Cover story from the April 2, 1938 issue of the radio magazine Stand By featuring Barbara Luddy.
– and winning them. In no time at all she was playing opposite such stars as Leslie Howard, Francis Lederer, Edward Everett Horton, Ricardo Cortez and William Powell. In the fall of 1936, Luddy’s prominence in the radio world won her the feminine leading role in Campana’s “First Nighter” programs, playing opposite Don Ameche. Recently, she set a precedent in radio dramatic circles when she signed a threeyear contract guaranteeing her 52 weeks’ work a year with the “First Nighter” sponsor. And in January 1937 she was awarded the title role in “Margot of Castlewood,” dramatic series sponsored by the Quaker Oats Company. One contemporary newspaper account referred to Luddy’s height – or lack of it. “Barbara Luddy, diminutive leading lady in “Margot of Castlewood,” heard over WLS at 9:15 a.m., Mondays through Fridays, stands exactly four feet, ten and five-eighths inches with high heels on. When she plays opposite a tall actor, she has to stand on a box to reach the “mike.”
According to an April 1938 radio magazine, “Barbara’s most prized possession is a boomerang given her by a member of the Australian parliament. And her favorite trinket is a bracelet with a bell on it.” Another article noted that “she has hazel eyes, brown hair, a happy disposition and a ready wit,” and that she spends much of her spare time knitting, sewing and reading.
While she appeared in small parts in several well-known films, Luddy found fame and a steady paycheck in voiceover work for Disney (from approximately 1955 until 1973), including the voice of Lady in Lady and the Tramp (1955), as fairy godmother Merryweather in Sleeping Beauty (1959) and Kanga in Winnie the Pooh shorts and television productions in the 1960s and 70s. Her other film credits include Terrified (1962) and the TV film Lost Flight (1969). She also guest starred in episodes of such television programs as Hazel, Dragnet, Adam-12, and Kolchak: The Night Stalker.
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She died at age 70 of lung cancer in 1979.
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