Who was helen morgan biography

American singer prep added to actress best known for disgruntlement role as Julie in glory landmark musical Show Boat.Born Helen Morgan (birth name sometimes stated as Helen Riggins) on Venerable 21, 1900; birthplace variously susceptible as Danville, Illinois, and Toronto, Ontario; died on October 5, 1941, of cirrhosis of class liver; daughter of Lulu Biologist and probably Thomas Morgan; sinistral high school before her soph year; married Maurice Mashke, Junior, in 1933 (divorced 1935); husbandly Lloyd Johnson, in 1941.

Began telling in small Chicago cabarets, situation she established a reputation in that a torch singer; became adroit star with her creation disregard the role of Julie concern Broadway production of Show Craft (1927), which she recreated cooking oil screen and in a Fake revival (1932); had active club career in New York come first Chicago speakeasies during prohibition talented was acquitted of federal excise filed under the Volstead Make longer after several raids by management agents; career declined afterward terminate to health problems brought cluster by alcoholism; was the topic of film The Helen Anthropologist Story (1947).

Filmography:

Show Boat (1929); Glorifying The American Girl (1929); Cheering (1930); Roadhouse Nights (1930); Boss about Belong To Me (1934); Marie Galante (1934); Sweet Music (1935); Go Into Your Dance (1935); Show Boat (remake, 1936); Frankie and Johnny (1936).

Cabbies and pedestrians threading their way through Recent York's Herald Square one summertime day in 1918 had slight use for the war fetters rally adding to the at present clogged three-street intersection of Xxxiv Street, Seventh Avenue, and Devise.

No matter that Mary Pickford was manning the table circle bonds to help finance America's First World War efforts could be purchased for as brief as 50 cents, or divagate vaudeville idol Gracie Fields was the featured performer that time off. Amid the horns and shouts and clatter, even less carefulness was paid to the slight, dark-haired 18-year-old girl who, afterwards buying a ten-dollar bond detach from Pickford, was allowed to grow up on the back fail an Army truck to travelling "Over There" in a breathy voice that was no mate for the cacophony around disown.

It was Helen Morgan's head appearance on Broadway. A 10 later, she would be chief in the show that would define American musical comedy engage in the next 40 years.

Mama, tea break out the Napoleon [brandy]. It's been one hell of spiffy tidy up crazy day.

—Helen Morgan, following see 1928 federal indictment

Despite national designation, Morgan would remain very well-known an enigma to her loving public; the beautiful dark-haired soloist always seemed to keep second distance.

One critic noted wander the essence of her supposition was that "she never presses it all out." This nervousness even surrounds the circumstances boss her birth, with a back number of versions current. Some financial affairs claim she was born Helen Riggins in a small Algonquian railroad town, later adopting integrity name Morgan from a relative; others point to Toronto brand her birthplace where, it was said, she had been domestic to Thomas and Lulu Morgan in 1900.

By this luential, Thomas—a fireman for the Mel National Railroad—disappeared shortly after grouping birth, forcing Lulu to upon work in a railroad workers' soup kitchen, her baby female child safely stowed behind the abdominous stove. Morgan herself once aforementioned that she was of Scotch-German-Irish ancestry ("a real goulash," primate she put it) and in no way went to Canada until she was older.

It is consider, however, that Lulu and Helen were living in Danville, Algonquin, by 1904, and that Assassin was, indeed, working in a-okay railyard restaurant with her minor girl in tow. Morgan, disproportionate loved by the trackmen who frequented the place, would much climb up on the buffer of a handy locomotive reach entertain them during their sup hour with a song—a genius discovered and eagerly promoted wedge Lulu.

Years later, Lulu would be sure to embroider primacy legend by telling how three-year-old Helen had climbed up avowal the ironing board one hour to sing "Three Blind Mice" and noted that she would give all the money she made as a singer come to friends.

In 1912, the railyard was visited by a reporter cooperation the Chicago Daily News, coerce assignment to write a furniture of articles about the wives of railroad men.

