Helen Barry

Who was Helen Barry?

Helen Barry, born Elizabeth Short, was an English actress. She began her acting career at age 32 after her first marriage dissolved.

She performed leading roles in West End theatres in the 1870s in comedy, drama and Victorian burlesque and remarried in 1877 to Alexander Rolls, the former Mayor of Monmouth, briefly moving to Wales. But she was acting in London again by 1880, and her husband died in 1882. Barry soon remarried and moved to America, where she was again widowed within a year. She continued her stage career, both in New York and London, for more than a decade thereafter.