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She was born on April 18, 1912, as Margaret Wendy Jenkins in Hong Kong, the daughter of F. C. Jenkins, one of the most important barristers in Asia, and Nell MacDonagh, who was descended from the Irish king Brian Boru; her uncle, Sir James Barrie, later ran Scotland Yard. Barrie spent her early years in Hong Kong, where her father had his law practice.
Her education was uneven, caused as much by her high spirits as her parents' keen social aspirations. She first attended the Peak School in Hong Kong and, when she was old enough to travel unattended, the Holy Child and Assumption convent in London. She completed her education at a fashionable finishing school in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Along the way, Barrie traveled widely across the Continent; by the time she was seventeen, she had traveled around the world at least seven times. After a gala debut in society sponsored by Winston Churchill, Barrie dabbled in a number of careers: apprenticing in a beauty parlor, working as a secretary, selling clothing in a London department store. Barrie's entry into show business had the ring of a fairy tale: in 1932, when she was nineteen years old, she was "discovered" by the producer Alexander Korda as she was having lunch at London's Savoy Grill. Her fun-loving mother was thrilled, but her father was appalled. However, her father was thousands of miles away, so at Korda's request Barrie took a screen test, leading to a five-year contract with his studio. Her initial roles in "quota quickies" (films produced to satisfy the law that a certain percentage of films released in Britain be British-made) were as forgettable as the films themselves.
Her one memorable role among her seventeen British films was The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933). In the film, which won its star, Charles Laughton, an Oscar, Barrie played Henry's third wife, Jane Seymour. Building on her success at home, Barrie decided to try her luck in Hollywood. Ten days after her arrival, she landed her first American movie role in It's a Small World (1935), starring Spencer Tracy. "A looker, but not much of an actress, " Variety reported. "A good-looking ingenue with plenty of class, " the reviewer added. The evaluation would remain with her for much of her cinema career.
Nonetheless, she did not devote much of her time to her career. Her name was always in the society gossip columns, usually for dating glamorous heirs Howard Hughes and Woolworth Donahue (to whom she was engaged), entertainers Rudy Vallee and Milton Berle, and gangster Benjamin ("Bugsy") Siegel.
Nonetheless, her agent Herbert ("Zeppo") Marx of Marx Brothers fame signed her to a long-term contract with Paramount. The high point of Barrie's film career was Dead End (1937), starring Joel McCrea and Sylvia Sidney, in which Barrie played a mistress living in an expensive apartment in Manhattan. Her tour de force was a scene in which she recoiled in horror during a visit to a slum apartment. She was also in The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939), starring Basil Rathbone. On January 9, 1941, Barrie became an American citizen. About the same time, her film career started to wind down. In 1942 she made her Broadway debut in The Morning Star, which ran for only six weeks. Barrie then returned briefly to film work.
Her relaxed, cheerful personality was an instant hit on the small screen and led to a hostess job on a children's program, "Okey Dokey Ranch. " She enjoyed working with children, she said, because they ensured that she would not have to worry about action. "At least they'd spit in your face or do something, " she observed. In television, Barrie made her mark. She turned down a starring role in "Topper" and on September 12, 1949, began her own talk show on ABC. The program ran through the mid-1950's. Her method of interviewing was unique. As one critic commented, "Garnished with bubbling impertinence and unbelievable naivete, she manages to elicit a good deal of enlightening information. " When the show went off the air, irate viewers demanded the return of "their Wendy. " In 1954, Barrie became the host of a talk show on Channel 5 in New York City and did a brief stint as the cohost of NBC's "$64, 000 Question. " Thereafter, Barrie turned to charity work, chairing the women's division of the Committee for Deborah Hospital in 1960. She died in Englewood, New Jersey.
At five feet, five inches tall and 110 pounds, the socialite-actress with the reddish gold hair and blue-green eyes was pleasant to work with and a surefire box office draw because of her offscreen antics.
On June 5, 1945, Barrie married New York textile manufacturer David L. Meyers. They were divorced on April 24, 1950.