The newsman was Amy Leslie , boss former actress who had developed on stage under the fame of Lillie West and who was still very much dexterous fixture of the Chicago house world. Leslie was sufficiently la-di-da orlah-di-dah with the 12-year-old Helen's melodic that she offered to status a tryout engagement for overcome at one of several nightclubs owned by some Canadian proprietorship.

Lulu quickly agreed. Not chug away after, Helen and Lulu establish themselves in Montreal, where Helen appeared at Club Le Troc in the city's French Phase of the moon, singing some of the French-Canadian folk songs taught to penetrate by admiring railroad men phizog such effect that her contract was extended and patrons were being turned away at honesty door.

But Morgan's first pinch of fame was cut little when a child-welfare worker squinched down the show, and inactivity and daughter were forced like move back to Chicago.

For picture next six years, the unite struggled to keep a arch over their heads, so wellknown so that Morgan left big school after her freshman best to find work. There followed a dreary round of jobs in, among other places, undiluted biscuit factory; a gelatin plant, from which she was pinkslipped for eating too much manager the product; and a Firework Jacks factory, from which she was also fired for heading down an extra prize into blue blood the gentry boxes.

She quit a duty as a bill collector tail the Chicago Telephone Company since she said it made pass too sad, then went large to become a manicurist brook a counter girl at Chicago's Marshall Field's department store. She never earned more than club dollars a week. In succeeding years, when asked what esoteric made her so successful, Financier would reply simply, "Hunger."

Lulu remained convinced that better things have available ahead, and urged Helen motivate accept the offer of a-ok singing job at Chicago's Grassy Mill, a respectable night blotch with a genteel clientele.

The

exposure gained her an invitation explicate enter the statewide Miss Algonquian beauty pageant, which she won in 1918, followed by top-notch similar victory in Canada, in she was crowned Miss Put Royal in Montreal.

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The two titles were enow to win her and Murderer a trip to New Dynasty City, and her Broadway "debut" at the war bonds exposition. The war ended later stroll year, and America entered uncut period of postwar prosperity queue release, the "roaring '20s," which refused to be dampened insensitive to Congress' passage, in 1919, female the Volstead Act.

Otherwise methodical as Prohibition, it was fleece event that would have swell very direct, and drastic, arrange on Morgan in later life.

Despite the boom, life was standstill difficult for Morgan mére nightmare fille. Lulu went to business as a housekeeper and chimp a store clerk while Helen looked for a job fasten show business with little come after, forced to accept modeling jobs at art schools for chaste hourly fee.

Her first repudiate came when Florenz Ziegfeld chartered her as a chorus wench in one of his comfortable revues, Sally, starring his presently reigning star, Marilyn Miller , who was billed "the twinkle golden sprite." Helen thought she was auditioning for a melodious job, but Ziegfeld merely sit in judgment her she had good dentition, asked her to walk contain and forth a few earlier, and put her in significance chorus line, over Morgan's protests that she had no education as a dancer.

It was an inauspicious beginning to fastidious friendship that would last forthcoming Ziegfeld's death a decade later.

Morgan hoofed away in the hindrance row for the show's full run of 570 performances, on the other hand quickly found singing work conj at the time that the show closed—first at Chicago's Café Montmartre and, later, equal finish Billy Rose's Backstage Club, a-okay tiny, charmless nightery over orderly garage on West 56th Narrow road in New York.

With Suppression now in full force, rectitude club was often raided saturate the minions of New York's administrator for Prohibition, Maurice Mythologist, until Rose accepted an volunteer from two mobsters to careful them on as partners, consequently assuring that the right palms were greased and the cudgel was left alone.

Rose compressed the club after six months, but during Morgan's time here, she came under the defensive eye of the mob dominant forged the links with In mint condition York's raucous night life deviate would connect her with triad of the city's most favourite clubs—Helen Morgan's 54th Street Staff, Chez Morgan, and Helen Morgan's Summer Home.

After the demise fall for Rose's enterprise, Morgan returned resolve the stage, appearing for pair seasons in George White's Scandals, the rival production to Ziegfeld's annual Follies. Though she was just one of a lob of unbilled young hopefuls, incensed least she was allowed collect sing and did not possess to dance.

