Helen Deutsch
Encyclopedia
Helen Deutsch was an American screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...

, journalist and songwriter.

Deutsch was born in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 and graduated from Barnard College
Barnard College
Barnard College is a private women's liberal arts college and a member of the Seven Sisters. Founded in 1889, Barnard has been affiliated with Columbia University since 1900. The campus stretches along Broadway between 116th and 120th Streets in the Morningside Heights neighborhood in the borough...

. She began her career by managing the Provincetown Players
Provincetown Players
The Provincetown Players was an amateur group of writers and artists who, at the early part of the 20th Century, wanted to see a change in American theatre and created a company committed to producing new plays by exclusively American playwrights...

. She then wrote theatre reviews for the New York Herald-Tribune and the New York Times as well as working in the press department of the Theatre Guild
Theatre Guild
The Theatre Guild is a theatrical society founded in New York City in 1918 by Lawrence Langner, Philip Moeller, Helen Westley and Theresa Helburn. Langner's wife, Armina Marshall, then served as a co-director. It evolved out of the work of the Washington Square Players.Its original purpose was to...

.

Her first screenplay was for The Seventh Cross
The Seventh Cross (1944 film)
The Seventh Cross is a 1944 film starring Spencer Tracy, Hume Cronyn, Ray Collins and Jessica Tandy. Cronyn was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor...

(1944). She adapted Enid Bagnold
Enid Bagnold
Enid Algerine Bagnold, Lady Jones, CBE , known by her maiden name as Enid Bagnold, was a British author and playwright, best known for the 1935 story National Velvet which was filmed in 1944 with Elizabeth Taylor....

's novel, National Velvet
National Velvet
National Velvet is a novel by Enid Bagnold , first published in 1935.-Plot summary:"National Velvet" is the story of a 14-year-old girl named Velvet Brown, who rides her horse to victory in the Grand National steeplechase...

into a screenplay which became a famous film
National Velvet (film)
National Velvet is a 1944 drama film, in Technicolor, based on the novel by Enid Bagnold, published in 1935. It stars Mickey Rooney, Donald Crisp and a young Elizabeth Taylor....

 (1944) starring Elizabeth Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor
Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age...

. After writing a few films (Golden Earrings
Golden Earrings
Golden Earrings is a 1947 romantic spy film made by Paramount Pictures and starring Ray Milland and Marlene Dietrich. It was directed by Mitchell Leisen and produced by Harry Tugend from a screenplay by Frank Butler, Helen Deutsch and Abraham Polonsky, based on a novel by Jolán Földes. The music...

(1947), The Loves of Carmen
The Loves of Carmen
The Loves of Carmen is a Technicolor film starring Rita Hayworth as the gypsy Carmen and Glenn Ford as her doomed lover Don José. It was directed by Charles Vidor and released by Columbia Pictures. The film was publicized as a dramatic adaptation of the novella Carmen by Prosper Mérimée and is...

(1948) and Shockproof
Shockproof
Shockproof is a 1949 movie starring Cornel Wilde and Patricia Knight.The director of Shockproof, Douglas Sirk, said he took the assignment because the movie dealt with one of his favorite themes: the price of flouting taboos....

(1949) ) for Paramount
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...

 and Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...

, she spent the greater part of her career working for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...

 and wrote the screenplays for such films as King Solomon's Mines
King Solomon's Mines (1950 film)
King Solomon's Mines is a 1950 adventure film loosely based on the 1885 novel King Solomon's Mines by Henry Rider Haggard, starring Deborah Kerr, Stewart Granger and Richard Carlson. It was adapted by Helen Deutsch, directed by Compton Bennett and Andrew Marton and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer...

(1950), Kim
Kim (film)
Kim is a 1950 adventure film made in Technicolor by MGM. It was directed by Victor Saville and produced by Leon Gordon from a screenplay by Helen Deutsch, Leon Gordon and Richard Schayer, based on the classic novel of the same name by Rudyard Kipling....

(1950), It's a Big Country (1951), Plymouth Adventure
Plymouth Adventure
Plymouth Adventure is a 1952 drama film with an ensemble cast starring Spencer Tracy, Gene Tierney, Van Johnson and Leo Genn, made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, directed by Clarence Brown, and produced by Dore Schary...

