Helen Twelvetrees
Encyclopedia
Helen Twelvetrees was an American stage and screen performer, considered a top female star in the early days of sound film
s.
, New York
, a graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts
, where she met her first husband, actor Clark Twelvetrees. With some stage experience, she went to Hollywood with a number of other actors to replace the silent stars that could not or would not make the transition to talkies. Her first job was with Fox Film Corporation and she appeared in The Ghost Talks
(1929).
Her career was as turbulent as her personal life. After a mere three films with Fox
, she was released from her contract. However, she was signed by Pathé
shortly thereafter, and along with Constance Bennett
and Ann Harding
, Twelvetrees starred in several lachrymose dramas, not all of which were critically acclaimed. When Pathé was absorbed by RKO Radio Pictures, she found herself at various times miscast in mediocre films. With the arrival of Katharine Hepburn
at RKO, Twelvetrees left the studio to freelance. (Harding and Bennett would also subsequently depart.)
The 1930 film Her Man set the course of her screen career, and she would forever be asked to play suffering women fighting for the wrong men. Later she played opposite Spencer Tracy
in 1934's Now I'll Tell
(also known as When New York Sleeps) from a novel by Mrs. Arnold Robinson; opposite Donald Cook
in The Spanish Cape Mystery; and costarred in Paramount
's A Bedtime Story
with Maurice Chevalier
. She also starred in two Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
films, which induced a critic to note that she "had a gift for projecting emotional force with minimal visible effort." However, some other critics (including one from The New York Times
) felt that she tended to overact in a few of her other appearances.
By 1936 to 1937, she was publicly feuding with her second husband, ex-stunt man Frank Woody, and appearing in B-Westerns and crime thrillers. In 1936, she travelled to Australia
to star in the Cinesound Studios production Thoroughbred about the rise of a Melbourne Cup
winning racehorse. The filming was done at Cinesound Studios sound stages in Bondi Junction, Sydney
.
in 1939 and made her Broadway
debut in Jacques Deval's Boudoir in 1941. The play folded after only eleven performances and she semi-retired to Middletown, Pennsylvania
, with her third husband, a military officer. She occasionally continued to act and successfully essayed the role of Blanche DuBois
in A Streetcar Named Desire
in summer stock in Sea Cliff, New York
in August 1951. A cast member of that production recalled of Twelvetrees that "she had the saddest eyes I'd ever seen" and "it was also obvious that she had an extremely fragile psyche."
On the afternoon of February 13, 1958, Twelvetrees was found unresponsive on the floor of her living room in a modest bungalow located at 315 Oak Hill Drive in what was pronounced a suicide by coroners in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
. Her official cause of death was listed as an overdose of prescription medication given to her for a chronic kidney ailment. She was 49 years old and survived by her son, Jack Woody, Jr. (b. 26 October 1932) and husband Conrad Payne, who was stationed at a nearby military base. Her cremated remains were interred several months after her death in Middletown Cemetery in a funeral attended only by her husband and close friend Mrs. Ray D. Uglow. Her burial plot was left unmarked and considered lost until 2009.
Sound film
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades would pass before sound motion pictures were made commercially...
s.
Early life and career
Born Helen Marie Jurgens in BrooklynBrooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, a graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts
American Academy of Dramatic Arts
The American Academy of Dramatic Arts is a fully accredited two-year conservatory with facilities located in Manhattan, New York City – at 120 Madison Avenue, in a landmark building designed by noted architect Stanford White as the original Colony Club – and in Hollywood, California...
, where she met her first husband, actor Clark Twelvetrees. With some stage experience, she went to Hollywood with a number of other actors to replace the silent stars that could not or would not make the transition to talkies. Her first job was with Fox Film Corporation and she appeared in The Ghost Talks
The Ghost Talks (1929 film)
The Ghost Talks is a 1929 comedy genre film, directed by Lewis Seiler; based on a Max Marcin and Edward Hammond's Broadway play.-Cast:* Helen Twelvetrees* Charles Eaton* Carmel Myers* Stepin Fetchit* Earle Foxe* Henry Sedley* Joe Brown...
(1929).
Her career was as turbulent as her personal life. After a mere three films with Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
, she was released from her contract. However, she was signed by Pathé
Pathé
Pathé or Pathé Frères is the name of various French businesses founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France.-History:...
shortly thereafter, and along with Constance Bennett
Constance Bennett
-Early life:She was born in New York City, the daughter of actor Richard Bennett and actress Adrienne Morrison, whose father was the stage actor Lewis Morrison , a wealthy performer of English and Spanish ancestry...
and Ann Harding
Ann Harding
Ann Harding was an American theatre, motion picture, radio, and television actress.-Early years:Born Dorothy Walton Gatley at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, to George G. Gatley and Elizabeth "Bessie" Crabb. The daughter of a career army officer, she traveled often during her early life...
