48 Facts About Frances Helm

Frances Helm was an American stage, film, and television actress whose performing career spanned nearly fifty years.

Frances Helm was born Mary Frances Helm in Panama City, Florida.

Frances Helm's parents were Thomas William Helm II and Grace Spencer.

Frances Helm's father started as a bookkeeper for the railroad industry then became an accountant for the state of Virginia, moving the family to Richmond when Helm was very young.

Frances Helm graduated from John Marshall High School in June 1940.

Frances Helm attended the Richmond Professional Institute from Fall 1940 through Spring 1942, majoring in Speech and Dramatics.

Frances Helm was a member of RPI's Theater Associates, which mounted productions at the school using students and the occasional visiting professional actor.

Frances Helm was pictured at Red Cross events and dances with her brother and other servicemen.

Frances Helm joined other volunteer actors to perform a parody of an old-fashioned melodrama, Ten Nights in a Bar-Room, at military bases in Virginia and Maryland.

Frances Helm worked in radio, both as a voice actress and a personality for variety shows.

Frances Helm performed in The Golden Apple by Lady Gregory, a short play based on an Irish fairy story.

From April thru May 1947 Frances Helm made an independent color film called The Clam-digger's Daughter, which was never distributed to theaters for exhibition.

Frances Helm credited the film, shot on location in Cape Charles, Virginia, with restoring her Southern accent.

Frances Helm performed in summer stock during 1947 at the Green Mountain Playhouse in Middlebury, Vermont.

From June 1948 Frances Helm appeared in summer stock on Long Island in Parlor Story, which had a short run on Broadway the year before.

Frances Helm then starred in Years Ago, a much more successful recent Broadway comedy.

Frances Helm was the only female in the large cast, which included her then husband Robert Keith Jr, who was still using his birth name for billing at the time.

Frances Helm was so reliable in playing every show that the tour finally dispensed with having an understudy for her three minutes on stage.

Frances Helm did an episode of The Philco Television Playhouse in May 1951 followed by an episode of Kraft Television Theatre in November.

Frances Helm did another The Web episode in March 1952, her first TV work alongside her then husband.

Frances Helm's 1952 performing year having been front-loaded with TV work during the first quarter, Helm did four weekly summer stock plays in Bangor, Maine during June, then one more Television Playhouse episode in November.

Frances Helm had little performing work in 1953: an uncredited bit part in Never Wave at a WAC, followed by a highly praised week playing "Stella Kowalski" in a stage production of A Streetcar Named Desire, another television episode, then four weeks reprising her roles in Detective Story and Mister Roberts.

Since she was still maintaining residency in New York, Frances Helm took on a soap opera role, as "Linda Kendall" in Valiant Lady.

Frances Helm played a woman with mental issues, which years later her mother said was the hardest role to watch her daughter perform.

Whatever the dates were, it was Frances Helm's longest recurring television role, and a measure of her determination to remain on the East Coast so long as it was professionally possible.

Frances Helm made an episode of Matinee Theater in April 1956 that producer Aubrey Schenck saw; he cast her in the film Revolt at Fort Laramie as a result.

Frances Helm joined the production in November 1956 and remained with it until its closing in June 1957.

Career was already an off-Broadway success when Frances Helm joined it for a week in Philadelphia.

Frances Helm did three episodes of two different series, but returned to New York later that year for two episodes of a new show called New York Confidential.

Frances Helm spent late spring and summer of 1959 in a center staged road company production of Look Homeward, Angel, playing engagements in Miami, Philadelphia, and San Diego.

Frances Helm returned to the East Coast for trial runs of The Deadly Game, an adaption of A Dangerous Game, during January 1960.

Frances Helm took advantage of this situation to see the opening acts of other plays then performing on Broadway, telling a columnist "I'm waiting for the book versions so I can see how these plays end".

For 1961 Frances Helm did episodes of six television shows, five of them on the West Coast and one in New York.

Frances Helm then took the female lead in the West Coast premiere of Critic's Choice, which opened mid-May 1962 in Los Angeles.

Frances Helm took part in filming The Ugly American in 1962, playing secretary to Marlon Brando's ambassador.

Later that year, Frances Helm temporarily took over the role of "Nancy Pollock" on The Edge of Night when actress Ann Flood took three months maternity leave.

In February 1963 Frances Helm reprised her role in Critic's Choice with Hans Conried for a one-week run in Louisville, Kentucky.

Frances Helm temporarily took on the role of "Susan Dunbar" on The Secret Storm, replacing Mary Foskett, who had moved to the West Coast.

Frances Helm would let a couple of years go by between performing engagements for the rest of her career.

Frances Helm did two TV episodes in 1967, and a set of playlets in 1969, before resuming a fuller schedule in 1972.

Frances Helm then had a starring role in Welcome Home, playing opposite Pernell Roberts, in an original play by Edmund Hartmann.

Frances Helm had a smaller role in the original production of Manny in 1979, which lasted for about a month on Broadway.

Frances Helm did two more films, a bit part in Shakedown and larger role in Electric Moon.

Frances Helm's final performing work was for a TV movie, Love and Betrayal: The Mia Farrow Story in 1995.

Frances Helm married Robert Alba Keith on January 3,1948, in Richmond.

On December 8,1954, Frances Helm charged Keith with "introducing another woman as his wife", without naming her.

At a settlement hearing, Frances Helm agreed to accept the divorce and receive $250 monthly alimony from Keith.

Frances Helm was the personnel director for a New York paper company.