[1][2] Jean was born in Blue Lake, California, to Henry Laverty and Helen Douarin.

[3][4] When she was 18, she was persuaded by a visiting woman stage director to run away from home and pursue a career as an actress.

[5] When the act arrived in Los Angeles, Jean decided to stay and try her hand in the movies.

She spent her early years toiling in bit parts in comedies at Fox; then, in 1929, in a bid to amp up her career, she started going by Jean Bary, reportedly guided by a suggestion by a numerologist.

[8] In 1938, she filed a lawsuit against film editor William Hamilton, charging that he had promised to marry her in December 1936 and then changed his mind nearly two years later.