Helene Chadwick

Acting

Helene Chadwick

Born 1897-11-24 · Chadwicks, New York, USA

Helene Chadwick (November 25, 1897 – September 4, 1940) was an American actress in Silent and early sound films. Chadwick was born in the small town of Chadwicks, New York, which was named for her grandfather. Her mother was a singer who performed on the stage and her father was a businessman. She began making films for Pathe Pictures in Manhattan, New York. A director was impressed by Chadwick's talent as an equestrian, thus she began acting as a western star, but this did not continue with the exodus of film production from the east to the west coast. Signed by Samuel Goldwyn, Chadwick went to California in 1913 and entered silent movies in 1916. She was a star from 1920 through 1925. At the pinnacle of her acting career, she earned a salary estimated to have been $2,000 per week. From 1929 until 1935, she found success as a character actress when sound was being introduced to films. In the final five years of her life she was reduced to taking roles as an extra, playing "atmospheric parts". She was always optimistic that her fortunes would turn for the better. Helene made movies with Warner Brothers, Columbia Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Paramount Pictures, and other studios. Her most noteworthy performances came in The Long Arm of Mannister (1919), The Cup of Fury (1920), Heartsease (1919), The Sin Flood (1922), Dangerous Curve Ahead (1921), From The Ground Up (1921), The Glorious Fool (1922), Yellow Men and Gold (1922), Dust Flower (1922), Godless Men (1920), and Quicksands (1923). In January 1919, Chadwick became engaged to Lieutenant William A. Wellman, an American pilot with the Lafayette Flying Corps. He had just returned from France and was cited for bravery for his valour in World War I. The couple had met at a party at the house of a friend. Wellman was signed to play a prominent role in an upcoming movie with Douglas Fairbanks Sr. The couple wed in July 1921, but in the summer of 1923 Chadwick sued Wellman for divorce on grounds of desertion and non-support. At the time of their separation William was directing movies for Fox Film. Wellman directed Wings, the first film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture, as well as many other notable films. Helene Chadwick died at St. Vincent's Hospital, Los Angeles, California, aged 42, in 1940. Her death was indirectly the result of an accident she suffered in June 1939.

Acting credits

Frisco Kid poster
7.0

After a roustabout sailor avoids being shanghaied in 1850s San Francisco, his audacity helps him rise to a position of power in the vice industry of the infamous Barbary Coast.

Frisco Kid

1935

Reno poster
9.0

After obtaining a divorce from his second wife Emily, Roy Tappan marries Dora Carson, who has just divorced her husband. Left poor with two children, Emily marries Walter Heath, a former suitor, then discovers that she cannot live with her new husband because the divorce is not legal in her home state. Tappan and his new wife soon run out of money, each having thought the other was wealthy. His aunt promises to support him in exchange for his two children. He kidnaps the children and hides them from Emily in his aunt's home. After Emily and Walter find them, they go to Yellowstone Park, where they are considered legally married. Tappan follows and is killed after a fight with Walter when a boiling geyser throws him into the air and throws him onto the rocks below.

Reno

1923

Morning Glory poster
6.2

Wildly optimistic chatterbox Eva Lovelace is a would-be actress trying to crash the New York stage. She attracts the interest of a paternal actor, a philandering producer, and an earnest playwright. Is she destined for stardom, or will she fade like a morning glory after its brief blooming?

Morning Glory

1933

Mississippi poster
6.8

A young pacifist, after refusing on principle to defend her sweetheart's honor and being banished in disgrace, joins a riverboat troupe as a singer, acquires a reputation as a crackshot after a saloon brawl in which the villain of the piece accidentally kills himself with his own gun, falls in love with his former fianceé's sister and finally bullies an apprehensive family into accepting him.

Mississippi

1935

Merrily Yours poster
5.7

Sonny falls for the pretty new girl next door and decides to take her to a part. First, however, he has to get his sister Mary Lou to go to sleep, which is proving to be a harder task than he anticipated.

Merrily Yours

1933

The Bad Sister poster
5.6

Marianne falls in love with con man Valentine who uses their relation to get her father's endorsement on a money-raising scheme. He runs off with the money and Marianne, later dumping her. Her sister Laura loves Dr. Lindley although she knows he loves Marianne. Marianne returns and marries a wealthy young man, and Lindley turns his love toward Laura.

The Bad Sister

1931

A Wicked Woman poster
5.0

A woman and her children escape severe poverty and abuse. She successfully betters her family's condition while living with the secret that she killed her abusive husband in order to protect her children from him.

