Frances Helm (October 14, 1923 - December 30, 2006) was an American stage, film, and television actress whose performing career spanned nearly fifty years.
Early life
She was born Mary Frances Helm in Panama City, Florida. Her parents were Thomas William Helm II and Grace Spencer. Her 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. She had one older brother. Helm graduated from J. A. C. Chandler Junior High School in June 1937. She graduated from John Marshall High School in June 1940.
From the age of ten Helm took piano and voice lessons. Later she studied with Mary Barbour Dixon, who would remain her drama teacher and coach all through secondary school and college. Helm attended the Richmond Professional Institute (RPI) from Fall 1940 through Spring 1942, majoring in Speech and Dramatics. Helm was a member of RPI's Theater Associates, which mounted productions at the school using students and the occasional visiting professional actor. Helm and other RPI drama students also did broadcasts of play readings on the school's radio station. While at the school, Helm dropped her first name for stage billing.
During her last term at RPI, her brother returned to Richmond after being wounded at Pearl Harbor. A Radioman 2/C in the USN, Thomas W. Helm had kept firing an antiaircraft gun during the attack despite being severely wounded; the Navy credited him with bringing down a Japanese aircraft. Invalided out of the service in April 1942, he was used for recruiting and bond drives, with his sister accompanying him. She was pictured at Red Cross events and dances with her brother and other servicemen. Frances Helm also 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.
Early stage career
After graduating from RPI, Helm moved to New York City, where she took additional drama training at Columbia University while modeling in fashion shows for the Powers Agency. She also worked in radio, both as a voice actress and a personality for variety shows. For one radio show called "Blind Date", hosted by Arlene Francis, Helm was matched with a G.I. for an evening at the Stork Club.
During late 1945 Helm signed up for a theatrical trial by fire, a six-month stint with one of the Clare Tree Major Touring Companies. She performed in The Golden Apple by Lady Gregory, a short play based on an Irish fairy story.
Come September 1946 Helm joined a more traditional touring company with a revival of Life with Father. Cast as "Mary Skinner", the primary love interest, Helm had a lot of publicity during the tour of the Eastern United States. The tour traveled by a large private bus with an attached trailer for sets and props, enabling it to play small towns without train service. The tour finished up in Texas during early March 1947.
From April thru May 1947 Helm made an independent color film called The Clam-digger's Daughter, which was never distributed to theaters for exhibition. Helm credited the film, shot on location in Cape Charles, Virginia, with restoring her Southern accent. Living up North has made me lose my accent twice. I got it back the first time by moving in with six Mississippi girls who lived in New York, and the second time by appearing in a "made-in-Virginia" movie.
She performed in summer stock during 1947 at the Green Mountain Playhouse in Middlebury, Vermont. From June 1948 Helm appeared in summer stock on Long Island in Parlor Story, which had a short run on Broadway the year before. She then starred in Years Ago, a much more successful recent Broadway comedy.
Mister Roberts
By August 1948 Helm had joined the national touring company for Mister Roberts, while the original was then in its sixth month on Broadway. 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. The play starred Richard Carlson, James Rennie, Murray Hamilton, and Robert Burton, with a young Cliff Robertson. After several weeks in Detroit, the play went to Chicago for a two-week run that turned into twelve months.
While playing Chicago, Helm and other cast members of Mister Roberts put on free plays at veteran's homes in the area. The local newspaper printed photos of Helm with different members of the cast nearly every month, emphasizing her as the only woman in the play. At eleven months into the run the Chicago Tribune published a photo of Helm with her husband in their roles as "Lt. Ann Girard" and "Mannion".