Helen Lee Worthing | |
|---|---|
 Worthing circa 1922 | |
| Born | January 31, 1905 Brookline, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Died | August 25, 1948 (aged 43) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Spouse(s) | Jack McDonald (1921-1922, divorce) Dr. Eugene Nelson (1927-1932, annulment) |
Helen Lee Worthing (1905 - 1948) was an American actress, mostly active in the era of silent film.
The daughter of a prominent businessman in Boston, Worthing was born in Brookline, Massachusetts. [1] As a teenager, she received a prize for having the most perfect hands and arms in Louisville, Kentucky. Two years after that recognition, judges unanimously selected her as "the most beautiful woman in America" in a contest that had 10,000 entrants. [2]
Worthing's most significant Broadway involvement came during the 1920s, a period often referred to as the Jazz Age, which was marked by its vibrant and rapidly evolving entertainment scene. This era, particularly known for its lavish musicals and extravagant theatrical productions, provided a perfect backdrop for Worthing's talents to flourish.
Worthing's professional acting debut came in What's in a Name?, [3] soon after which she played in The Greenwich Village Follies of 1920 in New York. [4] Following that production, she went to England to appear as "America's most Representative show girl" in a revue. [5] She also performed in the 1921, 1922, and 1923 editions of Ziegfeld Follies . [6]
Aside from her theatrical work, Helen Lee Worthing also made inroads into the film industry, participating in the silent film era. However, her film career did not achieve the same level of prominence as her stage work, and she is most fondly remembered for her contributions to Broadway.
Worthing's films included Janice Meredith , The Swan , Don Juan , Night Life of New York , Flower of the Night , Vanity , and Thumbs Down . [7]
Worthing married businessman Jack McDonald in 1921, and they divorced in 1922. [1] (Another source indicates that she secretly married McDonald in 1917.) [8] In April 1922, she was treated at a hospital after taking poison that, according to her maid, she thought was headache tablets. [9] A contemporary news report, however, said that friends described her as despondent and that a policeman said, "she stated she took poison because she was sick of living." [2] She also said that, after falling in love again, she had learned that her unidentified lover planned to marry another woman. [10]
A newspaper account states that Worthing had a violent physical altercation with Edna Wheaton, a fellow performer, in the dressing room during a performance of the Ziegfeld Midnight Frolic in April 1922. Worthing was allegedly enraged when Wheaton insulted her boyfriend. "Stage ladies just can't help losing their tempers sometime," said Wheaton, downplaying the incident. "We have many annoying things which the public never knows." [11]
In April 1927, Worthing was attacked in her home. The Los Angeles Times reported that her maid found her unconscious, "lying in a pool of blood, her nose broken, eyes discolored, one tooth knocked out and bruised about the body." [12] Her physician was Dr. Eugene Nelson, and a romantic relationship developed between doctor and patient. [13]
In June 1927 Nelson and Worthing married, [9] which led to ostracism for her because he was African-American. When the couple emerged from a limousine for the opening of a play, the crowd greeted them rudely, and the reaction inside the theater was also unfriendly. Worthing later recalled "the ordeal of that night" as people she thought were friends treated her coldly. [13] Before the marriage was two months old, Worthing entered voluntary bankruptcy, citing assets of $680 and liabilities of $19,086.62. [9] She sought relief from her troubles via use of alcohol and drugs, and her relationship with Nelson grew sour until she filed for divorce, [14] which was granted on May 26, 1932.
While he awaited the outcome of the divorce hearing, Nelson sought an annulment on the grounds that the couple had not met Mexican requirements for a marriage prior to their wedding in Tijuana. He continued to plead his case after the divorce, and in January 1933 Worthing consented to a court order to have the divorce decree vacated and replaced by an annulment. [15] During the hearing, Worthing interrupted her attorney's statement opposing the annulment to tell the court, "I have confidence in the doctor. I say, let him have the marriage annulled." [16]
Worthing disappeared briefly in 1933 after she boarded a train in Los Angeles on June 15 to travel to Chicago and New York. Nelson reported her missing, and police could not find her, even after two people reported having seen her in Pasadena. [17] Reappearing on June 19, she said that Nelson had asked her to marry him again, but he changed his mind and told her that she needed to go. She explained that she left the train in Pasadena because she didn't want to be sent away. [18]
A few months after the marriage ended, Nelson complained to the court that Worthing was spending his $12,000 alimony payment on narcotics. Subsequently, she faced a court hearing on an insanity complaint by a friend who cited the actress's hallucinations and threats of suicide. Psychiatrists' testimony led the judge to commit her to a sanitarium, and that confinement was followed by a parole. [15]
Worthing was arrested in August 1933 when she was found using narcotics (a violation of her parole) in a Los Angeles apartment where she was living under as assumed name. In 1935, an arrest for public drunkenness in Ocean Park, California, led to her spending a night in jail before she was fined $5 and given a suspended 10-day jail sentence and one year's probation. [15] More trouble arose in September 1939 when Worthing received a five-month sentence in the Los Angeles County jail for forging a narcotic prescription. Less than a year later, she surrendered to authorities, admitting additional forging of prescriptions for narcotics. [19]
On August 25, 1948, Worthing died of barbiturate poisoning [20] in a three-room house on a back lot in Hollywood, where she lived with a 39-year-old Filipino man. Scrapbooks filled with clippings of news stories that reported her successes and failures were found beside the bed in which she died. [21] She was buried in Inglewood Park Memorial Cemetery. [20]
Julie Newmar is an American actress, dancer, and singer known for a variety of stage, screen, and television roles. She is also a writer, lingerie designer, and real estate mogul. She won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her role as Katrin Sveg in the 1958 Broadway production of The Marriage-Go-Round, and reprised the role in the 1961 film version. In the 1960s she starred for two seasons as Catwoman in the television series Batman (1966–1967). Her other stage credits include Ziegfeld Follies in 1956, Lola in Damn Yankees! in 1961, and Irma in Irma la Douce in 1965 in regional productions.
