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Helen Mack (November 13, 1913 in Rock Island, Illinois - August 13, 1986 in Beverly Hills, California) started her career in movies as a child actress, but her greater success was as a leading lady in the 1930s.

Contents 1 Youth and stage 2 Film actress 3 WAMPAS wrangle 4 Private life 5 Late career 6 References

Mack was the daughter of a barber and a mother who had a repressed desire to become an actress. She obtained her education as a youth at the Professional Children's School of New York. Vera Gordon was a friend who helped her along as a child actress. She appeared on Broadway and in stock. Mack debuted on stage in The Idle Inn with Jacob Benami. She performed with Roland Young in The Idle Inn and toured America with William Hedge in Straight Through The Door.

Her Fox Film screen test came in July 1931 and within three weeks she was on the studio lot. Mack began her film career billed as Helen Macks, in Success (1923). The motion picture featured Brandon Tynan, Naomi Childers, and Mary Astor. In Zaza Mack was cast with silent film legend Gloria Swanson.

She made her debut as a leading lady opposite Victor McLaglen in While Paris Sleeps (1932). She performed in The Struggle (1931) under the direction of D.W. Griffith and was cast with John Boles in his initial Fox Film venture, Scotch Valley. Mack played in several westerns in the early 1930s. Among these are Fargo Express (1933) with Ken Maynard and The Yankee Bandit with Buck Jones.

Reviewer Norbert Lusk commented favorably regarding Mack's performance in the 1933 motion picture, Sweepings (1933). He said she has a vivid personality, appreciated all the more in a heavy, loomy picture, and she plays her shopgirl role with understanding and finesse. Prior to this film Mack's career had declined for three years. Three of her productions failed. One reason for this career downturn is that she was usually a character star. Her employers had unwisely used Mack as a an ingenue (stock character). RKO Radio Pictures Inc. offered her a second chance as Mamie Donahue in Sweepings.

She may be best remembered for the 1933 movie sequel The Son of Kong, as Harold Lloyd's sister in The Milky Way (1936) and as the suicidal Molly Malloy in His Girl Friday (1940). Other less memorable, but still appealing, roles for Mack included the bank-robbing ingenue opposite Richard Cromwell and Lionel Atwill in 1937's The Wrong Road for RKO.

In 1931 eleven members of the Fox Film Company publicity department resigned in protest of WAMPAS (Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers) failure to name a Fox starlet on their annual list of baby stars. Linda Watkins missed by one vote and Mack was a bit farther down the list of those omitted. In response Fox named Mack, Watkins, and Conchita Montenegro as rival debutante or budding stars. Fox proposed to name baby stars for each year after, by a vote of its executives.

Mack continued to reside at home with her family as of April 1933. Many young actresses of the era did the same. Among these were Myrna Loy Jean Harlow, Elissa Landi, Martha Sleeper, and Madge Evans.

She married lawyer Charles Irwin in San Francisco, California, in February 1935. Mack was twenty-one. Irwin was a bankruptcy trustee for Fox Film West Coast Theaters. By this time Mack was under contract to Paramount Pictures.

In November 1939 Mack was treated for a bad case of laryngitis at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles, California.

In the 1940s and 1950s, Mack worked as a producer and director of radio programs including such series as Richard Diamond, Private Detective and The Saint. As TV succeeded radio as the prevalent entertainment medium, she continued to write plays and TV episodes until her death. In 1949, she collaborated with Roger Price in writing the children's record Gossamer Wump, narrated by Frank Morgan and released by Capitol Records.

• New York Times, The Screen, July 10, 1923, Page 22.
• Los Angeles Times, New Move Marks War On WAMPAS, August 24, 1931, Page A1.
• Los Angeles Times, Helen Mack Wins Boles Lead, December 22, 1931, Page A7.
• Los Angeles Times, Actress Assigned, November 8, 1932, Page 11.
• Los Angeles Times, Newcomer, Helen Mack, Conspicuous, April 2, 1933, Page A3.
• Los Angeles Times, Films' Revolting Daughters Turn Out To Be Meek Lambs, April 30, 1933, Page A7.
• Los Angeles Times, Helen Mack Chimes Ring, February 14, 1935, Page 1.
• Lowell, Massachusetts Sun, Helen Mack Born Actress, January 18, 1934, Page 42.
• Sheboygan, Wisconsin The Press, Three Debutante Stars On Way To Stardom With Fox, September 11, 1931, Page 14.
• Syracuse Herald-Journal, Hollywood, November 2, 1939, Page 21.

The Unofficial Helen Mack Tribute Site