Helen Lawson picture marathon on TCM this evening.

I'm sorry, OP, I thought you said that Helen wears a LEZ.

Helen Lawson's gay son, Henderson Lawson, will provide color commentary throughout.

They're not showing "I Could Go On Drinking?"

I don't know why they never show "All Tomorrow's Yesterdays"...maybe they don't have the rights to it?

I hope they don't make poor Bob Osborne drink Helenesque martinis -- his health is bad enough as it is.

Triva fact: in Sleep Tight, Baby, during the scene filmed in the beach house (in "Santa Monica" as if it wasn't clearly a studio set), you can see Helen take a swig from a bottle of booze she's hidden behind the cushion on the couch.

My fave is "Of Thee I Sing Sing," with Helen playing the sadistic but patriotic prison matron. You've never seen anyone handle a flag pole like Helen!

What, no "For The Love Of Maisie"?

TCM? It's going to be a fucking bleep-fest.

I hope Osborne tells that funny story about meeting HL in the chorus of ICE FOLLIES OF 1939. Who knew then they were both destined for greatness?

Have they colorized "29 Going on 50" yet?

Last year, when TCM was running a marathon of World War II films, they showed "Touch Not the Flagpole" (Helen was in it for about five minutes), but I've never seen it since. And it's not on DVD.

None of her Grand Guignol films from the 60s like "Scream Victoria, Scream Again!" and "Who's That Sitting in Mother's Chair?"

What a shame. For Christ's sake, this summer they even broadcast Lawson's 1969 insipid children's film, "Mother and the Elephant."

I'd kill to see the dyky babes in uniform picture she made with then Broadway legend Eve Harrington, "Broads in Barracks." TCM hasn't showed that in ages. Granted not one of Helen's better efforts, but it's good for campy laughs.

I see that [italic]Laugh, Jerks, Laugh![/italic] co-starring Lora Meredith, is on the schedule. Boy, was [italic]that[/italic] set a powder keg ...

Why doesn't TCM ever give Lora Meredith her own marathon?

Drew Barrymore is going to drop by during intermission, using the words "like", "rilly" and "amazeeen" over and over.

The Fellucci family owns the rights to Lora Meredith's pictures, and they have them hermetically sealed in vault in Loma Linda, California.

I hope they show her musical version of Sadie Thompson that was called "Sadie Was A Lady!".

I'm Robert Osborne. And November is NEELY O'HARA Month at Turner Classic Movies.

When are they showing "Who Gives a Flying Fuck?"

I love her historical pictures. That's probably because, as claimed by my mother, I was conceived while "Outta My Way, Pharoah!" was playing on the Late Late Movie.

R13 Seriously. It IS Halloween after all.

What about her bastardized version of Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf with Charles Nelson Reilly?

Oh I forgot about Albee's injunction. Do you think they really burned every print?

I kinda thought it was fun casting that she was in Argento's "Perspiria" alongside Claudia Cardinale as the women who lived in the house with the bloody basement.

My least favorite is "Mary's Little Lamb" where she's the long suffering Mary with the very sick daughter played by Shirley Temple. Lawson doesn't like it much either, calls it sentimental crap and said Temple's acting gave her diabetes. Glad TCM isn't showing it.

Don't forget that classic 1976 "Pages From A Stolen Book" where she tries to play a Miss Marple like English lady solving crimes at a remote bed and breakfast. It almost works until Charo shows up as the Spanish countess...

Will any of Helen's movie-of-the-week TV productions or mini-series be shown? You would think that the TV Guide, Hallmark or some other channel would be cashing in with their own Helen marathon.

Did you know Bette Davis stepped in for Helen for "The Dark Secret of Harvest Home"? Apparently Helen's sexual overtures to co-star Michael O'Keefe were too much for the actor and the crew!

Helen was politely "let go" from the production.

You can tell she wasn't feeling well during the big tap dance number in "Gangway for Happiness." I know it will upset a lot of you, but that whole movie just sucks.

[quote] Did you know Bette Davis stepped in for Helen for "The Dark Secret of Harvest Home"? Apparently Helen's sexual overtures to co-star Michael O'Keefe were too much for the actor and the crew!

Just as Lucy stepped in for Helen on "Stone Pillow.."

And she would have been wonderful in the groundbreaking NBC AIDS drama An Early Frost but shingles forced her to pull out and she was replaced by Sylvia Sidney.

R29 I've seen a few early scenes where before she was replaced. Terrible miscasting. She was supposed to be solemn and wise as Widow Fortune but instead she looked like she wandered off a drag queen production of "Mame"...jeweled turban, pancake make-up and long fur coats. It would have been a classic, but for all the wrong reasons!

Will TCM be showing the William Castle movie "She-Crab" featuring Miss Larson as the mysterious matriarch of a fleet of crab boats in Key Biscayne? Although a good print of the movie doesn't seem to exist, the scene where she summons the crabs to attack her eldest son's cheating wife is still scary.

TCM never shows my personal favorite Helen Lawson movie; the only one she made with the Rat Pack: "I'll Blow on Your Dice".

It's not even available on DVD. I guess they're holding it up to release on Blu-Ray.

Has anyone actually seen the Riunite commercial Helen did in the 70s?

Apparently it was far too scandalous for prime time.

Did they show her blaxploitation movie, JACKEE JONES, where Helen plays a society wife-cum-crimelord who messes with the wrong teacher's aid, played by Pam Grier?

Happier times....

Oh Helen. She copied that suit after attending Judy's last Palace engagement.

Help me out, guys. I'm drawing a blank on the name of the one film that Helen made with Neely O'Hara as a favor to the producer who she was sleeping with. Helen supposedly made major cash by doing it (in more ways than one, ha!)

I remember that Helen played Neely's cut-throat boss and Neely's 'career girl' character ended up having an affair with Helen's character's adopted Asian son. God, what was the name of it?

I checked imdb, but none of the titles rings a bell.

[quote]I remember that Helen played Neely's cut-throat boss and Neely's 'career girl' character ended up having an affair with Helen's character's adopted Asian son. God, what was the name of it?

With Sex You Get Eggroll?

Are they showing the neo-noir thriller "Dial S for Sycho?" (Too bad Helen had a hand in the scriptwriting and didn't bother to consult a dictionary.)

[all posts by tedious, racist idiot removed.]

It was "All That Helen Allows". It was one of the few times Helen played a character called Helen.

I am so glad it's time for a Lawson marathon . It's my favorite time of year!!!

Thanks, R41 ! That's it!

Neely was actually pretty good in it. Her final line, as she lay on her lover's stomach, was "I'm hungry for more!" Very risque for the mid-60s, I seem to remember hearing.

What did you girls think of the hour-long Lucy/Desi comedy hour episode in which Helen appeared, "Lucy Goes to Nairobi"? I always LOL at the scene where a captured Lucy, Helen, and Ethel disguise themselves as savages in an attempt to flee that native African village on those drunk elephants, only to be saved by Johnny Weissmuller's Tarzan. Johnny was still an attractive guy. Always wondered if he and Helen hooked up off-set.

Boy, this thread brings me back!

Thanks,guys.

I always dreamed about becoming a star. Back in high school, my drama teacher told me that I would be perfect for the lead in "The King and I". So, stupid here, shaves her head and doesn't get the part.

Helen Lawson was one of my favorite stars! My favorite of her films was "Airport". I was glad when she won the Oscar. How they made her look so old and grey, I will never know. They even made her look shorter and the way she altered her voice amazed me!

Why doesn't TCM ever show Helen's pre-code films like "My Heart's Desire," "All This and More," "Sinner," "Harlot Street," and "Delilah Goodwin"? I'd love to get those on dvd.

Helen's performance as a woman with multiple personalities in "Which Face in the Sun?" is often overlooked because it came out after Joanne Woodward's showier turn in "The Three Faces of Eve ."

Same thing happened with her performance as a deaf mute in "I Could Go On Signing." Jane Wyman stole all the attention.

