Biography for
Helen Hayes (I)

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Date of Birth

10 October 1900, Washington, District of Columbia, USA

Date of Death

17 March 1993, Nyack, New York, USA (congestive heart failure)

Birth Name

Helen Hayes Brown

Nickname

First Lady of the American Theater

Height

5' (1.52 m)

Spouse

Charles MacArthur

(17 August 1928 - 21 April 1956) (his death) 2 children

Trivia

Lived for many years in an historic house in Nyack, New York called "Pretty Penny." Located at 235 North Broadway, she regularly offered tours of her well maintained gardens to the local garden clubs. The house was purchased by television personality and actress Rosie O'Donnell, a few years after her death, from her surviving son, actor James MacArthur.

Received the Women's International Center (WIC) Living Legacy Award in 1985.

Pre-eminent US stage actress.

Adoptive mother of actor James MacArthur.

Interred at Oak Hill Cemetery, Nyack, New York, USA.

Mother of stage actress Mary MacArthur who died in 1949 at the age of nineteen

Charter member of the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1973.

She had a career than spanned over 80 years beginning as a child actress at age 5.

She was regarded as the "First Lady of the American Theatre."

The lights of Broadway were dimmed for one minute at 8:00 p.m. on the day she died.

She made frequent trips to hospitals because of asthma attacks aggravated by backstage dust. When asthma ended her theatrical career, Hayes wrote books and raised funds for organizations that fight asthma.

In 1958, she became the second performer to win the Triple Crown of Acting. Oscars: Best Actress, The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1931) and Best Supporting Actress, Airport (1970), Tony: Best Actress-Play, "Time Remembered" (1958), and Emmy: Best Actress of 1953.

Won three Tony Awards, two Best Actress (Dramatic) awards -- one in 1947 for "Happy Birthday," an award that was shared with Ingrid Bergman for "Joan of Lorraine," another in 1958, for "Time Remembered" -- and a third, Special Tony Award in 1980, namely: The Lawrence Langer Memorial Award for Distinguished Lifetime Achievement in the American Theatre. She was also nominated as Best Actress (Dramatic) in 1970 for a revival of "Harvey."

Is one of only a few actors to win an Oscar for a supporting role after winning an Oscar for a leading role.

Was a supporter of the Republican Party, attending all the conventions up until her death.

Shares the distinction with actors José Ferrer, 'Fredric March (I)' and Ingrid Bergman of being the first winners of acting Tony Awards when the annual event was established in 1947

First actress to win an Oscar for playing a prostitute in The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1931), her first talkie

She was awarded the American National Medal of the Arts in 1988 by the National Endowment of the Arts in Washington D.C.

Although she played Ingrid Bergman's grandmother in Anastasia (1956), she was less than fifteen years older than her.

The Helen Hayes Awards are given out annually to worthy theatrical productions in the Washington, D.C., Maryland, Virginia area, her birthplace and where she gained her first acting experience.

As of 2008, she is only one of six actors who have a 2-0 winning record when nominated for an acting Oscar. The others are Luise Rainer for The Great Ziegfeld (1936) and The Good Earth (1937); Vivien Leigh for Gone with the Wind (1939) and A Streetcar Named Desire (1951); Sally Field for Norma Rae (1979) and Places in the Heart (1984); 'Kevin Spacey' for The Usual Suspects (1995) and American Beauty (1999); and Hilary Swank for Boys Don't Cry (1999) and Million Dollar Baby (2004).

Personal Quotes

"I seem always to have reminded people of someone in their family. Perhaps I am the triumph of Plain Jane."

"Every human being on this earth is born with a tragedy, and it isn't original sin. He's born with the tragedy that he has to grow up. That he has to leave the nest, the security, and go out to do battle. He has to lose everything that is lovely and fight for a new loveliness of his own making, and it's a tragedy. A lot of people don't have the courage to do it."

"If you rest, you rust."

"The truth is that there is only one terminal dignity - love. And the story of love is not important - what is important is that one is capable of love. It is perhaps the only glimpse we are permitted of eternity."

"Age is not important unless you're a cheese."

"The hardest years in life are those between ten and seventy." Helen Hayes (at 73)

"I must refrain from talking too much about retirement. It's beginning to sound absurd."

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