Screenland Plus TV-Land (Jul 1959 - May 1960)

Mr. Handsome continued from page 41 Francis E. Heacock, an Associated Press newspaper writer, well-known to the veteran Hollywood press corps. When Barry was a toddler, the family, including his twin sisters, five years older, moved to San Francisco. Later, they returned to Hollywood and Barry's dad became a press agent in the publicity department at Warner Bros. "My father," Barry says, "was Errol Flynn's press agent and I remember him and 'Big Boy' Williams as Dad's friends who, with other actors and actresses, used to visit our ranch 'Hilltop' in Sunland, on the outskirts of the city. And I have fond memories of my first Shetland pony given to me by Mr. Williams. One night, after a particularly trying day doing publicity for Errol Flynn and other actors, my father came home, looked sternly at me and said to my mother: 'Remind me when Barry grows up — there is one thing I particularly don't want him to be — and that's an actor!' " Barry was six then, and completely uninterested in acting, although he soon showed a strong inclination for moneymaking. A year later, after a move to Honolulu, the handsome bright-eyed youngster decided to augment his allowance (the shops held such enticing things) by going into business. He collected the coconuts from under the trees behind a nearby hotel and started a brisk business selling them to tourists in front of the place. That is, until his mother learned about it and put a fast stop to Barry's venture in high finance. In 1941, Barry's father was killed in an automobile accident and Mrs. Heacock, grief-stricken, moved her little family to faraway Hawaii. "As a kid," Barry says candidly, "I was pretty scatterbrained and a handful for my mother. With three females I felt the need of male companionship and I urged Mother to adopt a brother for me. She thought of it for a while, but then she remarried and I had male companionship." Barry's stepfather (who adopted him and gave him his name) is Joseph S. Coe, an engineer whose work kept the family on romantic moves from country to country as he worked on government projects. GRADE school for Barry meant hopscotching around from such unlikely places as Honolulu, Hawaii, to Edmonton, Canada, then to Los Alamos, New Mexico and Miami, Florida. Another youngster might have felt rootless and unhappy kept on the move like that. But to Barry it meant a chance to make new friends, learn how to adapt himself to new conditions and to become an outgoing, friendly, and poised young man. During summer vacations the resourceful lad had an unusual variety of jobs, including working on a ski lift, selling soft drinks at a mountain resort, as a time56 keeper at an airplane plant, selling in a sports shop and working as a gas station attendant — all before he was 20. "In junior and senior high school," Barry explains smilingly, "I had little on my mind except becoming the campus athlete." And to prove it, he won letters in the rough competition of ice hockey three years in a row at Edmonton, Canada, and in New Mexico. At Los Alamos High School, Barry was a football letterman halfback but, at 17, his dreams of becoming a big college campus football hero were crushed when his knee was injured in a game. It put an end to that kind of competitive sport but Barry can and still does ski. And for it he's won three ribbons — two firsts and a second — in skiing competitions that take place at Lake Arrowhead. One day, when he was a junior at Los Alamos High, the drama coach stopped the tall, handsome athlete and asked if he would try out for the lead in "You Can't Take It With You." As Barry tells it, "Acting had always buzzed around in my head but athletics was my first love. Anyway, I decided to try out for the play because my knee was banged up and I got the lead. As Tony, the romantic young lover, I wasn't very good. In fact, I was a complete flop. I knew it even before the school paper's critic said I'd smelled up the stage." BARRY wasn't merely telling this doleful tale so one could parry it with, "Oh, I bet you were wonderful." He's too honest for that. It was apparent that he was relating something that had obviously hurt him at the time and still did in recollection. "Even though," he continued, "my father, from his long experience, hoped I wouldn't become an actor, I had been considering it as a career until that flop. Then I knew I didn't have the necessary talent and I put it out of my mind. My twin sisters had been dancing teachers and exhibition water skiers and I'd hoped for something in the entertainment world too." When time for college approached, Barry's stepfather was stationed in Thailand building bridges and roads for the emperor. (Currently, Mr. Coe is in the South Pacific with the Atomic Energy Commission.) Thailand didn't seem a likely place for college so Mrs. Coe settled in Los Angeles and Barry enrolled at the University of Southern California where he was aiming at a degree in Business Administration in 1954. The first three years of college for the handsome young man were years of searching, of trying to find out what he was best suited for. They weren't years of aimless drifting, for Barry isn't a shirker, but they were a time of indecision. As he puts it: "My major was business administration but I wasn't happy with the choice: FAVORITE date Judi Meredith is escort* by Barry Coe to a gala party at Romanoff I merely selected it because I thought could prepare me for a variety of career I was never sure, in college, of just what f wanted to do and I wandered around i ' a daze, scholastically speaking. I had r plans whatsoever; no career really a pealed to me." And then a flip of a coin changed b* life completely! The time was Easter vacation of Bam junior year. Some 30 of his Beta Theta fraternity brothers planned to spend the free time at Palm Springs. Barry plannt • to join them until he heard that tlLi snow on the mountains was prime fi skiing, his great love. Snow or deser j Barry flipped a coin. And joined his fr > brothers. While they were fooling aroui t the pool at the exclusive Shadow Mouip tain Club a man came over and to Barry, "I'm a Hollywood actor's agent. r think you have a very good future motion pictures." Says Barry: "The guys were playiiv practical jokes all day. I laughed til cause I thought this was merely anothr joke — and a mighty good one arrangf by my campus buddies." It wasn't. Agent Dick Clayton w serious, even after Barry explained what dud he had been in his first high scho play. Clayton suggested drama study ai Barry returned to school determined give acting an honest try that summi Completely self-disciplined as a go> athlete must be, Barry applied hims< to the craft of acting with coach Estel Harmon and then with the late Micha i Chekhov, Marilyn Monroe's coach. "AS soon as I began to study acting -Ti. Barry explains, "everything sudd< ly clicked into place and I knew where was going. I feel that acting is my life, a my prime ambition is to become a go actor." Not long after that, Barry and 1 agent began making the wearying stuc rounds. Finally, at 20th Century-F( j studio executives showed interest. Af intensive work with Helena Sorrell, 20t: