Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#16677
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Don 'Red' Barry represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 40 years in, and Don is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Don 'Red' Barry appears in 8 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Don. Johnny Got His Gun is the clearest case: a film rated 7.1 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, transformation, quiet performance. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for horror, thriller, war. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Michael Anderson, Dalton Trumbo, Howard Hawks and others, Don 'Red' Barry helped set a standard other performers now audition against. Awards bodies have been slower than the work, which is usually the sign of a career built on choices rather than campaigns.
Johnny Got His Gun (1971) as Jody Simmons · Only Angels Have Wings (1939) as Tex · Dead End (1937) as Dr. Flynn, Intern (uncredited)
Career snapshot
Ranked #16677 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
8
1937–1977
Career length
40 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.1
Johnny Got His Gun
Average Nutevio score
6.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.5
Johnny Got His Gun
Most frequent director
Howard Hawks
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Howard Hawks
Most common genre
Drama
3 titles
Average runtime
1h 48m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.0
out of 10
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio metric
Cultural impact and legacy, measured separately from craft — how far the work travelled once it left the cinema.
Nutevio Influence Score
6.8
out of 10
A quieter influence — felt inside the films rather than across the industry.
How far the work travelled past the people who saw it first.
What survives once the release-week conversation has burned off.
Institutional acknowledgement, weighted but never decisive.
Years of chosen, relevant work rather than years merely employed.
Statuettes, read as evidence rather than verdict.
Roles named without needing the film named alongside them.
Directors who wrote parts because this performer existed.
The reading other performers now have to answer.
Actor DNA
A fingerprint derived from the roles themselves — register, range and the kind of film they carry.
The shape of a career
Every performance plotted in time. Hover a point to read the title behind it.
Peak years
Where the scores, the awards and the sheer volume of work agree with each other.
Best decade
1930s
6.8 average MV
The 1930s are where the work and the material meet. Only Angels Have Wings, Dead End — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1930s
6.8
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1930s
7.2
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1930s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Only Angels Have Wings, Dead End.
Most productive era
1970s
3 films
The busiest stretch of the catalogue — volume that reads as appetite rather than availability.
Range, mapped
Genres down the side, decades across the top. Warmer cells mean stronger titles.
| Genre | 1930s | 1950s | 1960s | 1970s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.82 films | — | — | 7.11 film |
| Thriller | — | — | 6.41 film | 6.31 film |
| Comedy | — | — | 6.41 film | — |
| Crime | 6.71 film | — | 6.41 film | — |
| Romance | 6.91 film | — | — | — |
| Horror | — | — | — | 6.31 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1937Dead End
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Dr. Flynn, Intern (uncredited).
Highest rated performance · Career peak
7.1 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer. Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
1977Orca
The current state of the argument, as Dock Worker.
Our order
Every performance in the catalogue, ordered by Nutevio Score.
Every title
Filter by genre or decade, and compare any two titles side by side.
8 of 8 films
as Clete
Directed by Budd Boetticher
as Edward Calhoun (uncredited)
Directed by Edward Dmytryk
as Dr. Flynn, Intern (uncredited)
Directed by William Wyler
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
Loading credits…
The defining work
#1
Jody Simmons
Johnny Got His Gun (1971)
Performance score7.0
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Jody Simmons gives Don 'Red' Barry a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Clete
7 Men from Now (1956)
Performance score6.8
7 Men from Now asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Clete is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Tex
Only Angels Have Wings (1939)
Performance score6.8
Only Angels Have Wings asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Tex is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Edward Calhoun (uncredited)
Warlock (1959)
Performance score6.6
Warlock asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Edward Calhoun (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movieStart here
A guided path through the work, ordered so each film explains the next.
Best entry point
as Jody Simmons
Start here. Johnny Got His Gun is the clearest statement of what Don 'Red' Barry does — accessible, 112 minutes, and rated 7.1 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Don at the most legible performance, then move forward in time so each film reads as a response to the one before it rather than a repetition of it.
Dead End (1937)
Keeps the drama register of Johnny Got His Gun but asks for a colder reading of it.
Only Angels Have Wings (1939)
Keeps the drama register of Dead End but asks for a colder reading of it.
7 Men from Now (1956)
A deliberate change of key after Only Angels Have Wings — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Warlock (1959)
Keeps the western register of 7 Men from Now but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Howard Hawks
Director
2 films together
Notably Only Angels Have Wings
William Wyler
Director
1 film together
Notably Dead End
Budd Boetticher
Director
1 film together
Notably 7 Men from Now
Edward Dmytryk
Director
1 film together
Notably Warlock
Lewis Milestone
Director
1 film together
Notably Ocean's Eleven
Dalton Trumbo
Director
1 film together
Notably Johnny Got His Gun
Michael Anderson
Director
1 film together
Notably Orca
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Howard Hawks
Director
2 films together · 6.7 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Only Angels Have WingsDalton Trumbo
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Johnny Got His GunWilliam Wyler
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dead EndEdward Dmytryk
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
WarlockBudd Boetticher
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
7 Men from NowLewis Milestone
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Ocean's ElevenMichael Anderson
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
OrcaSix degrees
Follow the thread outward — director, film, co-star, and the film after that.
Categories of our own
Six editorial categories we apply to every performer we cover.
Most rewatchable
Johnny Got His Gun
as Jody Simmons
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Only Angels Have Wings
as Tex
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Only Angels Have Wings
as Tex
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Ocean's Eleven
as McCoy (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Johnny Got His Gun
as Jody Simmons
If the career had to be argued in a single scene, our editors would pick one from this film and rest the case.
In their films' words
“You can build a whole film around a performer who knows when not to speak. Don 'Red' Barry has known it for a long time.”
Head to head
Put two careers on the same scale and see where the argument actually sits.
Ours alone
Recognitions handed out by this desk, on criteria no awards body uses.
Career Achievement
Awarded
40 years of relevant work — not merely a long career, but a long career of choices.
Drama Legend
Awarded
3 catalogue titles in drama, each one a reference point for the films that followed.
Our desk
Best ending, best opening, best twist and the rest — categories we apply to everyone we cover.
Best ending
Johnny Got His Gun
as Jody Simmons
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Orca
as Dock Worker
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Only Angels Have Wings
as Tex
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Ocean's Eleven
as McCoy (uncredited)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Only Angels Have Wings
as Tex
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Rio Lobo
as Feeny - Bartender (uncredited)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Only Angels Have Wings
as Tex
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Orca
as Dock Worker
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Reference
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