Fay Helm; Actress who excelled at horror and film noir
Hyfler/Rosner
Actress who excelled at horror and film noir
05 November 2003
Fay Lucille Helm, actress: born Bakersfield, California 9 April 1910;
married 1947 Albert O. Farmer (died 1980; one daughter); died Santa Monica,
California 27 September 2003.
(independent)
The actress Fay Helm rose to cult status during a 60-picture career that
spanned the 1930s and 1940s. At Universal Studios, she played the helpless
Jenny Williams, the first target of Lon Chaney Jnr's title character, in The
Wolf Man (1941); she was Margaret Ingston, one of Bela Lugosi's victims in
Night Monster (1942); she was opposite Humphrey Bogart in The Wagons Roll at
Night (1942); and she played the frosty, elusive Ann Terry in the critically
acclaimed film noir classic Phantom Lady (1944).
A talented character player even by her mid-twenties, Helm exuded a
clear-minded maturity that enabled her to avoid traditional ingénue roles,
providing flair and sparkle to even the most mundane of Hollywood movies.
"And there were many poor flicks amongst the golden ones," she said.
Born in 1910, by her teens Fay Helm had secured the lead in school plays and
local theatre. It seemed inevitable for the young performer to try her luck
in Hollywood. She arrived there in 1934. "B.P. Schulberg at Paramount
Pictures launched me," Helm recalled in 1999:
He had produced movies for the likes of Billie Dove and Clara Bow and was a
big influence in Hollywood. B.P. liked my looks and got me into pictures,
there was no Screen Actors Guild, so I was at his mercy really. Anyway, [the
actress] Sylvia Sidney who was his mistress disliked the arrangement and
before I had a chance to advance beyond bits I was out.
But, despite early misgivings, advance she did, working under contract to
RKO and Warner Bros. In 1936, she joined Spencer Tracy and her old nemesis
Sylvia Sidney in Fritz Lang's Fury, followed by the earthquake disaster
picture San Francisco (1936) and the mystery thrillers Under Cover of Night
(1937) and Midnight Intruder (1938). She then moved to Warner Bros to appear
as Miss Dodd opposite Bette Davis in Dark Victory (1939), before playing
alongside Ginger Rogers in Kitty Foyle (1940).
Helm also played the hilarious Mrs Fuddle, mother of hapless Alvin in five
of the famed "Blondie" movie comedies, including the first in the series,
Blondie (1938), in which Dagwood (Arthur Lake) loses his job on the eve of
his and Blondie (Penny Singleton)'s fifth wedding anniversary.
The success of these films, revealed in the huge fan base that traced the
lives of Dagwood, his dysfunctional family, Mrs Fuddle and the others, was
only matched by the following Helm enjoyed well into her ninth decade for
her roles in Universal horrors. "I worked with Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney,
Claude Rains and the skeletal John Carradine," she said:
These fellas were professional teasers and played tricks on us female
co-stars. Carradine liked me because he saw me as one of them, I wasn't
frightened of blood or gore.
Fay Helm remained in contact with John Carradine and later became friends
with his actor son David Carradine, current star of Kill Bill.
Helm and John Carradine went on to appear together in Captive Wild Woman
(1945), considered one of the era's worst movies, in which Carradine plays a
mad scientist who transplants human glands into a gorilla, turning the ape
into a beautiful young jungle girl (played by Acquanetta).
The Wolf Man is probably Helm's most memorable film, in which Larry Talbot
(Lon Chaney) returns home to the English moors from college in America, only
to become hopelessly smitten by a village girl (Helm) and then bitten by a
werewolf (Bela Lugosi). He survives and learns his fate is to become a
man-eating wolf at each full moon. "Audiences became as wild as the Wolf Man
by watching that film," Helm said. "I adore to watch it even now, despite
the seemingly amateur (by today's standards) special effects."
As a character actress Helm played a succession of secretaries, wise women,
maids and busybodies, breaking only momentarily to tour with the USO during
the Second World War. She was Ginger Rogers's secretary Miss Bowers in Lady
in the Dark (1944), appeared with Peter Lawford and Lassie in Son of Lassie
(1945), one of the better canine outings, and then played Martha Bonner in
the early Robert Mitchum film noir classic The Locket (1946), about a secret
that ruins a string of handsome suitors.
Although Helm often had just a few lines in some of her movies she made sure
these counted. "I wasn't considered a starlet, a floozy or any of these,"
Helm said:
Directors like Ford Beebe and W.S. Van Dyke, who made San Francisco, thought
I had something. I worked at my career and gave my all to each part however
minor.
In 1946, however, Helm decided to quit Hollywood. She married a businessman,
Albert Farmer, in 1947 and the following year gave birth to a daughter,
Leslie.
Fifty-five years later, Fay Helm shed some light on her decision to leave
motion pictures:
I enjoyed it all so much and during the years I spent away from film-making
missed it even more. I thought of a comeback and when old friends managed to
return to work I felt a little jealous. The trouble was that I was playing
older women in my thirties and by the time I reached 45 felt directors would
have me playing grandmothers, so I quit whilst I was ahead, still
good-looking on screen and with a few good offers left.
Austin Mutti-Mewse
DESSCRIBE1
>The Wolf Man is probably Helm's most memorable film, in which Larry Talbot
>(Lon Chaney) returns home to the English moors from college in America, only
>to become hopelessly smitten by a village girl (Helm) and then bitten by a
>werewolf (Bela Lugosi). He survives and learns his fate is to become a
>man-eating wolf at each full moon. "Audiences became as wild as the Wolf Man
>by watching that film," Helm said. "I adore to watch it even now, despite
>the seemingly amateur (by today's standards) special effects."
In fact, the village girl with whom Chaney becomes smitten was played by Evelyn
Ankers. Fay Helm played Ankers' friend, who was killed by the werewolf Bela
Lugosi. Chaney is bitten by Bela (thus inheriting the curse himself) when he
attempts to rush to Helm's rescue.
Erich
"I will play the lute with my foot, as I juggle these knives and hit a slap
shot 60 feet, while handcuffed to a live alligator...AND...I will act...like a
BABY!" - Fritz the Evil Butler