Helen Hayes

Helen Hayes (October 10, 1900 – March 17, 1993) was a two-time Academy Award-winning American actress whose successful and award-winning career spanned almost 70 years. She eventually garnered the nickname "First Lady of the American Theater", and was one of the nine people who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony Award.

Hayes was born Helen Hayes Brown in Washington, D.C. Her father, Francis Van Arnum Brown, worked at a number of jobs, including as a clerk at the Washington Patent Office and as a salesman for a wholesale butcher. Her mother, Catherine Estella Hayes, was an aspiring actress[3] who worked in touring companies.[2] Hayes' Irish Catholic maternal grandparents immigrated from Ireland during the Irish Potato Famine.[4] She began a stage career at an early age. By the age of ten, she had made a short film called Jean and the Calico Doll, but only moved to Hollywood when her husband, playwright Charles MacArthur, signed a Hollywood deal.

Her sound film debut was The Sin of Madelon Claudet, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. She followed that with starring roles in Arrowsmith (with Myrna Loy), A Farewell to Arms (with actor Gary Cooper whom Hayes admitted to finding extremely attractive), The White Sister, What Every Woman Knows (a reprise from her Broadway hit), and Vanessa: Her Love Story. However, she never became a fan favorite and Hayes did not prefer the medium to the stage.)
Hayes and MacArthur eventually returned to Broadway, and she starred for three years in Victoria Regina.

In the 1950s, the Fulton Theatre was renamed for her. However, business interests in the 1980s wished to raze that theatre and four others to construct a large hotel that included the Marquis Theatre. To accomplish razing this theatre and three others, as well as the Astor Hotel, the business interests received Hayes consent to raze the theatre named for her, even though she had no ownership interest in the buildings. As a result in 1983, the Little Theater on West 45th Street was re-named The Helen Hayes Theatre in her honor; as was a theatre in Nyack, which has since been re-named the Riverspace-Arts Center.

In 1953, she was the first-ever recipient of the Sarah Siddons Award for her work in Chicago theatre, repeating as the winner in 1969. She returned to Hollywood in the 1950s, and her film star began to rise. She starred in My Son John (1952) and Anastasia (1956), and won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as an elderly stowaway in the disaster film Airport (1970). She followed that up with several roles in Disney films such as Herbie Rides Again, One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing and Candleshoe. Anastasia was considered a comeback having not acted for several years due to her daughter, Mary's death and her husband's failing health.

The Helen Hayes Award for theater in the Washington D.C. area is named in her honor. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6220 Hollywood Blvd.