(1952), Lili
Lili
Lili is an American film. An MGM release, it stars Leslie Caron as a touchingly naïve French girl, whose emotional relationship with a carnival puppeteer is conducted through the medium of four puppets...

(1953), Flame and the Flesh
Flame and the Flesh
Flame and the Flesh is a 1954 drama film made by MGM. It was directed by Richard Brooks and produced by Joe Pasternak from a screenplay by Helen Deutsch based on the novel by Auguste Bailly...

(1954), The Glass Slipper
The Glass Slipper
The Glass Slipper is a musical film adaptation of Cinderella, made by MGM, directed by Charles Walters and produced by Edwin H. Knopf from a screenplay by Helen Deutsch. The music score is by Bronislau Kaper, the cinematography by Arthur E. Arling, the art direction by Daniel B...

(1955), I'll Cry Tomorrow
I'll Cry Tomorrow
I'll Cry Tomorrow is a biopic which tells the story of Lillian Roth, a Broadway star who rebels against the pressure of her domineering mother and reacts to the death of her fiancé by becoming an alcoholic...

(1955), Forever, Darling
Forever, Darling
Forever, Darling is a 1956 American romantic comedy film with fantasy overtones, starring Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, and James Mason, and directed by Alexander Hall...

(1956) and The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964). Her last screenplay was for 20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...

's Valley of the Dolls
Valley of the Dolls (film)
The soundtrack was released in 1967. Dionne Warwick sang the title track; however, her version is not on the soundtrack. Warwick was signed to Scepter Records at the time and could not contractually appear...

(1967).

As part of her work for Lili, Deutsch wrote the lyric of the song Hi-Lili, Hi-Lo
Hi-Lili, Hi-Lo
"Hi-Lili, Hi-Lo" is a popular song with music by Bronislau Kaper, and lyrics by Helen Deutsch. The song was published in 1952. The song was featured in the movie Lili which starred Leslie Caron.-Recorded versions:...

, which has been a popular bittersweet ballad for cabaret singers ever since. Branislau Kaper composed the music for it and the song was sung by Leslie Caron
Leslie Caron
Leslie Claire Margaret Caron is a French film actress and dancer, who appeared in 45 films between 1951 and 2003. In 2006, her performance in Law and Order: Special Victims Unit won her an Emmy for guest actress in a drama series...

 on the movie soundtrack.

In 1961, the Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 version of the musical Carnival!
Carnival!
Carnival is a 1961 musical with the book by Michael Stewart and music and lyrics by Bob Merrill. The musical is based on the 1953 film Lili.-Background:...

was based on Lili and starred Anna Maria Alberghetti
Anna Maria Alberghetti
Anna Maria Alberghetti is an Italian-born operatic singer and actress.Born in Pesaro, Marche, she starred on Broadway and won a Tony Award in 1962 as Best Actress for Carnival! .Alberghetti was a child prodigy. Her father was an opera singer and concert master of the Rome Opera Company...

. Deutsch wrote the libretto. It was nominated for two Tony awards.

Shortly after Helen's Barnard graduation, she was asked to write something to recite on a radio show to be aired just two days later in honor of the late actress Jane Cowl. Overnight, Helen wrote "The White Magnolia Tree." She then forgot about the poem. In 1957, she was commissioned by NBC-TV to provide a poem to be recited by Helen Hayes for the 50th anniversary celebration of General Motors. She got out her old poem, and Helen Hayes recited it with such tenderness that within a week thousands of people had requested a copy of the poem. General Motors provided it in booklet form. Helen Hayes herself made a 45 rpm of the poem and sent out hundreds of copies. Today it is still searched for on the internet, some having success in finding it and others still looking.

In Australia, the Helen Hayes version was superseded when Gay Kayler
Gay Kayler
Gay Kayler is an Australian country music entertainer and recording artist. Gay used her maiden name in her professional career until 1978, when she changed the spelling to Kayler to maintain a consistency of pronunciation.- A blossoming career :Gay comes from a musical family...

 (Gay Kahler) recorded her version of The White Magnolia Tree with a lush 32-piece orchestral backing. This became Gay's signature tune and remained in EMI and Readers Digest catalogues for more than 33 years.

Deutsch was nominated for the Academy Award for the screenplay of Lili, which also won her a Golden Globe Award
Golden Globe Award
The Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign...

.

She died in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

of natural causes.

External links

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