Helen Holmes
Encyclopedia
Helen Holmes was an American
silent film
actress.
, but grew up in Chicago, Illinois. She began working as a photographer's model but turned to acting, performing in live theatre and making her Broadway
debut in 1909. She became friends with film star Mabel Normand
. Helen moved out to the California (by the Colorado River) at the age of seventeen to care for her ailing brother who had fallen ill with tuberculosis. Meanwhile Mabel Normand moved to Hollywood in 1912 to work at Mack Sennett's
Keystone Studios
, she encouraged Holmes, after her brother had passed on, to try the film business in the balmier climes of the West Coast
.
new Hollywood studio.
Helen Holmes' first film at Kalem was directed by J.P. McGowan whom she would develop a relationship with and soon marry. In her first two years with Kalem Studios, Holmes appeared in more than thirty film shorts during which time her athletic ability to do physically demanding stunts led to her big break.
At a time when the women's suffrage
movement was much in the news, in March 1914 Kalem Studios' competitor Pathé Frères
released an adventure film
serial
titled The Perils of Pauline
. Starring Pearl White
as a bold and daring heroine, the Pathé serial became an enormous box-office success. As a result, Kalem Studios jumped on the bandwagon
and in November 1914 released their own adventure series called The Hazards of Helen
.
Cast as the series star, during the twenty-six "thrill-a-minute" episodes in which Helen Holmes performed, she did almost all of her own stunts. Playing an independent, quick-thinking and inventive heroine, as part of her dangerous exploits Helen did such things as leap onto runaway trains or treacherously chase after bad guy
train robbers. While occasionally the plot called for Helen to be rescued by a handsome male hero, in most episodes it was the dauntless Helen herself who found an ingenious way out of her dire predicament and single-handedly collared the bad guys, bringing them to justice.
The Hazards of Helen made Holmes a major star and she and her now husband, director J.P McGowan, decided to capitalize on her fame and left Kalem to work for Thomas H. Ince Productions
and Universal Pictures
. After a few films, Holmes and McGowan formed Signal Film Productions to make their own adventure films. Between late 1915 and early 1917, they made a dozen films together that met with reasonable success but financial and distribution problems ended the production partnership and Holmes did not appear in another film until 1919, this time as the star in another film company's production. In 1919 and 1920 she made only one film each year and only two in each of the next three years. Between 1924 and 1926 Helen Holmes made eighteen more short adventure films but her popularity began to wane in a market over saturated with female cliffhanger
films. Holmes made several Westerns
opposite actor and rodeo performer Jack Hoxie
in the mid-1920s.
Throughout her career Helen Holmes had occasionally gone back to performing in the theatre, and with the end of her marriage in 1925 she returned to the stage, making her last appearance on Broadway in 1935. She eventually married film stuntman Lloyd A. Saunders and as a result of the popularity of the Rin Tin Tin
dog
films, the two began training animals for use in the movies.
After retiring from movies Helen ran a small antique business in her San Fernando home. She had an extensive collection of rare dolls.
Lloyd died in 1946, and Helen died in 1950 as a result of heart failure. She had been ill for five years with a heart condition. She died in Burbank, California
at her home, 1401 West Olive Street. She was 58 years old. Funeral services were conducted at Pierce Brothers Hollywood Chapel on 5959 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, California
. She was interred at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California
.
Note: As a clue to her origins, according to 1917 correspondence, her grandfather was Jim Barnes who lived in Goshen, IN around the time of the civil war, about 3 hrs SE of Chicago.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
silent film
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
actress.
Early life
While there is no known official birthplace record, Helen Holmes stated in an interview that she was born in South Bend, IndianaSouth Bend, Indiana
The city of South Bend is the county seat of St. Joseph County, Indiana, United States, on the St. Joseph River near its southernmost bend, from which it derives its name. As of the 2010 Census, the city had a total of 101,168 residents; its Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 316,663...
, but grew up in Chicago, Illinois. She began working as a photographer's model but turned to acting, performing in live theatre and making her 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...
debut in 1909. She became friends with film star Mabel Normand
Mabel Normand
Mabel Normand was an American silent film comedienne and actress. She was a popular star of Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios and is noted as one of the film industry's first female screenwriters, producers and directors...
. Helen moved out to the California (by the Colorado River) at the age of seventeen to care for her ailing brother who had fallen ill with tuberculosis. Meanwhile Mabel Normand moved to Hollywood in 1912 to work at Mack Sennett's
Mack Sennett
Mack Sennett was a Canadian-born American director and was known as the innovator of slapstick comedy in film. During his lifetime he was known at times as the "King of Comedy"...
Keystone Studios
Keystone Studios
Keystone Studios was an early movie studio founded in Edendale, California in 1912 as the Keystone Pictures Studio by Mack Sennett with backing from Adam Kessel and Charles O. Bauman, owners of the New York Motion Picture Company...
, she encouraged Holmes, after her brother had passed on, to try the film business in the balmier climes of the West Coast
West Coast of the United States
West Coast or Pacific Coast are terms for the westernmost coastal states of the United States. The term most often refers to the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. Although not part of the contiguous United States, Alaska and Hawaii do border the Pacific Ocean but can't be included in...
.
Kalem Film Company
Holmes began her film career in 1912 with Keystone in a bit part arranged by Mabel Normand. She made only a few more appearances in Keystone films and, although attractive, her lack of glamorous beauty relegated her to secondary roles until late 1913 when she signed with the Kalem Company'sKalem Company
The Kalem Company was an American film studio founded in New York City in 1907 by George Kleine, Samuel Long , and Frank J. Marion.The company immediately joined other studios in the Motion Picture Patents Company that held a monopoly on production and distribution...
new Hollywood studio.