Lona Andre was an American film actress, golfer, and businesswoman.
Helen Ferguson was an American actress later turned publicist.
Helen Vinson was an American film actress who appeared in 40 films between 1932 and 1945.
Helen Jerome Eddy was a movie actress from New York City. She was noted as a character actress who played genteel heroines in films such as Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1917).
J. Herbert Frank was an American actor of the silent era and on stage. He appeared in more than 50 films between 1914 and 1924. He was sometimes billed as Herbert Frank. Frank was born in Manhattan, New York City.
Edithia Lois Wilde was an American actress, model, dancer, and beauty contest winner. She was most famous for appearing in B-Western and Action movies, and also known for her appearance in Undersea Kingdom (1936).
Geneva Doris Mitchell was an American actress. After beginning her entertainment career as a chorus girl at the age of twelve, she became more well known for her roles in several Hollywood films.
Myrna Fahey was an American actress known for her role as Maria Crespo in Walt Disney's Zorro and as Madeline Usher in The Fall of the House of Usher.
Constance Worth was an Australian actress who became a Hollywood star in the late 1930s. She was also known as Jocelyn Howarth.
Jocelyn Lee was an American actress. She was also known as Jocelyn Leigh.
Margherita Maria Francesca LaCentra was an American contralto singer, best known for her work on old-time radio and her singing with Artie Shaw's orchestra. She also performed as Barbara Fulton.
Mabel Withee was an American actress on stage and in silent film.
Eleanor Gertrude Gogin was an American educator, and a national secretary of the YWCA, in charge of the organization's programming for girls and young women from 1918 to 1927.
The Live Through ThisTour was an international concert tour by the American alternative rock band Hole, spanning late 1994 through 1995, in support of their second studio album, Live Through This. The tour included dates in 14 countries and was widely documented in the media due to frontwoman Courtney Love's raucous stage behavior throughout, which divided critics.
Harriet Lee was an American radio singer during the Golden Age of Radio in the 1920s–1930s. She was best known as a blues contralto on the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) and, later, NBC Radio Networks. Called the "Songbird of the Air", she was named Miss Radio 1931 based on nationwide submittals from radio stations, judged by Flo Ziegfeld and McClelland Barclay, to select the "most beautiful radio artist" for the Radio World's Fair in New York City. Lee was one of the highest paid radio stars that year. She hosted the Harriet Lee show on experimental New York City station W2XAB in 1931, making her one of the first singers to have a show on U.S. television.
Sylvia Froos, sometimes spelled as Sylvia Fross, was an American actress and singer who appeared on stage, radio, recordings, television, and film during the 1920s through the 1940s. She was a child star that was sometimes billed as Baby Sylvia and as the "Little Princess of Song" and in the UK as "America's Queen of Song". She was also referred to as "The Miniature Belle Baker", with her ability to mimic the vocal performances of celebrities being particularly noted by the media, and was additionally likened to Sophie Tucker and Marion Harris.
Bek Nelson was an American model and showgirl who turned to acting at age 29, making seven films and two dozen television shows in her first three years.
Yvonne Gardelle, born Alice Yvonne Clark, also known as Alice Y. Gardner, Yvonne Chappelle, or Yvonne Riddle, was an American actress in silent films, a dancer and an artist's model.
Frances White was an American singer and actress on Broadway, on the vaudeville stage, and in silent films. She popularized the spelling song "M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I". She played "Fanny Warden" in The New Adventures of J. Rufus Wallingford (1915), a series of silent short comedies. She was also in the cast of the eugenics film The Black Stork (1917).
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
