Personal Info
Birth date
1880-08-11 (144 Years)
Day of death
1937-03-30
Gender
Male
Known for
Acting
Place of birth
Lincolnshire, England, UK
Also known as
Thomas Roy Barnes
T. Roy Barnes
Biography
Barnes appeared in over 50 films between 1920 and 1935, primarily in comedies. Barnes started his show career in vaudeville later turning to stage and film acting. During the 1920s, he often played "brash young go-getters" in supporting and leading roles. He’s best known for his roles as Buster Keaton's business partner Billy Meekin in Seven Chances (1925) and in W. C. Fields' comedy It's a Gift (1934), portraying an inquisitive Insurance Salesman. He retired from movies in 1935 and died two years later.
Filmography
Hollywood
8.5
Overview:
Angela comes to Hollywood with only two things: Her dream to become a movie star, and Grandpa. She leaves an Aunt, a brother, Grandma, and her longtime boyfriend back in Centerville. Despite seeing major movie stars around every corner, and knocking on every casting office door in town, at the end of her first day she is still unemployed. To her horror, when she arrives back at their hotel, she finds that Grandpa has been cast in a movie by William DeMille and quickly becomes a star during the ensuing weeks. Her family, worried that Angela and Grandpa are getting into trouble, come to Hollywood to drag them back home. In short order Aunt, Grandma, brother, boyfriend and even the parrot become superstars, but Angela is still unemployed...Seven Chances
7.5
Overview:
Struggling stockbroker Jimmie Shannon learns that, if he gets married by 7 p.m. on his 27th birthday -- which is today -- he'll inherit $7 million from an eccentric relative.Body and Soul
NYR
Overview:
A disgraced alcoholic surgeon settles in a small village in the Swiss Alps. He falls for Hilda, a servant at the hotel where he lives. He tricks her into marrying him by making her think her lover, Ruffo, has abandoned her. Things don't go quite as planned, however, when Ruffo returns.Carnival
NYR
Overview:
"Chick" Thompson is a puppet-master in a traveling carnival whose wife dies in childbirth and leaves him with an infant son he names "Poochy." His father-in-law and the baby's grandfather sues him for custody of the baby and Chick takes his son and hides out for a couple of years. He joins his former assistants, Daisy and "Fingers", in a circus act only to find that the persistent grandfather is still on his trail.It's a Gift
6.308
Overview:
After he inherits some money, Harold Bissonette ("pronounced bis-on-ay") decides to give up the grocery business, move to California and run an orange grove. Despite his family's objections and the news that the land he bought is worthless, Bissonette packs up and drives out to California with his nagging wife Amelia and children.Chicago
5.7
Overview:
Based on a true story, two-timing boozing wife Roxie Hart kills her lover in cold blood after he leaves her, and finagles her way out being indicted. The basis for Kander/Ebb's 1975 Broadway musical of the same name and its Oscar-winning 2002 film adaptation.Wide Open
5.3
Overview:
An eccentric, fluttery bachelor is dismayed to discover an undressed woman in his apartment.Kansas City Princess
4.5
Overview:
Rosie and Marie are wisecracking Kansas City manicurists. Marie is an unabashed golddigger but Rosie would like to marry her gangster boyfriend Dynamite, who's given her an expensive ring. When she loses the ring, both friends have to flee Dynamite's wrath; their adventures include masquerading as girl scouts and taking an ocean voyage to Paris.Doubting Thomas
7
Overview:
A husband makes fun of his wife's theatrical aspirations when she agrees to appear in a local production. When she begins to neglect him, he decides to retaliate by also going on stage.The Re-Creation of Brian Kent
NYR
Overview:
To support a demanding wife, bank clerk Brian Kent embezzles a large sum of money and, overcome with remorse, attempts to commit suicide by casting himself adrift in a small boat on a rough river. The boat is caught in willows, however, and Brian meets Judy, a little maidservant who introduces him to her mistress, Auntie Sue, a schoolteacher. Under Auntie Sue's benign influence, Brian reforms and writes a book. Falling in love with Betty Jo, Brian incurs the enmity of Judy, who tells her father of Brian's unsavory past. Judy's father starts out for the bank, but Auntie Sue gets there first and persuades the bank president (a former pupil of hers) not to prosecute Brian. Brian's wife attempts to visit him and is drowned. Brian finds happiness with Betty Jo.The Crowded Hour
NYR
Overview:
Telephone operator Peggy, puts on an act with Matt Wilde at a Bowery amateur night and is seen by Billy Laidlaw, who becomes convinced of her talents. Billy subsequently arranges for the Broadway debut of the act and falls in love with Peggy, who wholeheartedly returns his affection. When the World War breaks out, Billy remains unconcerned until his younger brother is killed in action. Billy then immediately enlists and is sent to France; Peggy joins the Red Cross to be with him, and Grace Laidlaw, Billy's wife, also goes to France, working with the Y. M. C. A. Billy is assigned to destroy an ammunition dump, and Peggy learns, after he has left on the mission, that he has been recalled.A Regular Scout
4
Overview:
Silent cowboy western about a man on a mission to exact revenge on the gang who, he feels, are responsible for his mother's death, after their raid. Upon discovering that one of the gang members killed in the raid was the long-lost son of the Monroe family, so he decides to impersonate him to exact his revenge on the their family.Sally
6.714
Overview:
Sally is an orphan who was named by the telephone exchange where she was abandoned as a baby. In the orphanage, she discovered the joy of dancing. Working as a waitress, she serves Blair (Alexander Gray), and they both fall for each other, but Blair is engaged to socialite Marcia. Sally is hired to impersonate a famous Russian dancer named Noskerova, but at that engagement, she is found to be a phoney. Undaunted, she proceeds with her life and has a show on Broadway, but she still thinks of Blair.Ladies of Leisure
7
Overview:
Rich, spoiled Marian pressures Eric to marry her. Her brother is in love with her friend Mamie, but a scheming ex-husband tries to blackmail her. Mamie is saved from suicide by Eric, who's in a compromising position when he brings her home.Dangerous Curves
6
Overview:
A young bareback rider in a circus is in love with a trapeze artist, but he has two problems: he drinks too much and he's fallen under the spell of a "vamp" who's nothing but trouble for him.The Unknown Cavalier
NYR
Overview:
Tom Drury, a cowboy whose quick thinking stops a notorious outlaw, "The Hawk," from further misdeeds. The villain, as it turns out, is none other than Henry Suggs (James Mason), heretofore considered a pillar of the community.....Young Ideas
NYR
Overview:
Universal star Laura LaPlante stars in this lighthearted comedy based on Sophie Kerr's magazine story, Relative Values. Octavia Lowden (LaPlante) has virtually become a drudge in order to support her sponging relatives -- flapper sister Eloise (Lucille Ricksen), hypochondriac Aunt Minnie (Lydia Yeamans Titus), and storytelling Uncle Eph (James O. Barrows). Only Octavia's frail grandmother (Jennie Lee) really needs help. When Octavia's sweetheart, photographer Pritchett Spence (T. Roy Barnes), discovers the toll these bloodsuckers are exacting, he plots with the family doctor to rescue her.Village Tale
4.5
Overview:
The insidious typical talk of a small town makes a young man and the married woman he is in love very unhappy.Butterfly
NYR
Overview:
A woman (Ruth Clifford) dedicates her life to her ungrateful younger sister (Laura La Plante), a brilliant violinist. “…a real gem of a photoplay…[Laura La Plante] does about the best work of her career in this role. She acts without showing she is acting, and she makes human and lovable the most trying character she has yet been called upon to essay.” – Moving Picture World.The Old Homestead
NYR
Overview:
Silent drama film based upon the play of the same name by Denman Thompson.The Great White Way
NYR
Overview:
Ambitious press agent Jack Murray introduces two of his clients, Follies dancer Mabel Vandegrift and prize fighter Joe Cain, to each other and they fall in love. After Brock Morton, the owner of the show, says that he will bring down the curtain on the show in the middle of opening night unless Mabel renounces Joe, the latter goes on the stage and announces that, in spite of his prior refusal, that he will fight the English boxing champion. With the money he gets from boxing promoter Tex Rickard, he buys out Morton and the show goes on. Prior to the fight, Morton dopes Joe, but he is brought around so that he is able to fight and eventually wins the match. Joe's father comes east and then brings Joe and Mabel back west with him. A lost film.A Blonde for a Night
5.1
Overview:
After an argument, a newlywed decides to test her husband's fidelity by disguising herself as a blonde.Life Begins at Forty
NYR
Overview:
A small-town newspaper publisher finds himself in opposition to the local banker on the return to town of a lad jailed possibly wrongly for a theft from the bank.Screen Snapshots Series 10, No. 5
NYR
Overview:
Andy Clyde plays football with the Sennett girls; Mary Pickford's miniature golf course is shown.Acting
1935Doubting Thomas as LaMaze
1935Village Tale as Goggy Smith
1935The Four Star Boarder as Felix
1935Life Begins at Forty as Simonds, the Salesman
1935Carnival as Salesman
1934It's a Gift as Insurance Salesman
1934Kansas City Princess as Alderman James 'Jim' Cameron
1931Women of All Nations as Captain of the Marines
1931Aloha as Johnny Marvin
1930Screen Snapshots Series 10, No. 5 as T. Roy Barnes
1930How's My Baby? as Unknown
1930Wide Open as Bob Wyeth
1930Sally as Otis Hooper
1929Dangerous Curves as Pa Spinelli
1928A Blonde for a Night as George
1927Chicago as Reporter
1927Body and Soul as The Postman
1926A Regular Scout as Steve Baxter
1926The Unknown Cavalier as Clout Pettingill
1926Ladies of Leisure as Eric Van Norden
1925The Crowded Hour as Matt Wilde
1925Seven Chances as Billy Meekin
1925The Re-Creation of Brian Kent as Harry Green
1924Reckless Romance as Jerry Warner
1924Butterfly as Cy Dwyer
1924Young Ideas as Pritchett Spence
1924The Great White Way as Jack Murray
1923Hollywood as T. Roy Barnes
1923Souls for Sale as Self - Celebrity Actor in Commissary
1923The Go-Getter as Bill Peck
1923Adam and Eva as The Salesman-Hero
1922The Old Homestead as Happy Jack
1922A Trip to Paramountown as Self
1922Too Much Wife as Jack Morgan
1921Her Face Value as Jimmy Parsons
1921A Kiss in Time as Brian Moore
1920So Long Letty as Harry Miller