Whitley Heights 101

Remembering Helen Twelvetrees on her birthday

Helen Jurgens was born on Christmas day in 1907 in Brooklyn, New York to William and Helen Jurgens, ages 19 and 17. The family lived in a small apartment located at 145 Ridgewood Avenue near Highland Park in the Flatbush neighborhood. William worked for a newspaper while Helen stayed at home to care for her daughter.

Helen’s Christmas birthday has been referenced over the years. A 1932 edition of The New Movie Magazine indicated “Brooklyn’s greatest gift to the movies, was a Christmas present to that thriving metropolis across the river from New York”. In 1931 The Pasadena Post stated Twelvetrees opened Christmas packages with her right hand and birthday gifts with her left hand. A December 1931 issue of Movie Mirror called Helen having the “tough luck to have her birthday coincide with Christmas, holds open house for her intimates and close friends”.

The Jurgens moved down the street to 462 Jamaica Avenue where Helen’s younger brother, William Jr. was born in 1914. Several accounts have William dying in apartment fire in 1919, but according to several newspaper articles, he died at the age of 2 of diphtheria when Helen was 6 years old. There was a formal inquest into William’s death as diphtheria was highly contagious. Before his death, he was visited by a Christian Science Healer who was criminally charged for his death. In 1918, Helen’s other brother, Jack was born. They lived at 3614 Avenue I in Flatbush in Brooklyn where the Jurgens would remain for decades.

Helen’s mother wanted her to become an artist. Helen was attending the Art Student League when her teacher, artist Bradshaw Crandall painted her picture which was used as the cover of the October 23, 1926 edition of The Saturday Evening Post. This exposure led her to be enrolled at the American Academy of Dramatic Art, whose alumni include; Gracy Kelly, Spencer Tracy, Lauren Bacall, Cecil DeMille, and Kirk Douglas.

While Helen attended AADA, she met another student named Clark Twelvetrees and fell in love with his boyish charm. Helen wanted to have the life her parents had-marriage and a family. The 18 year old starlet married 19 year old Twelvetrees of Manhattan in her family home in March of 1927. Helen should have known the marriage was doomed when Clark left her on the steps of city hall to celebrate their marriage with his friends for two days. Both found work for a stage company as Helen’s acting career flourished, but Clark had to settle for behind-the-scenes jobs. Helen adopted Clark’s last name to use as her stage name and Helen Twelvetrees was born. Perhaps jealousy was the main reason Clark drank heavily, but his drinking put a strain on the young marriage.

Six months later, Helen was accused of pushing Clark out of the window of a hotel, when, he, in fact, jumped from the fifth floor of the Royalton Hotel in Manhattan. However, his life was spared when his fall was stopped by an awning on his way down where he landed on the roof of an automobile. The stunned Clark was able to stagger to his feet where Helen rushed down just in time for Clark to fall into her arms for the city to witness. Clark was rushed to Bellevue Hospital with a severe spinal injury and internal bleeding.

Helen told authorities that Clark did not get a part on the pre-winter casting season and was upset. To cheer him up, the couple was invited to the hotel to have dinner with friends. During the event, the somber Clark rose to his feet while beating on his chest saying, “They’re keeping me from getting a chance-they’re keeping me from getting a chance-what’s the use of trying anymore?” He then pushed Helen out of the way and plunged himself out of the window. Clark miraculously survived the fall. After first being accused of pushing her husband, the truth came out that Clark attempting suicide. After several months of hospitalization, Clark was released.

Perhaps a change of scenery would do Clark some good. Helen accepted a job with Fox Films and the two moved to Hollywood where she began filming “The Ghost Talks” in 1929. It was rare for a theater actress immediately get a lead role, on top of the film being a talking movie, but Helen’s acting ability impressed the Fox Studio executives.

They rented a 2 bedroom bungalow home located at 6215 Scenic Avenue in the Hollywood Dell. Once again, Clark struggled with finding work and continued to drink. With the start of talking movies, Helen had a beautiful voice and got the lead part. Her role, however, called for a lisp, and the media was harsh, calling her out on her strange name and speech impediment. This did not stop her from being named one of the 1929 WAMPAS babies. Below, Helen is sitting on the far left along with Anita Page, Loretta Young and Jean Arthur.

