Andrea King

• Name — Andrea King • Birth Name — Georgette André Barry • Born — 1 February 1919 • Birthplace — Paris, France • Died — 22 April 2003 • Place of death — Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, U.S. • Resting Place — Zion Episcopal Churchyard in Charles Town, West Virginia • Children — 1 • Years Active — 1933–1990

Andrea King was born Georgette André Barry on February 1, 1919, in Paris, France. Her English-French father was Andre Barry. (Another source says, "King may have been the illegitimate daughter of a Washington diplomat her mother had known in France during the war. The truth remains unknown.") At the age of two months, she and her American mother, Lovina Belle Hart, moved to the United States. Her mother attended Columbia University in New York City and was a drama coach. Her father was an aviator who was killed in wartime. When her mother married Douglas McKee, King went to live with them in Forest Hills, Queens. Her education at the Ruth Doing School included instruction in "Greed-robe-weaving and barefoot dancing". As a teenager, King attended the progressive Edgewood School in Greenwich, Connecticut, a northern campus of Marietta Johnson's Organic School of Education. Playing Juliet in a school production when she was 14, she was asked to audition for a role in a Lee Shubert play, which led to other stage work.

King began appearing as a child actress in Broadway plays and other stage work. Her Broadway credits included Growing Pains (1933) and Fly Away Home (1935). She also appeared as Mary Skinner in Life with Father.

On May 1, 1953, King co-starred in the episode "Medicine Man" on Schlitz Playhouse of Stars on CBS. In the 1960s and 1970s, most of her acting work was on television, including the ABC/Warner Bros. Television Western series Maverick episode "Two Tickets to Ten Strike" opposite James Garner. In 1959–60, she appeared twice as Duchess in the episodes "The Blizzard" and "The Devil Made Fire" of another ABC/WB Western series, The Alaskans, as well as in multiple episodes of the ABC/WB private-eye series 77 Sunset Strip and Hawaiian Eye. She guest-starred in a 1960 episode of The Tom Ewell Show. She made four guest appearances on Perry Mason between 1959 and 1963, including the role of murderer Barbara Heywood in the 1959 episode, "The Case of the Bedeviled Doctor". King continued to act on television until 1990, when she played her final role on the Murder, She Wrote episode, "The Fixer-Upper". She appeared twice more as herself on the A&E series, Biography, recalling her work with Peter Lorre and Montgomery Clift. For her contribution to television, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in February 1960.

• Illustration — Andrea King pin-up from Yank, The Army Weekly, August 1945 King was married to lawyer Nat Willis from 1940 until his death in 1970. They had a daughter.

On April 22, 2003, King died in hospice care while in residence at the Motion Picture and Television Country House and Hospital, in Woodland Hills, California.

Andrea King is recorded as actress.