Helen Twelvetrees |
||
|
|
||
Helen Twelvetrees Relationships |
||
Who is Helen Twelvetrees dating?Click on the photos to find out Who's Dated Who...
|
||
Post Your Vote |
||
Vote Results |
||
Career Highlights |
||
Actor Credits
|
||
Helen Twelvetrees Biography |
||
|
Born Helen Marie Jurgens in Brooklyn, New York, a graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Art, 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 and she appeared in 1929`s The Ghost Talks.
Unfortunately, her career was as tumultuous 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. And when Pathé was absorbed by RKO, incrementally 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). 1930`s 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 the 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 MGM 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. She left films in favor of summer stock in 1939 and made her Broadway debut in Jacques Deval`s Boudoir in 1941. Unfortunately, the play folded after only 11 performances and she semi-retired to Harrisburg, PA, with her third husband, a military officer. Yet she occasionally continued to act and successfully essayed the role of Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire in summer stock in the early 1950s. A cast member of that production recalled that Twelvetrees "had the saddest eyes I`d ever seen" and that she seemed to be an "emotionally fragile woman." Her sudden death in 1958 was pronounced a suicide. Biography Credit: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Twelvetrees |
||
Top News Stories |
||
Snapshot |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Photo Gallery |
||
|
|
||
Fans |
||
|
|
||
Trivia |
||
BiographyFriends and FamilyWilliams Jurgens [Father]Trivia and QuotesQuotes I`m tired of taking the blame if the picture wasn`t good. A star`s years on the screen are limited. The featured players have many years. A star has too much footage in the picture. It seems to me I`m the perpetually pure-at-heart street- walker, always drooping over bars while some director says, `Now, Helen, you must be very sweet about this naughty line. Remember, you haven`t the faintest idea what it means!` Between pictures I go away. I think that is the best way to achieve happiness in Hollywood, the only way to keep one`s perspective. If you stay too close to the motion picture colony you lose your sense of values. "I`m tired of taking the blame if the picture wasn`t good. A star`s years on the screen are limited. The featured players have many years. A star has too much footage in the picture. It seems to me I`m the perpetually pure-at-heart street- walker, always drooping over bars while some director says, `Now, Helen, you must be very sweet about this naughty line. Remember, you haven`t the faintest idea what it means!`"
"Between pictures I go away. I think that is the best way to achieve happiness in Hollywood, the only way to keep one`s perspective. If you stay too close to the motion picture colony you lose your sense of values."
Trivia Second husband Frank Woody, by whom she had a child, Frank Woody Jr., also made the headlines in 1936 at Helen's expense. The couple were already estranged at the time. It seems Helen was dining with a male friend when her husband passed by and forced a fight with her male companion. The altercation left the other man with two black eyes and a front page news item. Her first screen role required her to lisp and, following the movie's release, word spread that she had a serious speech impediment. Her cremated remains are buried in an unmarked grave in the Middletown Cemetery near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where she died. Her husband, Conrad Payne was stationed at the former Olmsted AFB at the time of her death. The plot on which she is buried is titled in his name and is located in section "D" of the "new" section of the cemetery. Played Blanche Du Bois in "A Streetcar Named Desire at Sea Cliff, Long Island in August of 1951. It was one of her last professional appearances. First husband, Clark Twelvetrees was a despairing alcoholic who tried to commit suicide by throwing himself out a seventh floor window. He was saved by landing on a second floor awning. The tabloids accused Helen of deliberately pushing him out the window and was only released from custody after her husband regained consciousness and was able to tell the truth. She met her first husband, Clark Twelvetrees, while both were enrolled at the American Academy of Dramatic Art. They eloped to Greenwich, Connecticut in 1927. They both worked in New York's theatre town -- she as an actress and he as a stage manager -- but he couldn't get his acting career going and turned to alcohol. They divorced in 1931 and he died seven years later of acute alcoholism following a street brawl. Her father, Williams Jurgens, was advertising manager for the Brooklyn edition of the New York Evening Journal. Her career was born after noted artist George Bradshaw Crandall painted a portrait of her which made the cover of the Saturday Evening Post. She was a student at New York's Art Student League at the time studying music, painting and drama. Second husband Frank Woody, by whom she had a child, Frank Woody Jr., also made the headlines in 1936 at Helen`s expense. The couple were already estranged at the time. It seems Helen was dining with a male friend when her husband passed by and forced a fight with her male companion. The altercation left the other man with two black eyes and a front page news item.
First husband, Clark Twelvetrees was a despairing alcoholic who tried to commit suicide by throwing himself out a seventh floor window. He was saved by landing on a second floor awning. The tabloids accused Helen of deliberately pushing him out the window and was only released from custody after her husband regained consciousness and was able to tell the truth.
Played Blanche Du Bois in "A Streetcar Named Desire at Sea Cliff, Long Island in August of 1951. It was one of her last professional appearances.
Her first screen role required her to lisp and, following the movie`s release, word spread that she had a serious speech impediment.
She met her first husband, Clark Twelvetrees, while both were enrolled at the American Academy of Dramatic Art. They eloped to Greenwich, Connecticut in 1927. They both worked in New York`s theatre town -- she as an actress and he as a stage manager -- but he couldn`t get his acting career going and turned to alcohol. They divorced in 1931 and he died seven years later of acute alcoholism following a street brawl.
Her career was born after noted artist George Bradshaw Crandall painted a portrait of her which made the cover of the Saturday Evening Post. She was a student at New York`s Art Student League at the time studying music, painting and drama.
Her father, Williams Jurgens, was advertising manager for the Brooklyn edition of the New York Evening Journal.
Her cremated remains are buried in an unmarked grave in the Middletown Cemetery near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where she died. Her husband, Conrad Payne was stationed at the former Olmsted AFB at the time of her death. The plot on which she is buried is titled in his name and is located in section "D" of the "new" section of the cemetery.
| ||
Top Contributors |
||
|
Top editors for this profile:
|
||
Related Links |
||
 Super Star Sites Silver Sites
|
||
Related Profiles |
||
Profile
Married
Relationship
"Encounter"
Comments
Submit a Comment