Helen was able to get two smaller roles with Fox: “Blue Skies” and “Words and Music”. However, Fox ended up dropping her because she “was without color” and had “lack of personality”. The heartbroken Helen felt it was time to return to New York which pleased unemployed Clark. Friend and actress, Dorothy Ward, convinced Helen to try her luck with Pathe Exchange Production Company before she completely gave up. Below, Helen was featured in the January 1930 edition of New Movie Magazine in front of the Hollywood Dell rental.

Pathe liked what they saw despite all of the negative media publicity. She was cast as the lead in “The Grand Parade” and now called the next “Lillian Gish”. Clark was tired of living off of Helen and decided to go back east. Helen then rented a house in Whitley Heights in 1930: 6851 Iris Circle. This house was bigger than the Hollywood Dell bungalow with three bedrooms, three bathrooms and a total of 2,963 square feet.

No sooner did Helen move in the house with a live in maid, she was already receiving death threats in February of 1930. On Valentine’s Day, police where guarding her home after she received three telephone calls from an unidentified man threatening to kill her. Enid Toppins, her maid, answered all of the phone calls and told police a man shouted, “I am a black hand and you will be dead in an hour”. Was her estranged husband calling?

The following month, Helen finally filed for divorce citing physical and emotional abuse. During the divorce trial, Twelvetrees claimed that her husband was an alcoholic who was drunk when they married and beat her on four occasions. She further testified that she thought she could reform him, but after three years, concluded this was not possible. Their divorce became final in March 1931. Clark Twelvetrees died in August 1938 of a skull fracture after striking his head on a curb when a man, who witnessed Clark hit a woman to the ground with whom he was arguing, physically intervened. Murder charges against the man, 29-year-old painter James Paskovics, were dismissed.

In the July 1930 edition of Photoplay magazine, Helen went on a double date with writer Marquis Busby. It is debatable whether this date was for publicity or not. In the article, Busby indicated they could not have dinner at her house since there was not furniture in the dining room or pots and pans in the kitchen. He arrived at 6651 Iris Circle at 7 p.m. and noted that she “lives on a hill where the streets get confused and just stop for a cry up there on the heights. It’s worse than a crossword puzzle. I parked my car on a precipice, breathed a prayer for my brakes and knocked on the door”. He further stated that her living room was distinctly modern-black and gold chairs and black and gold divans. There was also a tiny grand piano in the corner of the room.

The truth of the matter was Helen met stuntman Jack Woody on the set of “The Painted Dessert” while filming in Arizona. Helen was secretly in love. She, however, felt his job was dangerous especially when there was an accident on the set where an explosion took the life of several of the film crew. Woody agreed to stop work as a stuntman if Helen agreed to marry him. Helen was elated to be marrying a dead ringer for actor Maurice Chevalier.

They first married in Mexico but found out the marriage was not legal so they eloped in Reno. Once again, the marriage was not valid as Helen was still married to Twelvetrees. On April 21, 1931, they married a third time in Santa Cruz and then went on a three week honeymoon to the High Sierras.

After they returned from their vacation, they moved to Brentwood, renting 423 North Rockingham Avenue. In actor Johnny Weissmuller’s biography, who moved into the house in 1942, he indicated the 1926 house was built for Twelvetrees, but would be inaccurate since she did not move to Hollywood until 1929. Actor Charles Laughton and his wife, actress Elsa Lanchester also lived at 423 Rockingham. Twelvetrees and Woody lived at this residence prior to 1933 when director William J Keighley purchased it.

As a newspaper article once stated, “Twelvetrees did not stay at one place for very long”, by September of 1931, they were living at 244 Bristol Avenue in Brentwood Heights, the same street at Joan Crawford, Barbara Stanwyck and Clark Gable as they once all lived there at the same time within two blocks of one another. This Italian residence once sat away from the street, complete with a badminton court and swimming pool. Helen had just starred in “Millie” with RKO Pictures and was an established “A” lister actress while Woody dabbled in real estate.

In the September 1931 issue of The Modern Screen, the article stated that Hollywood treated Twelvetrees badly until she was cast in “The Great Parade” and was type cast usually as a damsel in distress either fighting to keep her man or weeping over a man. She was dubbed the “champion weeper”. In the November 1931 issue of Modern Screen, an article claims Helen married again because she longed to have the family life that her parents had and she was close to adopting a baby girl right before she married Woody. Instead, she settled for three dogs named Romeo, Juliet, and Catherine the Great.

