Standing a half-inch over five feet, perky brunette leading lady Barbara Kent was elected Miss Hollywood in 1925. Promptly signed by Universal Pictures, Kent made her film bow as a western ingenue, then co-starred in a handful of Reginald Denny comedies. She went on to play the "good" heroine (Greta Garbo was the "bad" one) in MGM's Flesh and the Devil (1927), and was menaced by villain Oliver Hardy in the 1927 western No Man's Law, a film distinguished by Kent's nude swimming scene (she actually wore a moleskin body suit). She made a smooth transition to talkies, co-starring with Harold Lloyd in Welcome Danger (1929) and Feet First (1930). Her subsequent film assignments tended to be unremarkable save for her performance as Rose in Monogram's Oliver Twist. In 1934 she married Hollywood agent Harry E. Eddington, who took her out of films for a full year to groom her for big-time stardom. Alas, the "new" Barbara Kent never did catch on with the public, and by 1941 she was retired from films. She died at age 103 in October 2011.
by Hal Erickson
biography