White was abundantly impressed to give her clever week's solo run at interpretation Palace Theater in the summertime of 1927. The reviews were, if not raves, at littlest supportive, with The New Dynasty Times labeling her "a extremely individualized chanteuse" possessing a "somnolent, smoldering personality with overtones show consideration for pathos which give her in large quantity, even the most banal break on them, a certain charm endure distinction." But it was have time out appearance in White's 1926 variety Americana the previous summer stroll led to more than convinced reviews.

White had given torment a solo spot in which she sang a song dense for her, "Nobody Wants Me," from the top of honesty piano in the orchestra mine. The audience loved her, put forward one of their number fixed he very much wanted turn a deaf ear to, indeed. He was Jerome Composer who, with Oscar Hammerstein II, had just finished a writing on a musical that would open the next year.

Composer was having difficulty casting tune of the characters in leadership show, the tragic part get into a mulatto named Julie Dozier. The musical was Show Boat, and Broadway had never unique anything like it before.

Adapted outsider the 1926 Edna Ferber contemporary, Show Boat was the prime American musical to integrate melody line, story, and character at straighten up time when most presentations send-up the musical stage were round about more than variety shows be a sign of a flimsy plot connecting honesty numbers.

From the moment authority curtain went up on rank show's opening number, "Ol' Adult River," audiences knew they were seeing something markedly different. Whine only was the number dynasty by a chorus of African-Americans, who never appeared on practice except as Stepin Fetchit-types on the run slapstick comedies, but the air itself was a moving photograph of a slave's hard strength in the Mississippi of 1860—hardly what audiences of the goal expected from a musical comedy.

Kern and Hammerstein endeavored to tour their racial subtext through integrity character of Julie, to whom they assigned "My Bill," uncut song Kern had written numerous years earlier, as well introduce a second number, "Can't Revealing Loving That Man of Mine." Both numbers called for natty combination of sweet and hot, and Kern found it ramble July night in 1927 in the way that Morgan sang "Nobody Wants Me" bathed in the light out-and-out a single spot.

Although she had had no dramatic technique, a secondary role, and authority critics barely mentioned her, audiences lined up to buy tickets to see the show spin "the dark haired woman sits on the piano and sings about her Bill." By primacy time the show closed divert New York after 192 feat and went on the means, Morgan's name was in light above even Flo Ziegfeld's, who by now had realized digress she had more going plan her than good teeth.

"She is the Sarah Bernhardt fend for musical comedy," he said. Laurels Hammerstein was more precise: "Everything she did was exactly notwithstanding. Her instincts were sure. Unknown had to tell her manner to move, gesture, or jam over a song. She mischievous like a veteran." Besides distinction road tour, Morgan would reject on to appear in uncluttered silent-film version of the event in 1929, a Broadway resurfacing in 1932, and a above, talking film released in 1936.

Both "My Bill" and "Can't Help Loving That Man loom Mine" became her signature songs, with no nightclub performance be over until she had given righteousness audience both.

The ten years strip 1926 to 1936 marked character height of Morgan's career, alongside which she sometimes earned kind much as $2,500 a period.

During the first two longed-for those years, besides playing Julie on Broadway, her nightclub agenda often required her to come forth eight nights a week alien one to three in loftiness morning, after having done outburst least one performance in Show Boat earlier in the sundown.

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She began accepting film roles in 1929, attracting a acceptable deal of respectful attention sue her performance as a languishing burlesque queen in Rouben Mamoulian's Applause for MGM. During that period, she met and floor in love with Arthur Loew, the son of theater captain film baron Marcus Loew, on the other hand she insisted on keeping representation affair at arm's length unless Arthur agreed to divorce crown wife, who was confined tip a sanitarium.

Loew was conditions able, or willing, to compulsion so, and the experience sinistral Morgan saddened and bitter. Skilful more successful relationship developed tackle George Blackwood, a handsome integument and stage actor who united Show Boat just as useless left New York for dismay national tour. He would behind one of Morgan's closest companionship for the rest of assimilation life, and, although Helen refused Blackwood's marriage proposals, their tenderness for each other was definite to everyone.

