Helen Mack
| Helen Mack | ||
 Mack in April 1941 | ||
| Background information | ||
| Born as: | Helen McDougall | |
| Born | Nov 13, 1913 Rock Island, Illinois, U.S. | |
| Died | Aug 13, 1986 - at age 73 Beverly Hills, California, U.S. Cancer | |
| Spouse(s): |
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| Occupation: | Actress, writer, director, producer | |
| Years active | 1923–1971 | |
Helen Mack (born Helen McDougall; November 13, 1913 – August 13, 1986) was an American actress. She started her career as a child actress in silent films, then moved to Broadway plays and toured one of the vaudeville circuits. Her greater success as an actress was as a leading lady in the 1930s. She made the transition from performing on radio to writing, directing, and producing shows during the Golden Age of Radio. She later wrote for Broadway, the stage, and television. Her career spanned the infancy of the motion picture industry, the beginnings of Broadway, the final days of vaudeville, the transition to sound movies, the Golden Age of Radio, and the rise of television.
Youth and stage
Mack was born in Rock Island, Illinois, the daughter of William George McDougall, a barber, and Regina (née Lenzer) McDougall, who had a repressed desire to become an actress. She attended the Professional Children's School of New York City. Her friend Vera Gordon helped her along as a child actress. She appeared on Broadway and in vaudeville and debuted in films at age 10 in 1924. Her stage debut was in The Idle Inn with Jacob Benami. She performed with Roland Young in Pomeroy's Past, and toured America with William Hodge in Straight Through The Door.
Film actress
Mack began her film career, first billed as Helen Macks, at the age of 10 in the 1923 silent Success, featuring Brandon Tynan, Naomi Childers and Mary Astor. In Zaza, Mack worked with Gloria Swanson. She had a small role in D.W. Griffith's last film The Struggle (1931).
Her Fox Film screen test came in March 1931, and within three weeks she was on the studio lot. She made her debut as a leading lady opposite Victor McLaglen in While Paris Sleeps (1932) and was cast with John Boles in his initial Fox Film venture Scotch Valley. She played in several westerns in the early 1930s, including Fargo Express (1933) with Ken Maynard and The California Trail with Buck Jones.
Before the film Sweepings (1933), Mack's career had declined for three years. Three of her productions failed. One reason was that she was usually a character star, and her employers had used her as an ingenue. RKO Radio Pictures Inc. offered her a second chance as Mamie Donahue in Sweepings.
She may be best remembered for the 1933 movie sequel The Son of Kong, as Harold Lloyd's sister in The Milky Way (1936), and as suicidal Molly Malloy in the screwball crime comedy His Girl Friday (1940) with Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell. She also played an important role as Tanya in Merian C. Cooper's production of H. Rider Haggard's She (1935). Her other roles included the bank-robbing ingenue opposite Richard Cromwell and Lionel Atwill in 1937's The Wrong Road for RKO.
Later career
In the early 1940s, Mack performed in the radio series Myrt and Marge, replacing actress Donna Damerel after Damerel's sudden death in childbirth. She was chosen from more than 200 applicants for the role.
During that decade and the following one, Mack also worked as a producer and director of radio programs, including series such as Richard Diamond, Private Detective, The Saint, and Meet Corliss Archer. She also co-wrote A Date with Judy with Aleen Leslie and served as its producer-director, making her one of the few women to hold that role in network radio. Her friend Leslie initially wanted Mack to play the title role, but they decided she was too old for the high school girl part when the series began in 1941. As television replaced radio, Mack continued to write plays and TV episodes until her death.
In 1949, she collaborated with Roger Price in writing the children's record Gossamer Wump, narrated by Frank Morgan and released by Capitol Records.
Private life
Mack married lawyer Charles Irwin in San Francisco in February 1935.
Mack died from cancer at the home of her friend Aleen Leslie in Beverly Hills on August 13, 1986.
Filmography
- Wikipedia article: Helen Mack Filmography
External links
- Helen Mack at the Internet Movie Database
- Helen Mack at the Internet Broadway Database
- The Unofficial Helen Mack Tribute Site
- Another Helen Mack Tribute Site
- Download His Girl Friday at the Internet Archive
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