Gene Barry
Gene Barry (born June 14, 1919) is an American actor.
Barry adopted his professional name in honor of John Barrymore. He was trained in violin and voice and spent two years at the Chatham Square School of Music on a singing scholarship. He made his Broadway debut as Captain Paul Duval in the 1942 revival of Sigmund Romberg’s The New Moon. He returned to Broadway numerous times over the next decade, portraying Falke in Rosalinda (1942), Nova Kovich in The Merry Widow (1943), Lieutenant Bunin in Catherine Was Great (1944), Dorante and Comte De Chateau-Gaillard in The Would-Be Gentleman (1946), The Doctor in Happy as Larry (1950), and a variety of roles in the musical revue Bless You All (1950). He later returned to Broadway twice more, the role of Paul in the 1962 play The Perfect Setup and his Tony Award nominated 
portrayal of Georges in the 1983 musical La Cage aux Folles with George Hearn as his life partner/spouse. The latter production was based on the French film of the same name about a gay couple with a straight son. For his contribution to live theater, Gene Barry has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6555 Hollywood Blvd.
He also starred in the 1973 ITV television series The Adventurer, with Barry Morse and Catherine Schell. He recreated the role of the debonair Wild West lawman Bat Masterson for two episodes of Guns of Paradise in 1990 alongside Hugh O’Brian as Wyatt Earp and 
again the following year in The Gambler Returns: Luck of the Draw, also with O’Brian as Earp. His most popular role that he will forever be identified with is that of “Bat Masterson” The series continues in circulation with great durability.
Barry portrayed the murderer in the original two-hour pilot for the television mystery series Columbo, a psychiatrist who kills his wife in Prescription: Murder.
His wife of 58 years, Betty Clair Kalb, died in 2003. They met in 1944 while appearing on Broadway together in the musical Catherine Was Great with Mae West. He has two sons, Michael (b. 1946) and Frederick (b.1953), and adopted a daughter, Elizabeth in 1967.