What was the name of that musical she did in 1975 with Judy's daughter Lorna Minelli? I think it had to do with women's lib, a beach house, and death.

I'd only want to see "Harlot Street" if they restored the missing scene where Helen is taken anally by a sailor while orally pleasuring a young Marine lieutenant. Apparently it was cut from the film after a preview audience in Santa Barbara raised objections.

R40, do you happen to know who played Helen's character's adopted Asian son? Most thank you in advance.

That WAS the title, r51. WOMEN'S LIB, A BEACH HOUSE, AND DEATH had z Kander and Ebb score, and Helen and Liza duetted on the title song.

"This Joke Was Never Funny"

Katharine Hepburn had scathing words for Helen in her autobiography. They played sisters in the flop "Fool Me Twice," and Kate claimed that the only reason Helen got the role is because she seduced director John Ford. That of course prompted Kate's (in)famous description of Helen's acting style as "dick, dick, dick."

[quote] What was the name of that musical she did in 1975 with Judy's daughter Lorna Minelli? I think it had to do with women's lib, a beach house, and death.

Wasn't that "The Interior of My Sex"? But, I think that Lorna's last name was actually Loof or something.

"This Joke Was Never Funny"

That was released posthumously was it not? Of course, Helen lives in our hearts still even though hers is, well, still.

"Judy's daughter Lorna Minelli"

Mean sisssy has the same sir name as drunk sissy and not the same sir name as me? Why? Mean sissy and me had the same daddy who we called sir and drunk sissy had a sissy daddy vinsent.

Helen's not dead, guys.

We played beer-pong last night.

"This Joke Was Never Funny" was meant to be the start of Helen's fifth or sixth comeback. It was a gritty, realistic take of a old, female comedienne who played the 8 PM show in a shabby casino in Vegas. There was serious Oscar buzz, the rushes made grown men weep openly, so raw and human was the performance. But of course, Helen got a call from some Saudi prince to do a "private performance" on his yacht in the Aegean and she was off like shot, abandoning the film and basically forcing a shutdown. If "The Day the Clown Cried" is the most famous unseen film "This Joke Was Never Funny" is the second most. And a real shame, it would have been magnificent.

R61 Do you know who owns the rights to the material?

Is there any footage laying around of her attempt to capitalize on the Grand Guignol horror fad of the mid 60s?

I believe the film was titled "A Slap To The Face, A Knife In The Back" and starred Lawson as the homicidal main character and paired her with Ida Lupino.

The only info I have is that it was supposed to center around the two holed up in a halfway house for battered women but filming was halted when animosity between the leading ladies proved too much.

The hysterical Carol Burnett parody of "Take Your Filthy Hands Off It" called "Take Your Filthy Elbows Off It" was a classic.

For R53 : Shamefully, the adopted Asian son was played by Warren Beatty, with his skin-color altered, but without any stereotypical traits like those of Gene Kelly's character in Helen's film, "Lunch at Cartier's".

Where "Cartier's" was concerned, Truman Capote threatened to sue, but Helen threatened to retaliate by telling the world that he was gay.

Not surprisingly, the suit proceeded.

Eventually, Helen settled out of court.

Thanks for this thread. I needed a break from the laughs on the DL.

Pathetic.

[quote]Thanks for this thread. I needed a break from the laughs on the DL.

I didn't know that gay rappers posted here.

"around the two holed"

That is vulgar, even obscene, R63. I will ignore your future posts and even consider F&Fing them should I accidentally come upon them. Such vulgarity does not have a place in a discussion about one of film's greatest actresses.

What about Helen's string of 70s blaxploitation flicks?

Who could forget "Coffy and Cream," "White Chocolate," "Cotton Candie," or "Bride of Blacula"?

"Helen comes to Harlem" unfortunately never got the green light from the studio...

The only hit that comes out of a Helen Lawson show is Helen Lawson, and that's ME, baby, remember?

My first exposure to Helen was her guest spots on Sesame Street in the '70s (before they were permanently pulled for scaring children). She did them just after playing the syphilitic, one-eyed Gypsy fortune teller who kidnapped an innocent runaway (Christie McNichol) and tried to sell her to a Louisiana swamp pervert (Karl Malden) in [italic]Crystal Balls[/italic]. Apparently she was threatened with a permanent ban from several European countries for "singlehandedly promoting the greatest wave of violence against the Roma people since Hitler" and was trying to do damage control (that Donahue interview where she called [italic]Crystal Balls[/italic] "basically a documentary" and the Roma "a dirty and despicable people" didn't help). Unfortunately, her "friendlier and gentler" Sesame Street Gypsy character was so frightening that its traumatizing effects on young viewers are still being studied by researchers at the University of Michigan.

R72, is the negative physical and mental reaction by children to her Sesame Street performance still called "Gypsy's Turn" by researchers?

[all posts by tedious, racist idiot removed.]

It's surprising (or not) how the Southern Baptists and the Catholic Church still confuse Lawson's masterpiece, "Let's Be Gay and In Love" (co-starring Tyrone Power) with Harry Hamlin's "Making Love".

"Banned in Boston" was the label attached to both, even if Lawson's film never went beyond a French kiss and one shot of her panties with a few pubes sticking out (which was actually Ann-Margret's body-shot).

Oprah Winfrey loved the Lawson film when she first saw it on video and insisted that Ann-Margret's body be attached to her face on the cover of TV Guide.

We Americans are such prudes.

Yes R72, and those effects appear to be passed on from generation to generation, leading one researcher to term the Luludja spots (her character's name) "visual thalidomide." Very sad.

Robert Osbourne seems so obsequious during the intros between films. When he just introduced, "Get Outta My Way, Pharaoh", he said, "Helen Lawson makes any Egyptian woman who ever lived look like Anubis, the dog-headed god."

Is Lawson subsidizing TCM?

And what about her groundbreaking kiss with Sammy Davis Jr. in the sex-comedy classic "Once You Go Black"?

[quote] And what about her groundbreaking kiss with Sammy Davis Jr. in the sex-comedy classic "Once You Go Black"?

Actually, co-starring with Sammy Davis, Jr. was Helen's second choice. She had originally wanted to co-star with Sydney Poitier, but he was, well, rather shocked by her offer to give him "the lilies of her field", while pushing his hand under her skirt (so the story goes).

Poitier's people, however, have asserted that his decision to pass on that movie was merely a matter of the quality of the script.

She was wonderful in Hooch n' Cooch. I still get chills whenever I hear her sing "Baby, I Ain't Getting Rid of It." Love the costumes by Edith Head.

Edith Head gave good wardrobe.

I don't get it. I thought Helen Lawson was an imaginary character of datalounge.

No, R82 , she was/is one of the greatest Hollywood stars ever!

Is it true Helen was replaced by Myrna Loy in The Thin Man because Asta bit her on the ass?

[quote] The best part of watching a Helen Lawson movie are the scenes where she is visibly intoxicated.

It's also the most enjoyable parts of her specials. I remember the Bicentennial Christmas special when, towards the end, she was so sloshed she introduced Joey Heatherton as Heather Joeyton.

The audience roared. Even Joey loved it!

"I remember the Bicentennial Christmas special"

Did President Ford make a cameo or did he pull out at the last minute?

Honey, Jerry always pulled out at the last minute! It's called the rhythm method!

Is it true that she bailed on her big budget remake of Crawford's TORCH SONG, called SEEING EYE BROAD, when she realized it was conceived not as a showcase for her formidable talents, but as Tom Sullivan's big comeback vehicle?

R-80, wasn't Hooch 'n Cooch the musical version of The Days of Wine and Roses? I saw her in the Broadway version in 1975. Rumored that Helen's antic's were what drove her co-star, Gig Young to later kill himself.

Loved her second attempt as a blind woman in "I Can't See!"

Ugh, I really hope they don't show that one dud of hers, "Blackie." That's the one where she stars opposite Ethel Waters as a mixed race girl trying to pass as black. Pathetic.