Several articles indicated that a coyote wandered into Twelvetree’s yard one day so she kept it as a pet. Another rumor was that she also had a jaguar. She did have a Persian cat that had a litter of 6 kittens who were used on the set of “Disgraced” in 1933.

By 1932, the couple moved several houses down the street to 330 N. Bristol Avenue where Twelvetrees had an in ground pool installed in the backyard in June. Just a few months prior in April, is was announced that she was expecting a baby due in October.

Helen decided to go back east with her parents and on October 26, 1932, Jack Woody Jr. was born at Calcedonia Hospital in Brooklyn. A few weeks later, the young family traveled on a ship through the Panama Canal to get him in time for Jack’s first Christmas and Helen’s 25th birthday.

Helen had now achieved the one thing that she truly desired: motherhood. Helen wanted to go back to work so she hired Ms. Winner, the nanny that took care of her when she was younger, to travel back with them to care for Jack while she was at the studio. Helen also enjoyed the outdoors. Between movies, she and Jack would travel, go camping where she could fish and hunt. When she got home from work, she often be seen riding her bike.

Her career, however, suffered due to having a baby. Helen went from a six figure salary to less desirable roles. An August 1934 article indicated that Helen was living in Spanish Moorish house with twin towers in Beverly Hills. By August 1935, Helen and Jack were building a new home, located at 10221 Moorpark Street in Toluca Lake, just down the street from William Powell.

With film roles becoming more scarce, Helen decided to take a minor role in the movie “Thoroughbred” and in October of 1935, the family sailed to Australia where filming began. While there, she and Woody decided that their marriage was no longer working and decided to separate in January of 1936. They came back to Los Angeles in March where Helen took her son and moved into the Knickerbocker Hotel, keeping their separation a secret.

Helen filed for divorce after she moved out citing mental cruelty and several weeks later, Jack showed up to the Knickerbocker Hotel and found Helen eating dinner with San Francisco businessman Ed Forrest. Jack’s temper got the best of him as he punched Forrest in front of everyone in the hotel restaurant. Rumors circulated that Helen would marry Forrest after her divorce was final. Still, Helen was hoping to get some more acting roles. She appeared in only three more films: “Hollywood Round Up” co-starring with Buck Jones in 1937, a smaller part in “Persons in Hiding” in 1939 and her final film, the lead of “Unmarried” again with Buck Jones.

Perhaps the more notable film was “I’m Still Alive” which aired in 1940 by RKO Studios. Helen was not in the movie, but she sued RKO claiming that the film was based on her and husband Jack Woody’s life story. She won her case in January 1943 but was awarded only $1,100. The storyline was about a stuntman who gave up his career after he married an actress. Not a happy ending indeed. Helen decided to move back east and try the stage one more time in “Arsenic and Old Lace” while baby Jack lived with his grandparents and uncle in Brooklyn.

During World War 2, Helen showed her support by traveling overseas to perform for the soldiers. While in Bavaria, Germany, she met an Air Force pilot fighter in his 20s named Conrad Payne who happened to be five years younger than she. After a six month whirlwind romance, the two decided to get married in Paris in 1947 once the war was finally over. Now Helen took on the role of army wife traveling all over including; Japan, Germany, Florida, Massachusetts, Virginia, Texas, and Pennsylvania. 17 year old Jack Jr. lived with them while Payne was stationed at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas in 1950. During the late 1950s, Payne was stationed at Olmstead Air Force Base in Middletown, PA. On February 13, 1958, Payne came home for lunch at 315 Oak Hill Drive to find Helen unconscious on the bedroom floor.

She was rushed to the hospital at the base and pronounced dead upon arrival at the age of 49. An autopsy concluded that she died from a overdose of sedatives which was ruled a suicide. Payne told authorities that Helen was suffering from a painful kidney ailment and the death may have been accidental. In addition, her close friend, Geraldine Uglow, who also lived on the base was just over the day before playing bridge. Suicide or accident? According to Lucille Ball when asked about Helen’s death, she commented, “she was a drunk”. Ironically, Helen’s parents were still living at the same house Helen had grown up on in Brooklyn.

Twelvetrees’ remains were later cremated. Her funeral service was attended by only her widower and her close friend at the Middletown Cemetery. The gravesite was left unmarked until January 2013, when her family placed a headstone with her stage name.

In 1969, Twelvetrees was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame located at 6263 Hollywood Boulevard. Did the woman who wanted marriage and family all along really long for her previous famous acting career? Only the birthday girl hidden behind the mirror knows the truth.