Helen Holmes' first film at Kalem was directed by J.P. McGowan whom she would develop a relationship with and soon marry. In her first two years with Kalem Studios, Holmes appeared in more than thirty film shorts during which time her athletic ability to do physically demanding stunts led to her big break.
At a time when the women's suffrage
Women's suffrage
Women's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or...
movement was much in the news, in March 1914 Kalem Studios' competitor Pathé Frères
Pathé
Pathé or Pathé Frères is the name of various French businesses founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France.-History:...
released an adventure film
Adventure film
Adventure films are a genre of film.Unlike pure, low-budget action films they often use their action scenes preferably to display and explore exotic locations in an energetic way....
serial
Serial (film)
Serials, more specifically known as Movie serials, Film serials or Chapter plays, were short subjects originally shown in theaters in conjunction with a feature film. They were related to pulp magazine serialized fiction...
titled The Perils of Pauline
The Perils of Pauline (1914 serial)
The Perils of Pauline is a motion picture serial shown in weekly installments featuring Pearl White as the title character. Pauline has often been cited as a famous example of a damsel in distress, although some analyses hold that her character was more resourceful and less helpless than the...
. Starring Pearl White
Pearl White
Pearl Fay White was an American film actress, the so-called "Stunt Queen" of silent films, most notably in The Perils of Pauline.-Early life:...
as a bold and daring heroine, the Pathé serial became an enormous box-office success. As a result, Kalem Studios jumped on the bandwagon
Bandwagon effect
The bandwagon effect is a well documented form of groupthink in behavioral science and has many applications. The general rule is that conduct or beliefs spread among people, as fads and trends clearly do, with "the probability of any individual adopting it increasing with the proportion who have...
and in November 1914 released their own adventure series called The Hazards of Helen
The Hazards of Helen
The Hazards of Helen is an American adventure film serial of 119 twelve minute episodes released over a span of slightly more than two years by the Kalem Company between November 7, 1914 and February 24, 1917....
.
Cast as the series star, during the twenty-six "thrill-a-minute" episodes in which Helen Holmes performed, she did almost all of her own stunts. Playing an independent, quick-thinking and inventive heroine, as part of her dangerous exploits Helen did such things as leap onto runaway trains or treacherously chase after bad guy
Villain
A villain is an "evil" character in a story, whether a historical narrative or, especially, a work of fiction. The villain usually is the antagonist, the character who tends to have a negative effect on other characters...
train robbers. While occasionally the plot called for Helen to be rescued by a handsome male hero, in most episodes it was the dauntless Helen herself who found an ingenious way out of her dire predicament and single-handedly collared the bad guys, bringing them to justice.
The Hazards of Helen made Holmes a major star and she and her now husband, director J.P McGowan, decided to capitalize on her fame and left Kalem to work for Thomas H. Ince Productions
Thomas H. Ince
Thomas Harper Ince was an American silent film actor, director, screenwriter and producer of more than 100 films and pioneering studio mogul. Known as the "Father of the Western", he invented many mechanisms of professional movie production, introducing early Hollywood to the "assembly line"...
and Universal Pictures
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
. After a few films, Holmes and McGowan formed Signal Film Productions to make their own adventure films. Between late 1915 and early 1917, they made a dozen films together that met with reasonable success but financial and distribution problems ended the production partnership and Holmes did not appear in another film until 1919, this time as the star in another film company's production. In 1919 and 1920 she made only one film each year and only two in each of the next three years. Between 1924 and 1926 Helen Holmes made eighteen more short adventure films but her popularity began to wane in a market over saturated with female cliffhanger
Cliffhanger
A cliffhanger or cliffhanger ending is a plot device in fiction which features a main character in a precarious or difficult dilemma, or confronted with a shocking revelation at the end of an episode of serialized fiction...
films. Holmes made several Westerns
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
opposite actor and rodeo performer Jack Hoxie
Jack Hoxie
Jack Hoxie was an American rodeo performer and motion picture actor whose career was most prominent in the silent film era of the 1910s through the 1930s...
in the mid-1920s.
Throughout her career Helen Holmes had occasionally gone back to performing in the theatre, and with the end of her marriage in 1925 she returned to the stage, making her last appearance on Broadway in 1935. She eventually married film stuntman Lloyd A. Saunders and as a result of the popularity of the Rin Tin Tin
Rin Tin Tin
Rin Tin Tin was the name given to a dog adopted from a WWI battlefield that went on to star in twenty-three Hollywood films. The name was subsequently given to several related German Shepherd dogs featured in fictional stories on film, radio and television.-Origins:The first of the line Rin Tin...
dog
Dog
The domestic dog is a domesticated form of the gray wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties. The dog may have been the first animal to be domesticated, and has been the most widely kept working, hunting, and companion animal in...
films, the two began training animals for use in the movies.
After retiring from movies Helen ran a small antique business in her San Fernando home. She had an extensive collection of rare dolls.
Lloyd died in 1946, and Helen died in 1950 as a result of heart failure. She had been ill for five years with a heart condition. She died in Burbank, California
Burbank, California
Burbank is a city in Los Angeles County in Southern California, United States, north of downtown Los Angeles. The estimated population in 2010 was 103,340....
at her home, 1401 West Olive Street. She was 58 years old. Funeral services were conducted at Pierce Brothers Hollywood Chapel on 5959 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
. She was interred at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California
Glendale, California
Glendale is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2010 Census, the city population is 191,719, down from 194,973 at the 2000 census. making it the third largest city in Los Angeles County and the 22nd largest city in the state of California...
.
Note: As a clue to her origins, according to 1917 correspondence, her grandfather was Jim Barnes who lived in Goshen, IN around the time of the civil war, about 3 hrs SE of Chicago.
