Lex Barker

At the height of his fame, he was one of the most popular actors in German-speaking cinema and received Bambi Award and Bravo Otto nominations for the honor.

Barker was born in Rye, New York, the second child of Alexander Crichlow Barker Sr., a wealthy Canadian-born building contractor and stockbroker, and his American wife, the former Marion Thornton Beals. He had an elder sister, Frederica Amelia "Freddie" Barlow (1917–1980). Of English and Spanish ancestry, Barker was a direct descendant of the founder of Rhode Island, Roger Williams, and of Sir William Henry Crichlow, historical governor-general of Barbados. Raised in New York City and Port Chester, New York, he attended the Fessenden School and graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy, where he played football and the oboe. He attended Princeton University, but dropped out to join a theatrical stock company, much to his family's chagrin.

Barker made it to Broadway once, in a small role in a short run of Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor in 1938. He also had a small role in Orson Welles's disastrous Five Kings, which met with so many problems in Boston and Philadelphia that it never made it into New York City.

In February 1941, 10 months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Barker left his fledgling acting career and enlisted in the U.S. Army. He rose to the rank of major during the war. He was wounded in action (in the head and leg) fighting in Sicily. He was awarded the Purple Heart twice.

Back in the US he recuperated at a military hospital in Arkansas, then upon his discharge from service traveled to Los Angeles. Within a short time he landed a small role in Doll Face (1945), his first film. A string of small roles followed in films such as Two Guys from Milwaukee (1945) and Cloak and Dagger (1946).

Barker signed a contract at RKO. He had small roles in The Farmer's Daughter (1947), Crossfire (1947), and Under the Tonto Rim (1947). Barker went to Paramount Studios for Unconquered (1947). Back at RKO he was in Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome (1947), Berlin Express (1948), Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948), The Velvet Touch (1948), and Return of the Bad Men (1948), playing Emmett Dalton.

In Tarzan's Magic Fountain (1949), Barker became the 10th official Tarzan of the movies. His blond, handsome, and intelligent appearance, as well as his athletic 6'4" frame, helped make him popular in the role Johnny Weissmuller had made his own for 16 years. His Jane was Brenda Joyce, who had been in Weissmuller's last three films. Barker's second Tarzan movie was Tarzan and the Slave Girl (1950), where Jane was played by Vanessa Brown. In Tarzan's Peril (1951), Barker's Jane was Virginia Huston, with African location footage. Dorothy Hart was Jane in Tarzan's Savage Fury (1952), directed by Cy Endfield. His final Tarzan picture was Tarzan and the She-Devil (1953), opposite Joyce MacKenzie as Jane. Producer Sol Lesser discovered the next Tarzan, Gordon Scott, who resumed the series in 1955.

Lex Barker got the chance to play a non-Tarzan role in Battles of Chief Pontiac (1952), a Western from independent producer Jack Broder. After Barker's tenure as Tarzan, he continued to work in outdoor action pictures. He supported Randolph Scott in Thunder Over the Plains (1953). At Universal he starred in the Western The Yellow Mountain (1954) and The Man from Bitter Ridge (1955). By 1955 he was established as an all-purpose leading man and character actor in action fare: Duel on the Mississippi (1955); a Merle Oberon film noir The Price of Fear (1956); the war movie Away All Boats (1956); and the thriller The Girl in the Kremlin (1957). Barker made two films for Howard W. Koch: War Drums (1957) and Jungle Heat (1957),. He went to 20th Century-Fox for The Deerslayer (1957), then did The Girl in Black Stockings (1957).

In 1957, with the Hollywood movie studios curtailing their B-picture production, Lex Barker moved to Europe (he spoke French, Italian, Spanish, and some German), where he found popularity and starred in more than 40 European films, including two movies based on the novels by Italian author Emilio Salgari (1862–1911). He started his European career with a British thriller The Strange Awakening (1958). He went to Italy to star in Captain Falcon (1959), Son of the Red Corsair (1959), The Pirate and the Slave Girl (1959), and Terror of the Red Mask (1960). Barker had a small but compelling role as Anita Ekberg's fiancé in Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita (1960). Then he went back to swashbucklers: Knight of 100 Faces (1960), Pirates of the Coast (1960), Robin Hood and the Pirates (1960), and The Secret of the Black Falcon (1961).