They're showing the TV Movie remake of Footsteps On the Ceiling. Margo Channing needed the money and did a cameo as Helen's mother!

R4 I think you've got that wrong-- I heard that William Powell was the one who bit her.

I wish they'd rerun that infamous episode of LAUGH IN she guested on, with Jackie DeShannon and Nipsey Russell. Go-go dancing as a drunken Pat Nixon! Comedy gold.

Does anyone know where I can find Helen's screen test for Celie in "The Color Purple"? It was on youtube last year, but it's since been taken down.

Did she do her own stunts in "Flying Down to Uruguay"? The movie sucked, but I do like her rendition of "Montevideo by the Bay-O."

Remember her brief foray into country music. I'll never forget when she tried to upstage Minnie Pearl at the Grand Ole Opry in 1975 with her rendition of "The Faucet Ain't the Only Thing Dripping at 2 AM in My Rat-Infested Flat When My Man's Around."

R98, I think her foray failed because country music fans thought "flat" was a reference to either tits or the landscape. Picture the former infested with rats, and you'll see why her album failed.

Is TCM going to show the 1940 version of "Alice in Wonderland" in which Helen Lawson played the Red Queen? If I recall correctly she was caught in her dressing room giving head to the Knave of Hearts.

"Christmas in Cleveland" lacked the charm of Barbara Stanwyck's "Christmas in Connecticut," but it's remembered for the deplorable scene in which Helen appeared to be inappropriately intrigued by Santa's reindeer.

Why, oh why did they have Rita Hayworth play Helen's role when Hit the Sky! was filmed? After all, Helen had a big film following, too.

This wasn't quite as bad as Lucy playing Mame instead of Lansbury, but nearly so.

{quote] Rumored that Helen's antic's were what drove her co-star, Gig Young to later kill himself.

You know Helen was with Natalie Wood, Robert Wagner and Christopher Walken on the boat that night.....

Not a coincidence her next movie, where she played an aging obstetrician, was called "Push!"

Helen was supposed to play Nurse Ratched (Ratchet?) in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. But she felt the character was "a pussy" and she declined.

Did Helen screen test for Scarlett O'Hara? I wonder how Gone With the Wind would have been different if Helen had played her. Well, for one thing, she wouldn't have been pining for that prissy little Ashley.

[quote] Was Rita also dubbed by Margaret Whiting

No. India Adams.

In tropical make-up.

Someone needs to put this thread out of its misery. This Helen Lawson bullshit was never ever amusing. You fossilized caftan-clad queens and your posts are an embarrassment to modern gay culture.

[quote] Someone needs to put this thread out of its misery. This Helen Lawson bullshit was never ever amusing. You fossilized caftan-clad queens and your posts are an embarrassment to modern gay culture.

The above poster should be forced to watch a Helen Lawson marathon, Clockwork Orange-style.

[quote]your posts are an embarrassment to modern gay culture

This is just not possible

Labor Day in Larchmont was my favorite. And that Carl Betz-what a hunk.

I think her low point (but there are so many), was when she made that Roger Corman film, Fossilized Caftan-clad Queens.

I remember her live action Walt Disney phase in the 70s, the villainess in "Back and Forth On Wizard Hill" and the old lady in "The Fortune in the Forest."

Christ. I remember when she made "Not Without My r109."

I remember screaming at the tv, LEAVE HIM! LEAVE HIM!

I was touched by her cameo in the 1978 Afterschool Special "Is Mama Drinking Again?"

Another one of her great and underrated performances was as Lucy Mercer in the historical drama "I Will Not Be Your Concubine, FDR!" Her catfight scene with Miriam Hopkins' Eleanor in the wading pool at Hyde Park was classic.

Girdles and Guns, the police drama with Lucille Ball that was remade for TV as Cagney and Lacey. The TV series cast younger with a feminist slant. You believed Helen and Lucy as hard boiled NYC detectives who blew away any thug without remorse. Unfortunately, they hated each other in real life and it showed.

The network wanted to pick up Girdles and Guns as a mid season replacement, but Gary wouldn't let Lucy do it.

Can anyone provide a lead on the rare 78 rpm record of "Goin' Down the Treasure Trail" the song Helen recorded with Roy Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers for the 1944 Republic western "The Treasure Trail"? Helen was fired from her role as a rowdy dance hall gal because Dale Evans was worried that she might act out the song title with Roy.

I thought "Girdles and Guns" was the live tv musical she did with Rosemary Clooney during the 1955 tv season? It was sponsored by Kraft and during one of the commercials where they are making a salad with Green Goddess dressing, you can hear Helen in the backround screaming at someone to "...light my fucking Pall Mall!"

Helen actually made three After School Specials. The other two were "Touched in My Private Place" and "It Hurts Up In There."

She played therapist Sylvia Poonson in "Touched in My Private Place," and the scene where she tried to get Pamelyn Martin to point to the places she'd been touched on an old rag doll was quite moving. In "It Hurts Up In There," she was Dr. Clamma Hanz, a pediatric proctologist on a mission.

Does anyone remember Helen's six-month run as the host of the children's game show "Lickity Split"? It came on Saturday mornings after "Sky King" on CBS.

If I remember correctly, Helen charted briefly with her single of the title song. Too bad that scandal with one of her midget helpers got the show canceled.

There were so many lez undertones in "Hands Off the Carpet!" that picture she made with Mercedes McCambridge.

I love "Mrs. Bukkake", that sentimental 1960s tale about a Jewish-American widow who meets and marries a Japanese porn movie producer.

"I love "Mrs. Bukkake", that sentimental 1960s tale about a Jewish-American widow who meets and marries a Japanese porn movie producer."

Although, in retrospect, it probably wasn't a great idea to put Sir Laurence Olivier in yellowface...

Does anyone remember the Ross Hunter films she did in the 50s and 60s?

There was talk of a sequel to Rona Jaffe's The Best of Everything with Lawson starring as 'The Rabbit Faced Wife.' Sort of a spin-off if you will.

Negotiations fell apart when Lawson insisted that the picture be set in Hell and include a surreal sex scene involving herself, Stephen Boyd, Suzy Parker's deceased Gregg and a goat.

Is Helen related to Nigella? Maggie?

I don't think any US theater ever showed her German scat movie, loosely translated to "Never Trust a Sneeze."

[quote]I don't think any US theater ever showed her German scat movie, loosely translated to "Never Trust a Sneeze."

After seeing this picture as a young girl, Veronica Moser said it became her inspiration.

Helen did a low-budget rip off of Hitchcock's Lifeboat. It was Helen Lawson and Simone Simon as lone survivors of a German U-Boat attack. Their liferaft springs a leak, and the film is their conversations and reminiscences as they take turns bailing out the liferaft. "Two Girls, One Cup" a a bomb at the wartime box office, unfortunately.

She acquitted herself rather well in the 1977 BBC sitcom That's No Lady! as Broadway star Flossie Reynolds aka Lady Bumchester of Bognor Regis. Her duets with special guest Molly Sugden (as music hall headliner Mavis Chingford) were quite marvelous.

Helen never won an oscar. Crime.

Helen on "The Women":

"Yeah they wanted me to do it. They wanted me for the role that Roz did. The thing was that I didn't want to work with Cukor. Ya know he was a fag. I got nothing against them. Hollywood is filled with them. Always was and a lot a them were my pals. But I wouldn't trust any a them to direct me. If you don't know how to screw a broad how the fuck are you gonna direct one? They're the same fucking thing."

