Helen Twelvetrees

Helen Twelvetrees
Born	Helen Marie Jurgens December 25, 1908(1908-12-25) Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
Died	February 13, 1958(1958-02-13) (aged 49) Middletown, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1929–1941
Spouse	Clark Twelvetrees (m. 1927–1931) «start: (1927)–end+1: (1931-05)»"Marriage: Clark Twelvetrees to Helen Twelvetrees" Location: (linkback://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Twelvetrees) Jack Woody (m. 1931–1936) «start: (1931-04-17)–end+1: (1936-04-16)»"Marriage: Jack Woody to Helen Twelvetrees" Location: (linkback://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Twelvetrees) Conrad Payne (? – February 13, 1958)

Helen Twelvetrees (December 25, 1908 – February 13, 1958) was an American stage and screen performer, considered a top female star in the early days of sound films.

Early life and career

Born Helen Marie Jurgens in Brooklyn, 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.

Later career and death

Twelvetrees left films in favor of summer stock 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."

Helen Twelvetrees. 1933.

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.

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1929	The Ghost Talks	Miriam Holt
1929	Blue Skies	Dorothy May	Episode 2
1929	Words and Music	Dorothy Blake
1930	The Grand Parade	Molly
1930	Swing High	Maryan
1930	Her Man	Frankie Keefe
1930	The Cat Creeps	Annabelle West
1931	The Painted Desert	Mary Ellen Cameron
1931	Millie	Millicent "Millie" Blake Maitland
1931	A Woman of Experience	Elsa Elsbergen	Alternative title: Registered Woman
1931	Bad Company	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	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	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

Further reading

• Eames, John Douglas (1979). The MGM Story. New York City: Crown Publishers, Inc.. 
• Eames, John Douglas (1985). The Paramount Story. New York City: Crown Publishers, Inc.. 
• Jewell, Richard B. (1982). The RKO Story. New York City: Arlington House, a division of Crown Publishers, Inc.. 
• Katz, Ephraim (1981). The Film Encyclopedia. New York City: Harper Perennial. 

External links

• Helen Twelvetrees at the Internet Broadway Database
• Helen Twelvetrees at AllRovi
• Helen Twelvetrees at the Internet Movie Database
• Helen Twelvetrees at the TCM Movie Database
• Photographs of Helen Twelvetrees
• Helen Twelvetrees at Find a Grave