BARNES, PRISCILLA

Contributed by: The James Bond Movie Encyclopedia by Steven Jay Rubin

(December 7, 1954–     ): American actress and comedienne who portrayed Della Churchill, doomed bride of CIA agent Felix Leiter (David Hedison), in Licence to Kill. She’s murdered by the henchmen of drug lord Franz Sanchez (Robert Davi); the same hoodlums leave Leiter for dead.

Born in Fort Dix, New Jersey, Barnes is best known for replacing Suzanne Somers on the sitcom Three’s Company (70 episodes as nurse Terri Alden, 1981–1984). She made her uncredited feature debut as a bar girl in Tintorera: Killer Shark (1977). The following year she played Weena opposite John Beck’s Neil Perry in the television adaptation of H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine. Director Steven Spielberg originally wanted her to play the Willie Scott character in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, but Barnes was under contract to Three’s Company and had to turn down the role, which eventually went to Kate Capshaw, Spielberg’s future wife. More recently, she played the recurring role of Magda on Jane the Virgin (41 episodes, 2014–2019).

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