Iowa Women's Archives
University of Iowa Libraries
Iowa City, Iowa

BEVERLY BARNES FIX (1919- )

PAPERS, 1974-2001
2.5 linear inches

Collection Overview

Biography

Beverly Barnes Fix, broadcaster, writer, actress, and teacher, was born on September 10, 1919 to Lela Boyce Barnes and Bert W. Barnes.  After graduating as valedictorian from high school in Colman, South Dakota, Beverly Barnes entered the State University of Iowa (SUI, now the University of Iowa) in 1937.  There, she majored in Speech and Theater Arts, graduating with a BA in 1941. Actively involved during her four years on campus, she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, Mortar Board, Purple Mask University Players (theater), and Zeta Phi Et, National Speech Arts Honorary Organization.

Throughout her years at SUI, Beverly Barnes was involved in daily radio productions at WSUI, the university radio station.  During her final year at SUI, she entered the 1941 Practical Radio Scholarship competition offered by radio station WLW in Cincinnati, Ohio.  Barnes was the first woman awarded one of the six-month scholarships in general radio training.  At the end of the six-month training period, Beverly Barnes was hired permanently as a writer, producer, and broadcaster.  During her work at WLW, Beverly Barnes met her future husband, Jay Fix (screen/broadcast name Jay Stewart).  The two were married on August 20, 1942.  Later that same year, they moved to Hollywood, California and began their broadcasting careers.  Beverly Barnes Fix worked at CBS as a writer, producer, actress and hostess.  She was the creator, writer, and hostess of “CBS Open House,” a program devoted to her interviews of Hollywood celebrities, mainly radio and film stars.  Along with writing and hosting “CBS Open House,” Beverly Barnes Fix wrote, produced, and broadcast a daily segment of entertainment news.  She also did voice work on such radio programs as “Lux Radio Theater” (hosted by Cecil B. DeMille), “The Bob Hope Show,” “The Tony Martin Show,” “The Mayor of the Town” (starring Lionel Barrymore and Agnes Moorehead, “and “Dragnet,” among others.

After fifteen years of working in radio and television, following her divorce in 1952, Beverly Barnes Fix enrolled in the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) to earn her teaching and counseling credentials. This new career provided a much more compatible schedule while raising two small daughters.  She taught drama, English, speech and history at Emerson Junior High School in Los Angeles.  In addition she acted as a Training Teacher for prospective teachers enrolled in the UCLA teaching program.  She became a fulltime Grade Counselor and the Coordinator and Supervisor of the Gifted Students Program annually for 300 students until her retirement.

In her retirement, Beverly Barnes Fix maintained a strong interest in media issues.  In 2000, she wrote “871 Reasons to Fall in Love With the Movies” and in 2001, she wrote “Television at its Best,” written to accompany her gift of 871 classic movies and 1,839 award winning television documentaries, with subjects ranging from art to war, in addition to great situation comedies and dramas of the “Golden Age” of movies and television. All have been donated to the University of Iowa Special Collections Department.

Scope and Content Note

The Beverly Barnes Fix papers date from 1974 to 2001 and measure 2.5 linear inches. Recollections of Things Trivial But Not Inconsequential (1974) by Lela Boyce Barnes is a collection of her memoirs detailing her childhood in Adrian, Minnesota, her young adult life teaching in rural South Dakota, and her marriage and family life in adulthood. “Lela Boyce Barnes, Author of Recollections of Things Trivial But Not Inconsequential” is Beverly Barnes Fix’s memoir of her childhood and her mother’s life following the death of her husband, Bert Barnes.  Also included in the collection is a copy of Beverly Barnes Fix’s own memoir, “It’s in the Genes!” written in 2001.  Here, Fix provides an overview of her own life, including detailed descriptions of her childhood, her student days at SUI, her career in radio broadcasting, and her return to college to become an educator.  Notably, Fix’s memoir discusses in great detail her work at WSUI radio in Iowa City, Iowa, WLW radio in Cincinnati, Ohio, and CBS Radio in Hollywood, California.  Included in the memoir are photographs of Fix working with such notable Hollywood celebrities as Maureen O’Hara, Bob Hope, Groucho Marx, Lionel Barrymore, Al Jolson, Cecil B. DeMille, Olivia de Havilland, Robert Young, Agnes Moorehead, Dick Powell, and Dinah Shore.  Family photographs include her two daughters, Jamie and Julie, and her grandchildren, Emily and Andrew.

Related Collections

The Beverly Barnes Fix Videotape Collection, Special Collections Department,
University of Iowa Libraries

Box List

Box 1
	Memoirs
		Barnes, Lela Boyce (mother of Beverly Barnes Fix)
			Recollections of Things Trivial But Not Inconsequential, 1978
		Fix, Beverly Barnes
			“Lela Boyce Barnes, Author of Recollections of Things Trivial But  Not Inconsequential,”  2001 [biographical sketch] “It’s in the Genes!” 2001 (2 folders)

 

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Page created February 2007.