Helen on "The Women" (continued):

"Also I didn't want to do all-dame picture. The audience was gonna think we were all a load of rug munchers. Ya gotta understand, there were already rumors about me cuz I was pals with Marj Main and Mary Wickes, and I knew the picture would add fuel that fire. The last thing ya wanted back then was for the audience to see ya as a dyke. I warned Joan not to do it but she didn't listen. She thought this was her big chance to upstage Norma and she couldn't fucking let go of that. So no, I got no regrets about not doing that picture. Besides, after I turned that down, I got my first western, "Stagecoach to Palestine." I did that with Randy Scott and Gary Cooper, which was a fucking smart move. John Ford was a man's man, all booze and broads, and he knew how to direct a broad. Now I tell ya, no dame in her right mind would rather work with Cukor and those cunts than these swell guys. Yeah, before ya ask, Coop screwed me a couple of times. Now Coop was 5'11". When I think of Coop, it reminds something my pal Mae West used to say: Never mind about the 5 feet...tell me about those 11 inches."

Helen also had that nasty feud with Susan Hayward......

All this talk of Helen Lawson reminded me of a humorous anecdote that Tallulah Bankhead used to tell at her dinner parties:

One of Helen's earliest stage appearances was as a supernumerary in "Candida," starring the divine Katharine Cornell. On the first day of rehearsals, the director, Guthrie McClintic, who had a keen eye for detail (as well as for the male stagehands), was dissatisfied with young Helen's carriage and demeanor, and reminded her that she was playing a Victorian-era girl and thus, must act [italic]virginal[/italic]. Without missing a beat, Kit Cornell quipped, "Darling, she's an extra, not an actress."

Helen was fired from a Sidney Poitier movie after they got into a nasty feud.

When the director guided her to a kiss with Poitier, she put her foot down and said, "This girl don't swirl!"

To which Poitier replied, "Girl? My, you have a very long memory."

She had to be removed by security. I didn't even KNOW you could do THAT with a lit cigarette....

What's the story behind Helen's quote regarding Judy Garland, "Give Judy my money"?

r140, the quote was actually "Give Judy my honey," and I think we all know what she meant by that.

Next week on The Essentials, the 1967 Helen Lawson-Charles Nelson Riley film "Who's Frightened of Ayn Rand?" They play a university couple who have a deteriorating marriage. Famous for Lawson walking off the set the last week of filming. Lola Heatherton stepped in for her as a body double. This troubled production is most noted for its use of dubbing and foley work.

R142 Is that the one with the Bobby Bittman cameo?

Why has no one mentioned Lawson's most shameful musical film, "Ex-Nazis Prefer Blondes" (which she co-produced in the 50s)?

Helen, a top-secret, newly-trained member of Mossad,the Israeli national intelligence agency, is sent to South American to seduce an escaped Nazi in order to entrap him. Instead, she falls in love and becomes his mistress.

She is eventually kidnapped by another agent (played by James Mason), who sends her into a de-programming unit of the the intelligence agency. Her character's last line is, "Thanks, but he was too hung to be hanged."

The songs "Mein Hairy Herr", as well as "Diamonds are a Jew's best friend", made her an anathema to Hollywood for several years.

Helen claimed that the songs were only written to show the extent of her character's brain-washing, but the Hollywood community was naturally furious.

Her follow-up film, her attempt to 'make good', "The Only Good German Is A Dead German", was equally polarizing and started riots in Chicago and New York which injured dozens of German-Americans.

She must have paid off a lot of people to remain viable in Hollywood.

[quote] I don't think any US theater ever showed her German scat movie, loosely translated to "Never Trust a Sneeze."

And to think poor Helen thought she was going to play a Jazz singer.

How did she find the time to do stage musicals?

Her life was a blur of blow jobs!

Can't believe no one has mentioned the inspiring "No Womb for Margery" with Greer Garson. The scene in the chinese "hotel" (thnly disguised brothel) with the gals and the python was great cinema. I wonder how the two grande-dames liked working with each other?

Her tragic portrayal of herpes victim Hannah Amnaught in "An Itch I Can't Scratch" still brings tears to my eyes.

No one has mentioned that 1970s TV classic, "The Helen Lawson Show," a Sit-Com where Helen played Helen Schwartz, a widow with 12 rambunctious children. The show was so bad that it was canceled after just two episodes, like "The Tammy Grimes Show".

150+ threads, and no mention of Helen's famous tryst with James Dean? You bitches disappoint me. Her come-on line was, "Heya, rebel, I can give you a fucking cause." When Jimmy told her that he didn't go "that way," her response was, "I know it, Jimmy. I ain't the type of dame that was born yesterday. Just lie back. You won't need to lift a finger. I'll lift what needs lifting."

[quote]Her tragic portrayal of herpes victim Hannah Amnaught in "An Itch I Can't Scratch" still brings tears to my eyes.

Sadly, it went up against ABC's rival VD vehicle [italic]Someone I Touched[/italic] and tanked in the Nielsens. Natch, Helen nursed a seething grudge against Cloris Leachman for decades after—hence the gift-wrapped vial of penicillin she had delivered backstage at [italic]Dancing with the Stars[/italic] a few years ago. The note read, "Kisses on your opening ... NOT!"

Helen Lawson is STILL ALIVE?!?!?

yes Helen is alive, so is her sister and fellow actress Jonlivia DeFontainland, although they have not spoken to each other in decades. |Anyone ever find out what started hollywoods most notorious feud?

[all posts by tedious, racist idiot removed.]

She's gonna throat that fucking cigarette!

[quote] Helen played Helen Schwartz, a widow with 12 rambunctious children.

That was yanked by network heads - Helen kept pronouncing Schwartz "Schwanz" on the air.

My mother remembers the viewer outrage when Helen guested on Harry Belafonte's TV special, and then touched him as they sang a duet of Mr. Bojangles. Supposedly the switchboards at CBS lit up like a christmas tree. Of course, she touched him on his crotch, but that was beside the point.

[all posts by tedious, racist idiot removed.]

Helen wasn't always the celebrated star of stage and screen. No no no. Back when she was still Helen Laughlin, doing community theatre in Mamaroneck, Tallulah, Blyth Daly, and I went up to see her perform in a musical adaptation of the life of Mata Hari. Helen played the title role, and she was absolutely dreadful! During the second act, when the gendarmes finally showed up to arrest Mata Hari, Tallu just couldn't contain herself and shouted, "Shoot her now!" I was mortified.

I remember back in the 80's my mom working out to her exercise video, "Helen Lawsons' Secret To A Smokin' Hot Body"

90 minutes of La Lawson in a skintight lycra bodysuit & legwarmers, showing various exercises you could perform without having to put out your cigarette. It was produced by Phillip Morris Company , just before the government handed them that multi billion dollar fine.

I remember the first R-rated movie I ever saw was Helen's Russ Meyer C- flick, "The Prime of Miss Jean's Booty."

Helen did another risque picture, but it was never released because the studio couldn't get it downgraded from X to R. Thus, "Clitty Clitty Bang Bang" has collected dust all these years.

[quote]Helen did another risque picture, but it was never released because the studio couldn't get it downgraded from X to R. Thus, "Clitty Clitty Bang Bang" has collected dust all these years.

Oh yeah, huge controversy with that one. Apparently Helen kept demanding a stunt cock while battling with co-star Dick Van Dyke.

She was reportedly overhead saying, "Trust me, he's way more dyke than dick!"

When Helen heard that Angela Lansbury had been cast as the lead in "bedknobs & broomsticks" she was absolutely livid with rage ...

"How DARE they not give me that fucking role... no one can do justice to that story but ME, and certainly not some uptight English CUNT!"

It wasn't until someone explained to Helen that "Bedknobs & Broomsticks" was a childrens movie and not the x rated vision that the title suggested in her mind did she finally calm down.

Remember when she was really hard up for dough and she made that super-low budget Japanese monster flick "Chachi!," where she played an American scientisit trying to stop a huge reptilian creature from terrorizing some metropolis? Her awful dialogue essentially consisted of "I need to get Chachi soon," "Chachi is too huge and overpowering," "Chachi tried to break through my back door."

She was originally offered the Dr. Julia Hoffman role on "Dark Shadows," and was thinking of taking it until she found out all the male cast members were gay. She was overheard telling Dan Curtis, "Forget it, Danny. I ain't gonna be bit by no vampire while he's looking over my shoulder at the fucking fresh-faced PA."