A Wicked Woman

1934

The Golden Cocoon poster
10.0

The story of a much put-upon woman who becomes involved with a professor of political economy only to be thrown over by him for the daughter of a wealthy businessman.

The Golden Cocoon

1925

So Big! poster
5.8

A farmer's widow takes on the land and her late husband's tempestuous son.

So Big!

1932

Employees' Entrance poster
6.1

Kurt Anderson is the tyrannical manager of a New York department store in financial straits. He thinks nothing of firing an employee of more than 20 years or of toying with the affections of every woman he meets. One such victim is Madeline, a beautiful young woman in need of a job. Anderson hires her as a salesgirl, but not before the two spend the night together. Madeline is ashamed, especially after she falls for Martin West, a rising young star at the store. Her biggest fear is that Martin finds out the truth about her "career move."

Employees' Entrance

1933

Pleasures of the Rich poster
10.0

Henry Wilson, a wealthy grocer who started with a pushcart and worked his way up to 40 trucks, although married becomes interested in divorcee Mona Vincent, who is trying to win Frank Clayton, a wealthy scion with whom Wilson's daughter Mary is in love. Mona promises Mary to give up Wilson if Mary will give her Clayton.

Pleasures of the Rich

1926

Cupid the Cowpuncher poster
10.0

Alec Lloyd, the foreman of the Sewell ranch, is nicknamed "Cupid" because of his propensity for matchmaking. When Macie Sewell returns from boarding school, Cupid himself falls victim to love, but Macie has aspirations to go to New York and become an opera singer, and so ignores his advances. However, Leroy Simpson, a poor doctor who is enamored of Macie's father's money, encourages her ambitions....

Cupid the Cowpuncher

1920

Night World poster
6.8

"Happy" MacDonald and his unfaithful wife own a Prohibition era night club. On this eventful night, he is threatened by bootleggers, and the club's star dancer falls in love with a young socialite who drinks to forget a personal tragedy, among other incidents.

Night World

1932

Trouping with Ellen poster
10.0

Ellen Llewellyn is a chorus girl who is loved by orchestra leader Andy Owens, a genuinely nice guy. When Ellen meets the aristocratic Tony Winterslip, she's impressed by his family tree and vast wealth. When Winterslip's car breaks down during a rainstorm, Ellen gets drenched and contracts pneumonia. It takes much persuasion, but finally Ellen agrees to recuperate at the Winterslip country home.

Trouping with Ellen

1924

School for Girls poster
7.5

After being convicted of stealing some jewels, Annette Eldrige is sent to a reformatory administered by a sadistic and corrupt female warder. However, one of the board of trustees takes an interest in the new arrival and begins to investigate the management of the institution.

School for Girls

1934

Managed Money poster
5.3

Young Mary Lou tries to help her brother Sonny raise money so that he can attend a military academy.

Managed Money

1934

Dangerous Curve Ahead poster
9.0

Engaged to Harley Jones, fickle Phoebe Mabee flirts with Anson Newton. She and Harley, as a result, break their engagement, but within six months they are reconciled and married. Phoebe becomes a mother, and when Harley is sent abroad by his business firm she and her two children go to a summer resort where she renews her romance with Newton.

Dangerous Curve Ahead

1921

The Perfect Set-Up poster
6.5

In this MGM "Crime Does Not Pay" series short, a radio and television engineer falls into a life of crime by dismantling alarms for robberies.

The Perfect Set-Up

1936

Good Dame poster
7.0

A chorus girl gets stranded in a small midwestern town. Against her better judgement, she hooks up with a smooth-talking con artist who says he can help her get out of town.

Good Dame

1934

Hard Boiled poster
8.0

Tom Mix plays an Eastern dandy who finds himself banished to a Western ranch in this silent Western

Hard Boiled

1926

Mary Burns, Fugitive poster
9.0

A young woman who owns a coffee shop falls for a handsome young customer, unaware that he is a gangster.

Mary Burns, Fugitive

1935

The Yellow Ticket poster
NR

Anna Mirrel, a young Jewish girl in Czarist Russia, is forced to degrade herself in order to visit her father, whom she believes to be ill. She obtains a yellow passport, signifying that she is a prostitute.

The Yellow Ticket

1918

The Solitary Sin poster
8.0

Bob, John, and Edward--three young boys growing up in the same neighborhood--have vastly-different experiences with sex. Bob's father patiently explains "the birds and the bees" to him, and even takes him to a hospital to see the effects of venereal disease.

The Solitary Sin

1919

Hell Bound poster
7.0

Lane and Diane are a young married couple living in a coastal town whose lives are about to be torn apart by an old book of magic.

Hell Bound

1931