Helen Hawley

Biography

Newark, New Jersey, greeted Helen Hawley’s first cry on 24 August 1909, and the silver screen later welcomed her in kind. At nine she slipped into silent comedy as the plucky heroine of *Two-Gun Betty* (1918), grew into jazz-age sophistication for *The Laughing Lady* (1929), and courted controversy as part of the cast of *Birth of a Baby* (1938). A century later, on 1 April 2003, her story closed quietly in St. Louis, Missouri, leaving behind a slim but spirited filmography that still flickers for anyone curious enough to press “play.”