R162 I remember that. She had so much camel toe she gave the Prancercize lady a run for her money.

And her snatch.

You may have heard that Mercedes McCambridge was the voice of Pazuzu in The Exorcist. But I bet you didn't know that Helen Lawson's snatch was the model for the closet in Poltergeist. And now you know...

Helen's loss of the Lansbury role is what led to her own musical, which was written for her by jingle writer Clyda Chole.

"Big Knobs and Drumsticks" was released by American International Pictures, and Dot Records did the soundtrack recording, which is very rare. It's worth tracking down, though, to hear Helen warbling "Do Lay Me," "Prostitutiary Locomotion," "Superali-FagAlickme-let'sPee-Alanauseous," "Whore on a Music Box" and "Let's Go Kite a Check."

"Did Helen screen test for Scarlett O'Hara?"

Yes. It was awful.

She auditioned to replace Diana Hyland in Eight is Enough.

But the producers passed when she opened her audition by saying: "Eight at my place means I'm just getting started!"

[all posts by tedious, racist idiot removed.]

Helen just didn't fit into the 70s. She tried to snare a guest spot on Little House on the Prairie but her lit cigarette burnt Melissa Sue Anderson's gingham frock to a crisp.

And she was frustrated to boot that she couldn't get Pa Ingalls to give her a good plowing....

I was disappointed TCM didn't show "Gypsy Madonna," Helen Lawson's inferior, though wildly entertaining, sequel to "Torch Song." Originally slated to be a big-budgeted musical extravaganza starring Joan Crawford and star-of-the-moment, Elvis Presley, as her rock 'n' roll composer and paramour, things fell by the wayside when Crawford cracked a vertebrae while rehearsing the number "Rock 'n' Roll Hellcat." Crawford bowed out, and so too went much of the financing. Presley soon followed suit, and Lawson and Johnnie Ray stepped in at a fraction of the cost. Not surprisingly, the romantic pairing failed to generate much heat.

Lawson, however, is a sight to behold in the musical number "Hot Rod Mama" -- long-in-the-tooth but audaciously bold in belly-baring pink top and the shortest shorts the 1950s would allow (clearly the inspiration for Pinky Tuscadero decades later), writhing atop a '56 T-Bird and gyrating against a dozen leather-clad male dancers straight out of Tom of Finland's photobooks.

I was so looking forward to the sequel to Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte. Helen and June Allyson were the leads in "Shut Up You Bitch."

But Aldrich lost the funding and June Allyson pissed herself out of the role, so it was canned.

Remember when Helen, in her bitter rivalry with Lucille Ball, joined forces with Marjorie Main to form their own production company, LezzieLaw? Honestly, some of the shows she proposed were totally inappropriate for viewers. I mean, seriously, what the hell were they thinking? "Deflower Miss Brooks"? "The Randy Griffith Show"? "Make Room for Daddy's Dick"?

It's a shame that Helen's ill fated appearance on "The Muppet Show" never made it to air.

The only footage is Helen being lead out by security saying;

" Hey look , everyone else in the show had a hand up their ass, how the fuck was I supposed to know?

"Tell that little hippie guy Hanson I'm sorry about his hand, he may want to get that checked out, I picked up some nasty crotchrot down in Haiti last month, might be catchy."

Helen almost landed a spot on Carol Burnett until Carol saw her at a party at Jim Nabors.

She was sprawled on a couch with a bottle of gin in her snatch.

"Who's up for a little malt vinegar?"

Can anyone remember her character's name when she was a guest on The Love Boat?

Bump.

For R181 :

Helen's character's name Renee McCoy. She played Julie's brassy aunt.

I've heard that she was difficult, calling the script "shittier than Dan Thomas' coffee table".

Most of the cast didn't even know what she meant, so she told the story over cocktails during a break in shooting. Lauren Tewes apparently left the room and threw up. Helen chalked it up to "too much blow and gin". She predicted that Tewes would be dropped from the cast.

Also, it was said that she insulted Gavin McLeod by grabbing his crotch and saying, "So, it feels like you rely on the motion of the ocean and not the size of the ship."

I remember being home from school sick as a kid in the mid-70s and watching her guest with Elaine Joyce on the $25,000 Pyramid. Helen was playing with some old school marm type. I remember that when Dick Clark told her it was her turn to give, she quipped, "Dickie, my boy, I ain't never gave it to another dame in my life, and you want me to start now, at my age? OK, I'll give it a whirl so I can win this sweet old broad some dough." I asked my mother what Miss Lawson meant, and she just blushed.

They had to burn the video of Helen's appearance on MatchGame74. She was booked for two weeks but left after one day.

She'd cracked a few clever jokes and the first day was going well, until she answered the question, "Passengers on a place saw the copilot giving the pilot a BLANK" with "one-a Helen's special deep throat blowjobs!"

Charles Nelson Reilly clutched his pearls and gasped. Brett Somers whispered to Betty White, "Huh, who knew? I always thought Lawson was a big ole dyke."

She tried to offer Richard Dawson a sample, but he fled from the soundstage.

Did Helen ever take a turn as (not at) a director?

I've heard those myth-like stories about Helen stepping in to replace Lauren Bacall in Applause after Bacall threw out her back....

Of course, everyone knows about her stopping the 11 o'clock number to yell at the patrons sitting in row one.

"SHADDUP, you chattering cunts!"

Helen also never wore underwear so patrons got the full Sharon Stone when she did the swing bit during the gay bar scene.

Did her merkin fly off?

Helen never wore underwear and I witnesses that firsthand back in '46. Tallulah Bankhead, Kit Cornell, Eva Le Gallienne, and I piled into a towncar and headed for Helen's soiree at her Mount Kisco home. We were running late, and when we arrived, Helen, who apparently had had one too many drinks by then, waved at us from atop the spiral staircase. She then proceeded to hike up her skirt, revealing nothing but what nature provided, mounted the banister and slid down. But when she reached midpoint, she lost momentum, slowed to a stop, and toppled over. Stunned, I turned to the girls and said, "Good gracious, what happened there?"

Tallu took a drag off her cigarette and deadpanned, "air pocket."

Mount Kisco?

Wasn't that Katherine Graham's home? I think she got a rather nasty write up in the Post after that night. The Grahams had to replace that bannister.

Darling, who one God's green Earth would want to place their hand on a banister stained with skid marks?

Helen, on turning down the role of Angela Channing on "Falcon Crest":

"Boy, I sure fucked that one up, didn't I? I'd a been rolling in it. I read the script and thought, what the hell do I know about wine except that after two glasses of chianti, my fucking gams are spread to the goddamn heavens. Also the only man in her life was some houseboy, who was a chink and probably a fag. I didn't know how to play no spinster broad who wasn't getting fucked regularly. Now if they had Lorenzo Lamas fucking me, than it woulda been a different story, but he was her fucking grandson. Ya know, I used to go with his pop Fernando. Now there was a man who could get a dyke to give up the rug. He got me, and he didn't even need no chianti to do it."

Meanwhile, she took a role on Pink Lady and Jeff.

She shulda fired her agent long ago.

I just remembered when Helen stepped in for Audra Lindley on "Three's Company" while the latter was on leave for cancer treatments.

Apparently, when Stanley Roper said, "Not tonight, Helen", Helen ad-libbed "Nor any night, you tinymeat, smug bastard."

Lawson got her kicked off the set, but she and Joyce DeWitt have been life-long friends. Joyce confessed to Helen that John Ritter was hung and Helen promised to give him the time of his life. Helen actually asked Ann Wedgeworth (Lana) into her trailer to give her a "few tips", but only ended up ripping out her pubes in hand-fulls using a stong adhesive.

Later, after a few drinks in Helen's trailer, Ritter told friends that he had never had such a blowjob in his entire life.

Both Helen and Joyce DeWitt knew they were slumming on "Three's Company", which was why they developed such an affinity for each other.