Barker had his greatest success in West Germany. There, he starred in movies based on the "Doctor Mabuse" stories (formerly filmed by Fritz Lang), in the movies The Return of Doctor Mabuse (1961). He was in Doctor Sibelius (1962). Barker then played Old Shatterhand in an adaptation of the novel by popular German author Karl May (1842–1912), Treasure of Silver Lake (1962). It was a huge hit, and 11 movies adapting stories by Karl May followed until 1968. Barker did the comedy Breakfast in Bed (1962), then the adventure movie Storm Over Ceylon (1963). He returned to Italy for The Executioner of Venice (1963) and Kali Yug: Goddess of Vengeance (1963). Barker reprised his role as Old Shatterhand in Apache Gold (1964), Old Shatterhand (1964), and Last of the Renegades (1965). He went to South Africa for Harry Alan Towers' West German-British international co-production Victim Five (1964), then returned to West Germany for other adaptations of May books: The Treasure of the Aztecs (1965) and The Pyramid of the Sun God (1965). 24 Hours to Kill (1965) was a British movie. The Hell of Manitoba (1965) and The Desperado Trail (1966) were Westerns. Though Barker did speak German, he was almost always dubbed in his West German films by Gert Günther Hoffmann, whose distinctive voice contributed to Barker's success. In 1966, Barker was awarded the "Bambi Award" as Best Foreign Actor in West Germany, where he was a very popular star. He even recorded two songs in German: "Ich bin morgen auf dem Weg zu dir" ("I'll be on the way to you tomorrow", composed by Martin Böttcher, the composer of some of the soundtracks of the Karl May movies) and "Mädchen in Samt und Seide" ("Girl in Silk and Velvet", composed by Werner Scharfenberger). His later films included Killer's Carnival (1966), and Winnetou and the Crossbreed (1967). In the same year, he starred in a Eurospy film Spy Today, Die Tomorrow and a horror film The Blood Demon, and appeared in the anthology film Woman Times Seven (1967). He returned to the United States occasionally and made a handful of guest appearances on American television episodes, but Europe, and especially West Germany, was his professional home for the remainder of his life.

Barker was married five times: Constance Rhodes Thurlow (1918–1975) (married June 27, 1942–divorced 1950), a daughter of Leon Rhodes Thurlow, a vice president of the Decorated Metal Manufacturing Company. They had one daughter, Lynn Thurlow Barker (April 11, 1943 – 2010), and a son, Alexander "Zan" Crichlow Barker III (March 25, 1947 – October 2, 2012). In 1952, Constance Barker married her second husband, John Lawrence Adams, a descendant of John Quincy Adams. Actress Arlene Dahl (married 1951–divorced 1952) Actress Lana Turner (married September 8, 1953–divorced July 22, 1957). Turner's daughter Cheryl Crane later accused Barker of having repeatedly raped her when she was between the ages of 10 ½ and 13. and that this was the reason for the breakup of the marriage. According to Crane, to avoid public scandal, no charges were ever filed. Irene Labhardt (married 1957–1962; her death from leukemia), a Swiss actress. They had one son, Christopher (born 1960), who became an actor and singer. Tita Cervera (married 1965–divorced 1972, although divorce not deemed legally valid), a Spanish beauty-pageant winner. Voted Miss Spain in 1962, she later became the wife of movie producer Espartaco Santoni in 1975 (the marriage turned out to be bigamous) and later still, in 1985, the fifth and final wife of billionaire art collector Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza.

Barker died on May 11, 1973, of a heart attack, three days after his 54th birthday, while walking down Lexington Avenue on New York City's Upper East Side to meet his fiancée, actress Karen Kondazian. The funeral was held in New York. He was cremated and the ashes were taken by his estranged wife Tita to Spain.