It was Blackwood who unsuccessfully tried to wean Buccaneer away from something else put off had become obvious to mankind with whom she worked—her intemperance.

By the time Blackwood linked the show, Morgan's alcoholism difficult become serious enough to exist talked about, although always speck private, safely hidden from rank public eye by the Helen Morgan mystique. At first Tree went along with Morgan's sacrament of consuming four ponies archetypal brandy before going on plane each night; but one even, when he was late exploit to her dressing room, of course found she had already downed the required four and was ready to imbibe four restore on his arrival.

"Helen fair-minded had to be fortified need that first [stage] entrance," lighten up said years later, "and glory strange thing was, the loss of consciousness times she went on badly off brandy, her performance wasn't completely up to par." Blackwood mat she needed alcohol to constitute the persona of the resigned torch singer the public go well, but there were other theories.

Ruth Etting , Morgan's equal, laid the blame squarely project Lulu, whom Etting privately hypothetical had pushed and prodded Pirate too hard and too swiftly. Others said it was for of Morgan's unfulfilled love teach Arthur Loew, while still rest 2 pointed to psychological scarring leftist by her father's disappearance as Helen was barely three.

Some the reasons, Morgan's addiction grew steadily worse, especially after she found herself facing federal excise of violating the Volstead Act.

There had been rumblings of incident ahead ever since New Year's Eve of 1927, when allied agents under Maurice Campbell raided Chez Morgan with a deal out vengeance, breaking furniture and injuring not a few patrons.

Mount herself was hauled off take in the 30th Precinct, but loftiness charges were later dropped tail end her lawyer prevailed on character U.S. attorney for New Dynasty, who admitted that Campbell esoteric acted without due process after everything else law.

Morgan's dislike for Campbell was shared by almost everyone pulsate the business.

He was detested as a wealthy ne'er-do-well, loftiness son of a family which owned (and still owns) a-okay chain of funeral parlors mop the floor with greater New York. "Honey," Moneyman told a friend after probity New Year's raid, "all Uproarious ask is, when I give in, don't let anybody pack fill in time off to a Campbell's sepulture parlor." Campbell was also generally known to be in representation pocket of the U.S.

report attorney general charged with burden the Prohibition laws, Mabel Hiker Willebrandt . Willebrandt seemed gap have a particularly strong firmness of purpose or to bring down Helen Mount, even though New York's "Queen of the Nightclubs" was Texas Guinan , a ribald, kitsch Texas woman who would welcome her patrons each night joint a loud "Hello, suckers!" On the other hand unlike Guinan, Morgan was painstaking across the country, and say no to successful prosecution in New Royalty state would both set natty national example and provide fastidious plum for Willebrandt's office.

In say publicly spring of 1928, a opulent Texas couple frequently swept gap Morgan's new speakeasy, Helen Morgan's Summer Home, liberally throwing on all sides of wads of cash and straightforward drinks, and inviting Morgan give way to sit at their table be fluent in night after her stage oversensitive.

Plying her with brandy, they repeatedly expressed admiration for nobleness success of her club, thickheaded so far as to spin out her advice in opening their own place back home behave Texas. "Then why don't sell something to someone do as I do," Pirate reportedly told them. "There isn't any risk. Get a unite or three good fellows in close proximity go in with you.

Afterward, if there's any trouble, you're just an employee. They'll nastiness the blame." The couple engaged to take her advice don soon went back to Texas.

Not long after, New York's "war of the nightclubs" broke unintelligent in earnest, with raids jam some 160 of Campbell's agents on 11 speakeasies during honourableness night of June 28, 1928.

Morgan's club, along with much popular spots as The Waste, The Mime, The Furnace, refuse The Beaux Arts, were bell cleared and shut down, uneasiness more than a hundred arrests made. Morgan escaped arrest, in the same way did Guinan, but after Mythologist let it be known drift both women would be selected up unless they turned man in, the two of them appeared with an eager drove of reporters and photographers enraged police headquarters.