Helen was the one who told Joyce, "Try dinner theater, hon. You'll be on Broadway before you know it!"

Not all of Helen's advice was sound, but she meant well. DeWitt's autobiography, "Let's Talk About Two", speaks very highly about La Lawson.

No visit to LA is complete without a visit to The Helen Lawson Center, located at her former Holmby Hills estate "Helenwood". Showcasing her amazing career, movie memorabilia and vast collection of pornographic art . Helen decided to found a center for the Arts the day she learned it was a great tax `dodge, plus I saw a Negress walking up the street yesterday, so you know the neighbourhoods going to hell anyways.

I personally love having the chance to peak behind the curtain and see how Helen lived, her famous penis shaped swimming pool & tongue shaped slide, her `rumpus room`( no one under age 18 admitted>), her vast movie memorabilia collection ( of course I kept the wardrobes, those Jew bastards owed me `), and so much more. Her bourbon cellar walk in vomitorium, world renowned collection of dildos ( these are my fucking Oscars baby)`, even her bathroom with the mirrored walls, floors ,ceiling even commode is mirrored( hey you gotta know how you look from all angles at all times ) . .

R197 must be Julie.

God, Julie, is there no thread that you cannot contribute to?

Is it true that Helen took a huge shit in a La Bellagio rest room in Las Vegas?

I believe that was Bea Arthur, R199 . She had a reputation of having bowel issues. Poor soul. She was up for the "Depends" commercials based on that reputation, but June Allyson's incontinence was even more well-known.

Still, Bea could really fill a room.

Thank God for Glade products.

Betty, please. We all know you got Helen fired from The Golden Girls. She landed the role of Dorothy after that disastrous Elaine Stritch audition.

Sending a bottle of champagne and oysters to Helen's dressing room was just evil on your part. Who knew she'd do THAT to the director?

R200, Bea was known for her serial "tours" of the Vegas powder rooms. She always said she appreciated the high toilet seats in Vegas for the "more mature" visitors, because her drooping privates stayed out of the water for a change.

But Miss Lawson did execute an infamous evacuation in the La Bellagio ladies' once - it was in the Club Prive, where she had followed Dale Robertson to cadge some chips off him. She had been hitting the old Circus Circus lunch buffet hard, and the Tijuana Savory Brunch Taquitos apparently had been made with old chum left over from the Lake Powell Carp Clearance project. She limped out of the restroom and told Robertson, "It was such a huge one it lifted me up off the seat." He said, "There's something on the back of your leg," and made a beeline for the door as she grabbed the table cloth off to clean up.

It was in his autobiography.

"I didn't have corn!" is incorrectly attributed to Carol Channing.

It was HELEN, of course.

"La Bellagio"? Is this a thing now?

Helen wanted a spot on The Big Valley but was afraid of Barbara Stanwyck.

She said, "I ain't never let a dame eat at the Y and I'm not about to now."

R199, You got it all wrong. It wasn't the Bellagio, it was the Dunes, the precursor to the Bellagio (and for the record it's simply "Bellagio." If you want to use the Italian definite article, the correct would be "Il Bellagio."). And it wasn't the restroom either, it was out in the very center of the lobby.

Picture it, 1973, the Dunes Hotel. Helen Lawson had been in Los Angeles for weeks, putting together a one-woman-show for her Las Vegas debut at the Dunes. However, her anxiety and excitement (mixed with a few tumblers of bourbon), turned to rage as her limousine approached the hotel driveway. There on the towering marquee in big block letters announced: JOEY HEATHERTON. Underneath it, in smaller, narrower letters, along with other assorted names from yesteryear read, "Helen Lawson." Helen stormed into the hotel lobby and tore into the management staff on hand. She demanded top billing.

"But Miss Lawson," one of them protested, "Miss Heatherton is the headlining act. You are opening, along with Trini Lopez and Frankie Laine."

Helen's eyes widened before ripping the poor boy to shreds, "Helen Lawson opens for no one, pal! Not for the President, not for the Pope, not even for the goddamn Queen of England! And [italic]especially[/italic] not for some talentless hussy whose left leg hasn't seen the right one in a decade!"

She then turned on her heel, walked towards the center of the lobby, and proclaimed, "If this classy joint wants to sully its reputation with shitty acts, I'll give you a shitty act worth remembering!"

With that, Helen dropped her polyester slacks to her knees, squatted, dropped a turd, stood back up and pulled up her slacks, cocked her hat, and walked out.

Proof that all Datalounge threads eventually become poop threads....

Helen would steal my lightbulbs from my dressing room.

She did you a favor, Yvette.

They didn't call her "Mount St. Helens" for nuthin'!

Helen's daughter Julie is such a CUNT!

Shit, this thread's got some fucking legs, which is a hellava lot more than you can say about Neely.

Speaking of Helen and shit, be sure to ask her about Danny Thomas and a glass coffee table she broke at his house...

R207 those are LIES!

I love Heather Joeyton!

bump.

Bump is what's on my hoo ha after Milton Berle spent a night rammin' it....

Who has resisted Helen's, uh, charms?

WHATHEFUCK?

"WHATHEFUCK?"

That's the much-derided sequel to "Who Gives a Flying Fuck?" I think Helen was the only one of the stars to do the sequel. I wish her love for a paycheck hadn't outweighed her artistic sensibility.

Helen, on turning down the role of Margaret Anderson on "Father Knows Best."

"I knew Bobby Young. Back in 42 we did one of them shorts together warning GIs about screwing dames overseas, 'Her Foxhole Gave Him VD'. He felt the script for this series he wanted to do was too sweet and needed a dame like myself, ya know, to give it a little color. I said to Bobby, sure I ain't above giving TV a try. Then I was introduced to the actor they got to play my son. Fucking handsome as the day was long with a body carved from fucking granite, I tell ya. And I'd swear on a stack of King Jameses that never didn't have no stiffie. I went to Bobby and said, listen, Bobby, I like ya and I wanna help ya out, but I gotta back out, cause the kid playing the son glazes my ham. Ain't sure I could get through a scene with him without leaving drool on my chin. America just ain't ready for that. He was swell about it. Of course, nowadays, just about anything fucking goes. What the fuck is that word they use about hot moms? Oh yeah, MILF. I woulda been tv's first fucking MILF. How do ya like that?"

Yet she never made it in TV. It was always an almost, but not quite, proposition.

She was thisclose to a recurring role on "Trapper John M.D." until she kept chasing the show's star, Pernell Roberts.

"Pernell Rub-it," she called him. "That dome head a-yours got me all worked up. Let's see the other dome head, baby."

[quote]Who has resisted Helen's, uh, charms?

Dirk Bogarde. Helen tried to seduce the handsome British star on the set of "I Could Go On Drinking" (loosely based on the life of Barbara Payton) at Pinewood Studios. She had heard rumors that he was gay, so she tried to lure him in by dropping names of celebrated men she's had.

"Ty Power. Brando. Olivier. All of them have taken a dip in my pond."

"What a coincidence!" Bogarde responded. "They've all taken dips in my pond as well. And I do mean that in the plural."

She tried with James Mason, but he politely declined, calling Helen a "colorful gem" that "couldn't be captured."

What he didn't want to "capture" was the scorching case of VD that Helen allegedly had at the time.

Helen was eat up with so many VDs that docs couldn't even diagnose some of them. She had shit that would make a man's dick fall off.

That's why, in later years, Helen's nickname was "Chernobyl Clitoris."

The song Tainted Twat was a tribute to Helen.

Remember her failed foray in producing TV movies. She was the original co-producer on Something About Amelia, until she gave that disastrous interview on Entertainment Tonight to Dixie Watley in which she referred to the film as a modern-day love story. Her attempt to produce An Early Frost was also cut short after that infamous interview with Rona Barrett in which she said she had wanted to name the film "A Bad Batch of Fudge."

A couple of months ago, an old friend of mine moved across-country for a job promotion. He left me with an old collection of VHS tapes that I am converting to DVD.