, Twelvetrees starred in several lachrymose dramas, not all of which were critically acclaimed. When Pathé was absorbed by RKO Radio Pictures, she found herself at various times miscast in mediocre films. With the arrival of Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, stage, and television. In a career that spanned 62 years as a leading lady, she was best known for playing strong-willed, sophisticated women in both dramas and comedies...
at RKO, Twelvetrees left the studio to freelance. (Harding and Bennett would also subsequently depart.)
The 1930 film Her Man set the course of her screen career, and she would forever be asked to play suffering women fighting for the wrong men. Later she played opposite Spencer Tracy
Spencer Tracy
Spencer Bonaventure Tracy was an American theatrical and film actor, who appeared in 75 films from 1930 to 1967. Tracy was one of the major stars of Hollywood's Golden Age, ranking among the top ten box office draws for almost every year from 1938 to 1951...
in 1934's Now I'll Tell
Now I'll Tell
Now I'll Tell is a 1934 American drama film starring Spencer Tracy, Helen Twelvetrees, and Alice Faye. The film was directed and written by Edwin J. Burke and is based on a novel by Mrs. Arnold Robinson. The film is about a gambler who gets in trouble with the mob by fixing fights and loses his...
(also known as When New York Sleeps) from a novel by Mrs. Arnold Robinson; opposite Donald Cook
Donald Cook (actor)
Donald Cook was an American stage and film actor.Born in Portland, Oregon, he originally studied farming but later started business with a lumber company. He joined the Kansas Community Players and through this received an offer of stage work...
in The Spanish Cape Mystery; and costarred in Paramount
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
's A Bedtime Story
A Bedtime Story
A Bedtime Story is a 1933 romantic comedy film starring Maurice Chevalier. Chevalier plays a Parisian playboy who finds himself obliged to care for an abandoned baby...
with Maurice Chevalier
Maurice Chevalier
Maurice Auguste Chevalier was a French actor, singer, entertainer and a noted Sprechgesang performer. He is perhaps best known for his signature songs, including Louise, Mimi, Valentine, and Thank Heaven for Little Girls and for his films including The Love Parade and The Big Pond...
. She also starred in two Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
films, which induced a critic to note that she "had a gift for projecting emotional force with minimal visible effort." However, some other critics (including one from The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
) felt that she tended to overact in a few of her other appearances.
By 1936 to 1937, she was publicly feuding with her second husband, ex-stunt man Frank Woody, and appearing in B-Westerns and crime thrillers. In 1936, she travelled to Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
to star in the Cinesound Studios production Thoroughbred about the rise of a Melbourne Cup
Melbourne Cup
The Melbourne Cup is Australia's major Thoroughbred horse race. Marketed as "the race that stops a nation", it is a 3,200 metre race for three-year-olds and over. It is the richest "two-mile" handicap in the world, and one of the richest turf races...
winning racehorse. The filming was done at Cinesound Studios sound stages in Bondi Junction, Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
.
Later career and death
Twelvetrees left films in favor of summer stockSummer stock theatre
Summer stock theatre is any theatre that presents stage productions only in the summer within the United States. The name combines both the seasonal time of year with the tradition of staging shows by a resident company, reusing stock scenery and costumes...
in 1939 and made her Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
debut in Jacques Deval's Boudoir in 1941. The play folded after only eleven performances and she semi-retired to Middletown, Pennsylvania
Middletown, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania
Middletown is a borough in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, on the Susquehanna River, nine miles southeast of Harrisburg. It is part of the Harrisburg–Carlisle Metropolitan Statistical Area.-History:...
, with her third husband, a military officer. She occasionally continued to act and successfully essayed the role of Blanche DuBois
Blanche DuBois
Blanche DuBois is a fictional character in Tennessee Williams' 1947 Pulitzer Prize-winning play A Streetcar Named Desire...
in A Streetcar Named Desire
A Streetcar Named Desire (play)
A Streetcar Named Desire is a 1947 play written by American playwright Tennessee Williams for which he received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1948. The play opened on Broadway on December 3, 1947, and closed on December 17, 1949, in the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. The Broadway production was...
in summer stock in Sea Cliff, New York
Sea Cliff, New York
The Village of Sea Cliff is a village located within the Town of Oyster Bay in Nassau County, New York. As of the United States 2010 Census, the village population was 4,995...
in August 1951. A cast member of that production recalled of Twelvetrees that "she had the saddest eyes I'd ever seen" and "it was also obvious that she had an extremely fragile psyche."
