Andrea King, 84; Often Cast in ‘Bad Girl’ Roles

Andrea King, a glamorous Hollywood leading lady and supporting actress most often cast in “bad girl” and “other woman” roles in the 1940s and ‘50s, has died. She was 84.

King died of natural causes Tuesday in Woodland Hills.

A stage actress signed to a contract with Warner Bros. in 1944, King appeared in a string of dramas over the next few years, including “Hotel Berlin,” “God Is My Co-Pilot” and “The Man I Love.”

Voted “the most photogenic actress on the lot” by members of the Warner Bros. still gallery, King also starred with Peter Lorre and Robert Alda in the 1946 cult horror classic “The Beast With Five Fingers,” and she played Lillian Russell in the 1947 Technicolor musical “My Wild Irish Rose,” co-starring Dennis Morgan.

Her early work in television, including a live production of Agatha Christie’s “Witness for the Prosecution” starring Edward G. Robinson in 1953, earned King a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960.

She was born Georgette Andre Barry on Feb. 1, 1919, in Paris, where her American-born mother, Belle, had been a volunteer ambulance driver with the American Red Cross during World War I.

King’s mother, who was the daughter of the co-inventor of the grain elevator and had danced with Isadora Duncan, said that King’s father was a French fighter pilot who had been killed a month before the Armistice.

But, according to King’s friend, Paul Miles Schneider, the story turns out to have been a fabrication, and King may have been the illegitimate daughter of a Washington diplomat her mother had known in France during the war. The truth remains unknown.

Two months after her birth, King moved with her mother to the United States, where her mother later married a banker and settled in Forest Hills, Long Island.

After being spotted in a boarding school recital by a representative of the Shubert brothers -- Broadway’s top producers -- King made her Broadway debut at age 14 in a short-lived play called “Growing Pains.”

She later appeared in “Fly Away Home,” a Broadway comedy starring Thomas Mitchell and, among other stage productions, played the ingenue role in the Chicago company of “Life With Father,” starring Lillian Gish.

King made her film debut in the 1940 March of Time documentary-drama “The Ramparts We Watch,” but returned to the stage until signing with Warner Bros. in 1944.

With her name changed from Georgette McKee to Andrea King by studio head Jack Warner, she made her Warner Bros. debut as a conniving troublemaker in the wartime romantic drama “The Very Thought of You,” starring Dennis Morgan and Eleanor Parker.

Among King’s other movie credits are “Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid,” “Darby’s Rangers,” “The Lemon Drop Kid,” “Red Planet Mars” and “Buccaneer’s Girl.”

“She never really got that role that put her over the top, but whenever you see her on screen she’s always memorable -- and she was breathtakingly beautiful,” Schneider said.

King married Nat Willis, a lawyer, in 1940. He died in 1970.

She is survived by a daughter, Deb Callahan; a sister, Anne Chapman; and three grandchildren.

A private memorial service is pending.