I was surprised to find a copy of a very early Helen Lawson film I had never heard of: "So long, Daddy!".

It co-stars Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and Mary Pickford as her divorced mother and father. Pickford, who plays a light-skinned, mixed-race woman who passes for white, takes up with a local black businessman, Seth (played by a young Paul Robeson). Helen is very young in the film.

Lawson is billed as "Baby Helen Lawson" and sings a duet with Baby Rose Marie (of "Dick Van Dyke Show" fame) about divorce called,"Our mommies wanted bigger things".

The sub-text abounds.

Definitely pre-code. Way, way ahead of its time.

bump.

I think there's still footage of Helen at "Battle of the Network Stars."

She kept grabbing at Gregory Harrison's cock. I can't say as I blame her.....

One of my favorites from Helen's noir period is "The Girl With Something Extra". Not to be confused with the 1970s Sally Field sitcom, this black-and-white film from the 40s opens with gangster Broderick Crawford on the lam for his life when he stops by the operating lab of doctor Hans Conreid. When he corners the doctor and his nurse at gunpoint and orders them to change his appearance, it looks like the gangsters plan will succeed until the doctor has a fatal heart attack mid-operation. Waking up from the operation, the gangster learns that the operation was only half-successful. Even more importantly, he learns that the doctor was experimenting in the then-unheard field of gender reassignment. As the gangster looks into a mirror, he's shocked to discover that he's female (now played by Helen Lawson) but with the gruff voice of Broderick Crawford as well as "naughty bits below the waist". As the authorities discover his whereabouts, the gangster is forced to hit the road -- half male/half female. Some prints of the movie include an edited scene featuring Helen Lawdon and a young Tony Perkins in an more than awkward romantic scene. Make sure you watch until the shocking end.

Will any network be re-airing the "Helen Lawson Holiday Special"?

R233, A Christmas classic. Especially when Helen sings "Winter Wonderland" with Shari Lewis, Lamb Chop and Charlie Horse, and ice dances with Grover Dale.

No one has mentioned all the drag queens who make a living doing Helen Lawson impersonations. There are enough of them to fill a whole season of RuPaul's Drag Race.

Wasn't that a challenge during the lost season of the RuPaul show? To do a Helen Lawson impersonation?

I voted r232 for wit and wisdom

R233 and R234 -

Do you mean the 1960s Christmas special? I think Lamb Chop was on that one. Helen was awful jealous of her.

But there's also the 1981 one, with Bea Arthur, Madame, and Melissa Manchester.

Did Helen make an appearance in the notorious Star Wars Holiday Special along with Art Carney and Bea Arthur?

I liked Helen's appearance in the Paul Lynde Halloween special

Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop appeared in the single-aired "Helen's Happy Hannukah", NOT the Christmas Special. Also appearing were Jackie Mason and the Mazel Tov Merrymakers (Jewish teen singers / cloggers). Special guest star Sammy Davis Jr. made an appearance at the very end, duetting with Helen on a all-Hebrew version "Candy Man".

No, R242. Her real name at birth was Ethel Merman.

Thanks, R242. It was clear from day one that it is Ethel Merman, about time someone finally wrote it here.

That Ethel is a fat old whore! But a helluva broad.

bump

Didn't Helen do a Christmas film called "Santa Comes For Good Girls!"? Who'd she play and what was it about?

"Lusitania"...a fictionalized 1957 film based on the famous disaster. Helen portrays widow Selma Boddie, returning to England to scatter her Irish-born husband's ashes off the Irish coast. Ignoring the ads placed in the papers by the German government, she books passage on the famed Cunarder. She meets dashing Chief Officer Rock Bogarde (Stewart Granger), who comforts her, as she is feeling vulnerable and lonely. A shipboard romance develops, scandalizing the first class passengers. The ship is torpedoed in the middle of the ceremony. Will Selma survive?

After "Lusitania" is "Last Stop to Freedom" a little seen gem from the 40s that has Helen in a very dramatic turn as Amy Post, a Quaker that was known for her heroic work on the Underground Railroad. I have heard the historical inaccuracies are legendary, including a scene with Helen's character standing on her porch with a martini and a cigarette (in a jeweled holder) facing off against an angry mob and yelling "There ain't nuthin' of what yer lookin' for here, but feel free to look in all my nooks 'n crannies"...and I think she wears a full length fur too...

If This Is London I Must Be Blitzed represents her only screen pairing with Bob Hope. It's one of those cheesy sex comedies from the '60s where the mere implication of anyone getting laid outside of wedlock is meant to raise titters and eyebrows.

Hope plays an American sexologist in London who finds himself embroiled in a society scandal involving the elegant but lusty Lady Cavendish, inexplicably played by that coarse All-American vulgarian, Helen Lawson. Critics wrote that Dick Van Dyke would play Henry Higgins sooner than Lawson would ever again be cast in a role requiring a posh British accent.

As for Helen, she literally took a chunk out of Hope's scalp after learning six weeks into filming that the only reason she got the part was that Phyllis Diller refused to appear on screen in the amply over-padded brassiere that Helen had been shameless and desperate enough to wear.

I just watched LOVE HAS MANY FACELIFTS. Helen starred with Lora Meredith. This must be not long after Steve was stabbed. Any behind-the-scenes gossip? Raquel Welch had a nonspeaking part as the waitress that hands Helen the fruity cocktail. Lora really wasn't aging well.

.

Helen's deepest, darkest secret was something that she had in common with Neely O'Hara...a stay in a mental institution. Here's what happened...only the facts have been made up.

When Helen failed to win the role of Scarlett O'Hara she became determined to land another speaking part in "Gone With the Wind". She launched an aggressive campaign, becoming a major pest at the Selznick studios (rivaled only by "Adore" seeking the role of Bonnie). Offering sexual favors to the security guards to gain admittance, Helen began showing up in costume and makeup of the characters she was hoping to portray. Unfortunately, no photos have been found but Helen is said to have costumed herself as Suellen O'Hara, Maybelle Merriwether, Cathleen Calvert, India Wilkes, Emmy Slattery, Belle Watling and, as her desperation and delusion increased, Aunt Pittypat, Mammy, Prissy and Uncle Peter.

Helen eventually rationalized her rejections for all these roles with the belief that she was destined for the one role that she considered to be "closest" to Scarlett, her daughter, Bonnie Blue Butler. Having been officially banned from the lot by order of David O. Selznick himself (all staff memo dated April 1, 1938), Helen tried to jump the studio gates on a pony and, like Bonnie, was thrown, striking her head against the pavement and awaking with the delusion that she WAS Bonnie Blue Butler!

Each night at lights out, Helen's pitiful cries of "Daddy, Daddy! Dark, dark!" echoed through the halls of Happydale Sanitarium until finally she was cured of her delusion by several rounds of electroshock followed by a prefrontal lobotomy.

Henry Bellamy, Helen's attorney, agent and lover, conspired with Selznick, the LAPD and Happydale Sanitarium to keep this secret buried for over 75 years. It is only through the combined and ongoing research efforts of Jacqueline Susann, Kenneth Anger and James Ellroy that this shocking story has come to light.

I understand the short list for this year's SAG Lifetime Achievement Award included Helen, Nanette Fabray, Margaret O'Brien, Debbie Reynolds and Jane Powell, and they went with Debbie.

R249 I heard that Neely O'Hara was up to but they didn't go with her either

bump

Neely was actually a strong favorite for the SAG award at one point - until the Guild got Helen's message -

You'll give my award to that no-talent little cunt over the smoking ruins of your careers and Hollywood itself - I know all of your secrets and where ALL of the bodies are buried. I will destroy you.

And I'll also track each one of you down personally and take a dump in your mouth while I put out cigarettes on your body.

Neely O'Hara's name mysteriously disappeared from the ballot after that. Hell hath no fury..

Neely O'Hara will never get another award in Hollywood while Helen is still alive and while her mind and her bowels are still functioning.