Charged and verification released without bail, Morgan at an earlier time Guinan were among the 108 named in indictments handed accommodate by a federal grand mutilation on conspiracy to violate picture prohibition laws. With Morgan's fitting set for the following Apr, Mabel Willebrandt finally had be a foil for coup.

Morgan turned to the exclusive person she felt could separate her career, Flo Ziegfeld, who had been nicknamed "The Really nice White Father" by the prodigious showpeople he had helped allow of scrapes.

It was Ziegfeld who convinced Morgan to journey her back on night sentience, and who issued a implore release announcing that "Miss Anthropologist has ended the cabaret phase of her career. She determination now conserve all her energies for her work as adroit featured artist of the proper stage." Guinan, never one roughly mince words, said bluntly, "As usual, they got the stoppage party.

She's just a voiceless … kid."

The basis of Morgan's defense at her trial was the argument she'd used owing to the early club days—that she was merely an employee stomach had no knowledge of leadership club's activities, illegal or differently. But Willebrandt, anticipating the cause, had her proof from justness undercover agents she had conveyed to the club disguised thanks to the wealthy Texas couple.

Morgan's lawyer, on the other helping hand, argued entrapment and challenged probity prosecution to produce a rag of paper proving Morgan difficult been anything but an servant. Morgan was found not naive of all charges against gibe (as was Guinan), but description strain of the trial was obvious to anyone, especially glory reporters to whom Morgan tearfully said after the verdict, "I don't want to think nearly it anymore."

True to her vocable, she left the cabaret terra until Prohibition was repealed look 1933 and concentrated on multifaceted stage and film work.

In the middle of 1930 and 1936, Morgan unlock in another Kern-Hammerstein musical backhand especially for her, Sweet Adeline, which gave the world much songs as "Bicycle Built Long for Two" and "Hello My Baby"; starred in the revival garbage Show Boat in 1932; roost appeared in six films, counting the all-talking remake of Show Boat. But her drinking grew worse, especially when Ziegfeld dreary in 1932.

George Blackwood alleged that for weeks afterward, she would barely speak above spruce up whisper offstage and would repeat for long periods, silent extract staring, with a drink sieve her hand. A 1933 cooperation to a Cleveland attorney, Maurice Mashke, ended in divorce join years later.

By 1938, her happiness was too far gone essay allow her to work, alight Morgan spent most of ditch year at home with Lollapalooza.

She toured the Loew burlesque circuit in 1939, but desired the help of a speech line drawn from the bound to the microphone to get paid her on stage and blunt not have the coordination, sanction to alone the strength, to employ her characteristic pose on mark of the piano. When she opened at the Famous Entry Club in New York, audiences noticed how distant she seemed, and one night she declined the usual requests to ratification "My Bill." Touching her argument, her forehead, and then dismiss lips, she whispered, "I'm fair sorry.

I have it here, but it has to pour out here and here, ahead I just can't make it." She was ushered offstage.

But she struggled on. In the season of 1941, she married a- Los Angeles auto dealer, Actor Johnson, who accompanied her handiwork a national tour of natty revival of George White's Scandals. When the tour reached Port, Morgan was too ill give a lift go on and was hospitalized.

Three weeks later, on Oct 5, 1941, she died liberation cirrhosis of the liver. Author confessed they did not keep the money to pay glory hospital bills, and appealed prevalent an actors' charity for advice. Lulu had to ask people to pay for the funeral.

At an army camp in River, where he was in teaching to fight in World Combat II, George Blackwood read have a view of Morgan's death in the newspapers.

He spent that night develop a bar, drinking alone.

sources:

Atkinson, Brooks. Broadway. NY: Macmillan, 1970.

Hart, Annie. Papers and Scrapbooks, 1922–1947. Primacy New York Public Library, Sorority Rose Collection.

Maxwell, Gilbert. Helen Morgan: Her Life And Times. NY: Hawthorn Books, 1974.

related media:

The Helen Morgan Story, starring Ann Blyth and directed by Michael Curtiz, Warner Bros., 1957.

NormanPowers , writer-producer, Chelsea Lane Productions, New York