On the afternoon of February 13, 1958, Twelvetrees was found unresponsive on the floor of her living room in a modest bungalow located at 315 Oak Hill Drive in what was pronounced a suicide by coroners in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Harrisburg is the capital of Pennsylvania. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 49,528, making it the ninth largest city in Pennsylvania...
. Her official cause of death was listed as an overdose of prescription medication given to her for a chronic kidney ailment. She was 49 years old and survived by her son, Jack Woody, Jr. (b. 26 October 1932) and husband Conrad Payne, who was stationed at a nearby military base. Her cremated remains were interred several months after her death in Middletown Cemetery in a funeral attended only by her husband and close friend Mrs. Ray D. Uglow. Her burial plot was left unmarked and considered lost until 2009.
Filmography
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1929 | The Ghost Talks The Ghost Talks (1929 film) The Ghost Talks is a 1929 comedy genre film, directed by Lewis Seiler; based on a Max Marcin and Edward Hammond's Broadway play.-Cast:* Helen Twelvetrees* Charles Eaton* Carmel Myers* Stepin Fetchit* Earle Foxe* Henry Sedley* Joe Brown... |
Miriam Holt | |
| 1929 | Blue Skies | Dorothy May | Episode 2 |
| 1929 | Words and Music Words and Music (1929 film) Words and Music is a 1929 American musical comedy film, directed by James Tinling, and starring Lois Moran, David Percy, Helen Twelvetrees, and Frank Albertson... |
Dorothy Blake | |
| 1930 | The Grand Parade | Molly | |
| 1930 | Swing High | Maryan | |
| 1930 | Her Man | Frankie Keefe | |
| 1930 | The Cat Creeps The Cat Creeps The Cat Creeps is a crime/mystery film, and a sound remake of The Cat and the Canary . It is one of the many lost films of the early talkie film era.... |
Annabelle West | |
| 1931 | The Painted Desert The Painted Desert The Painted Desert is a film released by RKO Radio Pictures which marks the debut of Clark Gable in a talkie. Gable's performance as Rance Brett, an unshaven former criminal who does not feel sorry about the crimes he has committed, made him an important supporting actor overnight as the result of... |
Mary Ellen Cameron | |
| 1931 | Millie Millie (film) Millie is a Pre-Code drama film directed by John Francis Dillon and released by RKO Radio Pictures. Based on the novel by Donald Henderson Clarke, the movie stars Helen Twelvetrees, Lilyan Tashman, James Hall, and Joan Blondell.-Plot:... |
Millicent "Millie" Blake Maitland | |
| 1931 | A Woman of Experience | Elsa Elsbergen | Alternative title: Registered Woman |
| 1931 | Bad Company Bad Company (1931 film) Bad Company is a 1931 gangster film directed and co-written by Tay Garnett with Tom Buckingham based on Jack Lait's 1930 novel Put On the Spot. It stars Helen Twelvetrees and Ricardo Cortez... |
Helen King Carlyle | |
| 1932 | Panama Flo | Flo Bennett | |
| 1932 | Young Bride | Allie Smith Riggs | |
| 1932 | State's Attorney | June Perry | Alternative title: Cardigan's Last Case |
| 1932 | Is My Face Red? | Peggy Bannon | |
| 1932 | Unashamed | Joan Ogden | |
| 1933 | Broken Hearts | ||
| 1933 | A Bedtime Story A Bedtime Story A Bedtime Story is a 1933 romantic comedy film starring Maurice Chevalier. Chevalier plays a Parisian playboy who finds himself obliged to care for an abandoned baby... |
Sally | |
| 1933 | Disgraced! | Gay Holloway | |
| 1933 | My Woman | Connie Riley Rollins | |
| 1933 | King for a Night | Lillian Williams | |
| 1934 | All Men Are Enemies | Katha | |
| 1934 | Now I'll Tell Now I'll Tell Now I'll Tell is a 1934 American drama film starring Spencer Tracy, Helen Twelvetrees, and Alice Faye. The film was directed and written by Edwin J. Burke and is based on a novel by Mrs. Arnold Robinson. The film is about a gambler who gets in trouble with the mob by fixing fights and loses his... |
Virginia Golden | Alternative titles: Now I'll Tell You When New York Sleeps |
| 1934 | She Was a Lady | Sheila Vane | |
| 1934 | One Hour Late | Bessie Dunn | |
| 1935 | Times Square Lady | Margo Heath | |
| 1935 | She Gets Her Man | Francine | |
| 1935 | The Spanish Cape Mystery | Stella Godfrey | |
| 1935 | Frisco Waterfront | Alice | Alternative title: When We Look Back |
| 1936 | Thoroughbred | Joan | |
| 1937 | Hollywood Round-Up | Carol Stevens | |
| 1939 | Persons in Hiding | Helen Griswold | |
| 1939 | Unmarried | Pat Rogers |