Comprehensive information and links about Helen Hayes

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

Born in Washington, DC to an Irish American Catholic family, she began a stage career at an early age. By 10, she had made a short film called , but she only moved to Hollywood when her husband, playwright Charles MacArthur, signed a Hollywood deal. Her sound film debut was . However, she never became a fan favorite.

Hayes and MacArthur eventually returned to Broadway, and she starred for three years in . Eventually, a theater was named in her honor. 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 . Some of the themes in these books include her return to Roman Catholicism after having been denied communion from the Church for the length of her marriage to MacArthur, who was a Protestant and a divorcé, and the death of her only daughter, Mary, who was an aspiring actress, from polio. Hayes's son, James MacArthur, went on to a career in acting also, starring in Hawaii Five-O on television.

Hayes was a pro-business Republican, who attended the last Republican National Convention before her death, which was held in Colorado, but she was not as far-right as certain others (e.g. Adolphe Menjou, Ginger Rogers, John Wayne, etc) in the Hollywood community of that time.

She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6220 Hollywood Blvd.

The Helen Hayes Award for theater in the Washington D.C. area is named in her honor.

Helen Hayes died on (St. Patrick's Day) March 17, 1993 of natural causes, not long after the death of her friend Lillian Gish, who had made Hayes the beneficiary of her estate. Hayes was interred in the Oak Hill Cemetery, Nyack, New York.

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