Nina Bara

Space Patrol cast 1950

Nina Bara (born May 3, 1920 in Buenos Aires , † August 15, 1990 in Glendale , Los Angeles County ), actually Frances Joan Baur , was an American actress of German - Italian - Argentine origin. It was her role as Tonga, a heroine of sci-fi - TV series Space Patrol , known.

Origin and education

Bara's mother Caroline Baur was Italian, her father George Baur was an American and apparently also a German citizen. In 1929 the family moved from Argentina to Germany, but left the Reich around 1933 after the seizure of power and emigrated to the USA. Presumably in 1944, Frances Baur took on the stage name Nina Bara. According to her widower Ray Linke, she spoke fluent Spanish in addition to English . Nothing is known about school and vocational training.

Space patrol and other professional activities

After minor feature film roles in the mid-1940s, Bara became a speaker in the radio play series Space Patrol , where she also cast other roles in addition to the role of the alien Tonga. When the series was adapted by television in 1951 , she also took over the Tonga role there and was one of the two female stars of the series with Virginia Hewitt in the role of Carol Carlisle .

Bara was extremely adept at marketing the series. For example, she ran the Bara Facts column in TV Times magazine , which provided readers with gossip about the production. After Space Patrol producer Mike Moser was killed in a car accident in April 1953, Bara fell out with his widow Helen Moser as the new producer about participating in merchandising income , whereupon Moser fired her in December 1953. A legal battle ensued over the broadcast of the episodes shot with Bara on Kinescope . As far as is known, no episodes filmed with Bara have survived.

After Space Patrol , Bara appeared on various television shows. 1958 failed her attempt to achieve the breakthrough in the film business through the role of Alpha in Beast of Horror . In the mid-1960s she obtained a master's degree in library science and then worked as a librarian for the Blue Cross until 1985 .

As Frances left, she wrote 1976/77 the three-volume work Space Patrol Memories by Tonga , which is an important source for the Space Patrol - fandom was.

Private life

In 1952 Bara married the television director Robert B. Sheldon; the marriage was divorced in 1953. In 1956 she married the actor and musician Dick Winslow; the marriage was divorced after six months. In 1964 she married the journalist Ray Linke; the couple adopted a girl named Cecillia. Frances left died on August 15, 1990 at Glendale Adventist Medical Center of cancer .

Filmography (selection)

1944: The Mummy's Curse
1945: The Gay Señorita
1945: Pan-Americana
1946: Gilda
1946: Samba fever
1947: Black Hills
1948: Three little beasts
1950: A Lady Without Passport
1951-1953: Space Patrol
1958: Beast of Horror

literature

Jean-Noel Bassior: Space Patrol. Missions of Daring in the Name of Early Television , Jefferson, NC / London (Mc Farland & Company, Inc., Publishers) 2005. ISBN 0-7864-1911-3
Frances Linke: Space Patrol Memories by Tonga , Vols. 1-3, Los Angeles (Nin-Ra Enterprises) 1976, 1977.
Bill Warren : "Keep Watching the Skies!" American Science Fiction Movies of the Fifties , Jefferson, NC / London (Mc Farland & Company, Inc., Publishers) 2010, pp. 573-576. ISBN 978-0-7864-4230-0

Web links

Commons : Nina Bara - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

personal data
SURNAME	Bara, Nina
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Baur, Frances Joan (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	US-american actress
DATE OF BIRTH	May 3, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH	Buenos Aires
DATE OF DEATH	August 15, 1990
Place of death	Glendale , Los Angeles County