Twelvtris, Helen

The future actress was born on December 25, 1908 in Brooklyn . She graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Art and played in the theater for some time. In 1927, Helen married the theater actor Clark Twelvtris, whom she met while studying, took his last name and went to Hollywood - in those years the era of sound cinema was coming, and film studios were looking for a replacement for those silent movie actors who could not adapt to the new format. In 1929, she made her film debut, starring in the Fox movie studio in the comedy Ghost Speaks .

In the same year, Helen starred in supporting roles in two more films produced by Fox, then the company canceled her contract. However, the actress was lucky - in 1929 she was included in the list of young movie stars WAMPAS Baby Stars and was accepted to the Pathé Exchange film studio.

At first, her career developed quite successfully - in 1930 several sentimental dramas were released with the participation of the actress, but after the merger of Pathé Exchange with RKO , she was transferred to mediocre melodramas, and soon Helen quit and began working at various movie studios ( MGM ) , Universal Pictures , Paramount Pictures , etc.) as a freelance actress.

The role of the actress was determined by the 1930 melodrama " Her Man ", where Helen played the role of dancer Frankie. The audience liked her appearance in this film, and since then she played the role of touching and defenseless girls, forced to confront the bad guys.

Characteristic films of the actress in this role are the gangster drama " Bad Company " (1931), the sentimental melodrama " Millie " (1931), " My Woman " (1933), " Bedtime Story " (1933), where Maurice starred in conjunction with Helen Chevalier . In 1931, together with Clark Gable (at that time he was a beginner actor), the actress appeared in a film atypical for herself - the Western “ Painted Desert ”.

In the mid-1930s, her career quickly declined. In 1936, Helen divorced her second husband, broker Frank Woody - they married in April 1931, shortly after the actress divorced her first husband. Having starred in several unremarkable dramas at the end of the decade, the actress left the movie, and soon married again - this time to airborne officer Conrad Payne. From time to time, she played in the theater, in the early 1950s quite successfully fulfilling the role of Blanche in the play "Desire Tram" based on a play by Tennessee Williams , and on February 13, 1958 she suddenly died of an overdose of sleeping pills. Subsequently, Helen Twelvtris was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

• Photos of the actress at Film.virtual-history.com