Helen Holmes, c. 1919

Helen Holmes (June 19, 1893 - July 8, 1950) was an American silent film actress. Image File history File linksMetadata HelenHolmes1919. ... Image File history File linksMetadata HelenHolmes1919. ... June 19 is the 170th day of the year (171st in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 195 days remaining. ... 1893 (MDCCCXCIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... July 8 is the 189th day of the year (190th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 176 days remaining. ... 1950 (MCML) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... A silent film is a film which has no accompanying soundtrack. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ...

Early Life

While there is no known official birthplace record, it is believed that Helen Holmes was born 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, and after Normand moved to Hollywood in 1912 to work at Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios, she encouraged Holmes to try the film business in the balmier climes of the West Coast. Nickname: The Windy City Motto: Urbs In Horto (Latin: City in a Garden), I Will Official website: http://egov. ... Broadway theatre is often considered the highest professional form of theatre in the United States. ... Mabel Normand Mabel Normand (November 10, 1892 - February 23, 1930) was a US film actress, who was a popular comedienne in silent films. ... Mack Sennett Mack Sennett (January 17, 1880 – November 5, 1960) was an innovator of slapstick comedy in film. ... The Keystone / Mack Sennett studios Keystone Studios was an early movie studio founded in Glendale, 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. ... In general, the term West Coast is a nickname for the coastal states of the Western United States, comprising California, Oregon and Washington, and sometimes Alaska and Hawaii (see Pacific States). ...

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's new Hollywood studio. Kalem Studios and Hollywood staff, 1915 The Kalem Company was an American film studio founded in New York City in 1907 by Frank J. Marion, Samuel Long, and George Kleine. ...

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. John Paterson McGowan (February 24, 1880 – March 26, 1952) was an Australian-born actor, screenwriter and film director in the United States. ...

At a time when the women's suffrage movement was much in the news, in March of 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 of 1914 released their own adventure series called The Hazards of Helen. Suffrage parade, New York City, 1912 The movement for womens suffrage, led by suffragists (peaceful protestors) and suffragettes (violent protestors), was a social, economic and political reform movement aimed at extending the suffrage (the right to vote) to women, advocating equal suffrage (abolition of graded votes) rather than universal... Pathé or Pathé Frères is the name of various businesses founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France. ... Adventure film is a film genre containing elements of adventure. ... Serial is a term, originating in literature, for a format by which a story is told in contiguous installments in sequential issues of a single periodical publication. ... The Perils of Pauline was a silent movie serial which debuted in 1914. ... Pearl Fay White, born March 4, 1889 in Green Ridge, Missouri, United States - died August 4, 1938 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, was a singer and star of silent film. ... The term box office can refer to either: A place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to a venue The amount of business a particular production, such as a movie or theatre show, does. ... Bandwagon may refer to: any of several observable copycat behaviours, as used in the phrase to jump on the bandwagon; see bandwagon effect and bandwagon fallacy. ... The Hazards of Helen, episode # 44 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 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 who found an ingenious way out of her dire predicament and single-handedly collared the bad guys, bringing them to justice. A stereotypical villain. ...

Helen Holmes in action, 1914

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. ImageMetadata File history File links HelenHolmes. ... ImageMetadata File history File links HelenHolmes. ... Thomas Harper Ince (November 6, 1882–November 20, 1924) was an American film director. ... Error creating thumbnail: convert: unable to open image `/mnt/upload3/wikipedia/en/0/0c/Universal_logo. ... A cliffhanger or cliffhanger ending is a plot device in which a movie, novel, or other work of fiction contains an abrupt ending, often leaving the main characters in a precarious or difficult situation. ...

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. Rin Tin Tin Rin Tin Tin (often billed as Rin-Tin-Tin in the 1920s and 1930s) was the name given to several German Shepherds of film and television. ... Trinomial name Canis lupus familiaris (Linnaeus, 1758) This article is about the domestic dog. ...

Lloyd died in 1946, and Helen passed away in 1950 as a result of heart failure. She died in Burbank, California and was interred at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. This article or section should be merged with Burbank, Los Angeles County, California This article is about the Burbank in Southern California. ... Gates of Forest Lawn Forest Lawn Memorial Park is a cemetery in Glendale, Los Angeles County, California. ... Nickname: The Jewel City Official website: http://www. ...

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.

External links

• Helen Holmes at the Internet Broadway Database
• Helen Holmes at The Internet Movie Database