew, she changed the spelling of her first name from 'Barbara' to 'Barbra' "as an attention-getter". She was a looker, to be sure, with blue eyes and brown hair (which, once her film career got started, tended to alternate in colour between platinum and brunette). Ambitious to try her hand at screen acting, Barbra relocated to California, settled in Beverly Hills and signed a short-term contract with Republic Studios in 1949. Unfortunately, her first picture was a strident propaganda piece, The Red Menace (1949), very much at the height of HUAC and McCarthyism. Producers had wanted an unknown for the role and Barbra's unaffected, sincere approach to acting suited their purpose. In retrospect, it was hardly the ideal career launch pad.
Barbra received star billing for her next feature, Flame of Youth (1949) (a drama about juvenile delinquency) and was then second-billed for a series of B-grade crime dramas and films noir: as a gangster's moll in Alias the Champ (1949), a double-crossing femme fatale in Harbor of Missing Men (1950), member of a narcotics gang in Women from Headquarters (1950) and a murder suspect in Trial Without Jury (1950). In 1950 alone, Barbra headlined in nine films, including several horse operas. Her most frequent leading man was the stalwart Republic contract player Robert Rockwell.
As her contract with Republic expired, Barbra turned freelance and worked mainly in television, guest starring in shows like Adventures of Superman (1952), Perry Mason (1957) and Daniel Boone (1964). She was briefly married to B-movie western star Lash La Rue, as number three of his nine (or, possibly, as many as twelve!) wives. She divorced him after 15 months, claiming he 'treated her mean'.