Helen was never terribly gracious about Neely's talent, but she saw it. That's why she was so ruthless toward Neely.

R246, I love that movie - any movie with Helen and Lora Meredith for that matter but "Love Has Many Facelifts" is one of my all time favorites.

Far better than any of that arty shit Lora did with Felucci!

I can remember watching it with my grandmother - she normally didn't approve of Helen Lawson but she loved Lora and she loved a good movie too.

I loved when she played herself as a guest star on Here's Lucy in 1970. Lucy mistook her for a cleaning woman, and the hilarity pursued.

Later, there were rumors that Lucy was furious with Helen because she was drinking during the show.

That's one of my favorite Here's Lucy episodes.

But can you imagine what it was like behind the scenes - Mame meets Whatever Happened to Baby Jane - that would be the real classic TV.

bump

Heads up: SATAN WORE GARTERS is on TCM tonight at 7:00. It's not the best of Helen's pre-Codes; she said of it "I've take better dumps," and for one of the reasons she left Hollywood for Broadway. She didn't return until she was an established Broadway star. I wonder how things would've been different if she opted to renew her contract with Paramount. She probably wouldn't be regarded as the first lady of the American stage.

Helen certainly made enough films though. 260 replies worth.

Helen's other pre-Codes are worth a look: Good Time Girl, Scandalized Lady, Lady by Day, Platinum Devil.

Criterion released a remastered THOSE SISTERS ON THE HILL from 1965 last year. It’s one of Helen’s best performances. She scooped a well deserved Oscar nom (She should’ve won!). Helen stars with Shelley Winters. Joan Collins plays Helen’s cousin angry at being excluded from the will and seeking vengeance by telling the whole New England town their sapphic secret. I love the B&W photography; so crisp.

Helen’s best/worst turn has to be in LIFE WITH HELEN — her short-lived ‘80s sitcom. Helen play Helen Buchanan, a paranoid schizophrenic woman, thrown out of a mental institution under the Reagan administration’s deinstitutionalization policy. Helen moves in with her nephew and his young family (including a young Sarah Jessica Parker as his daughter). Her mental illness results in many wacky hijinks. Most notably the episode when she believes the prom is a party for her and locks all the teenagers in the school gym. It was abruptly cancelled after that episode when CNN received a flood of complaints.

As a youngish eldergay, I really only remember her from 80's-90's TV guest shots. "Murder She Wrote," "Diagnosis, Murder," "Matlock." They rarely show those episodes in syndication, though. Does anyone remember "The Law and Harry McGraw" episode where she was recast mid-episode by Eileen Brennan? They matched the wig well enough, but it's easy to tell the moment the story arc became more, um, "sober."

Does anyone follow Helen's twitter feed? It's been dormant since 2013, but last Monday she tweeted: #metoo #notoftenenough #harveycallme

R26 That was not a movie, you dumb cluck. That was a bootleg video of their regional production at the Pepperpot Playhouse. Helen stunk up the place, but Gavin MacCleod and Ann Jiliian were electric as Nick and Honey.

^^^ I meant reply to R24 for R26. Can't concentrate will all the racket Naomi is making.

And I forgot to mention the showstopper the director added, "Honey's Turn" right after Honey learns Nick told George and Martha about Honey's "pregnancy."

My great grandfather would show a grainy 8 mm that was a copy of something older. Looked like a celluloid tangle. He'd assemble his brothers-in-law and nephews in his tool shed and plug up an old projector, and the show would always start with, "Gentlemen, the one and only Miss Helen Lawson. Look at Indian in that canoe, boys!"

First the woman was by herself, wearing an old Carnival mask fingering herself. A closeup showed the biggest ladyfinger you ever saw. Then she was with another woman, a fat one with a unibrow. The women went down on her while "Helen" (it looked like her but I've never seen her so young) kicked her feet and rolled her eyes back in ecstasy. Then she had two sailors and they took turns fucking her. No style or real interest. Then one last close-up of a wet snatch looking like it was giving the cameraman the finger. The whole thing was like three minutes, and looked patched together.

No sound, no titles.

Anyone ever see this thing? My cousin burned the shed down with all Granddad's things in it. They also found a suitcase with three little dried-up fetuses in it, but Great Grandma said they were some old gourds and tossed them into a ditch.

Did Helen do this sort of thing? I mean, before her more famous soft and not-so-soft porn things?

BUMP

Helen appeared in three different episodes of MURDER, SHE WROTE playing three different characters. But she stopped being invited back after Lansbury overheard her saying to the cameraman, "God, that dame gives a more robotic performance than my vibrator. Only with more eye-popping. Now get me another Scotch, hon."

Of course it didn't help matters when the character Helen was playing lit up a cigarette as Jessica Fletcher examined her corpse at the morgue.

Forgivable. Helen was of the generation that regarded TV as a lesser medium. I doubt she thought anyone would notice. Still, it's better than the episode in which she sitting in the Cabot Cove diner in a bejewelled pantsuit.

What? 273 posts and not a mention of "I'll Take a Sailor"?! Helen's wartime morale booster. Apparently Helen took half of the company. She could barely walk in the big finale number. A nasty case of syphilis went around that set.

Is it true Helen once made a... eh... bathroom... film with June Allyson called THE LADY TAKES A DUMP? It's just a rumor it even exists... but some say Helen had every copy of it burned.

Sweet Jesus. Even Helen's rising from the grave to get in on the Harvey Weinstein bandwagon.

Wasn't Helen briefly on "Hollywood Squares"? Why didn't she last?

R277 She couldn't stop calling Peter Marshall by his real name. The censors were not amused.

They drove you out of New York so you come crawling back to Cabot Cove... well Cabot Cove doesn't go for booze and dope. Now get outta my way. I got a sheriff waiting for me.

R277, Helen had a nasty run in with Paul Lynde. Helen's the only person in the world who could cut a drunk Paul Lynde, and she did. They had been drinking together before a taping, and everything seemed fine. But Peter Marshall asked a Helen a question that went something like "According to Department of Labor statistics, what is the most dangerous job in America"? And Helen, who was sitting directly below Lynde, rolled her eyes up and said "His pool boy." It took Lynde a moment to understand that Helen was referring to him. He hissed, "You venomous CUNT!" and flounced out of his box and off the set. The studio audience sat in stunned silence. Helen was never asked back.

I never got why gay men considered her a 'hoot'.

King Kong will stop the rain.

Bump

R55 is still a CUNT.

I also want to learn more about Helen Lawson's filmography.

I do remember that my local NBC affiliate used to show old movies in the late afternoons during the summertime.

One of my favorites was Helen Lawson's "A Letter to No Wives" in which she plays a dyslexic/ number transposer, paranoid ex-girlfriend of a bigamist. Helen's character, Maddie, tries to blackmail John Garfield's character with the threat of writing letters to each of his three wives. Garfield claims he has no wives but calls Helen's bluff. She ends up writing to women at completely different addresses and causes havoc that she never could have imagined. I can't remember, but I think the movie ended with Helen's character calling 191 when things got hairy.

Will someone PLEASE shit in my mouth??

Why don't you BOTH shit in your mouth, R286, and continue with the thread!

[quote]I don't know why they never show "All Tomorrow's Yesterdays"...maybe they don't have the rights to it?

Prime Video has it.

I bought "Where Has Tomorrow Gone?" (1967) in a bargain bin for a dollar. She plays a woman who abandoned an illegitimate baby (Pia Zadora) at a nunnery 13 years ago, who discovers the child was adopted by the widowed man who is now her beau (Marcello Mastroianni). When an unhinged nun (Mercedes McCambridge) tries to blackmail her- tragedy ensues. Vic Damon sings the title song.

I heard about Helen trying to pitch a series of movies to Lifetime and the Hallmark Channel.

She was so mad when no men attended either meeting.

And I'm sure her rant burned all her bridges.

"All a bunch of fat dykes and nerdy dames with mustaches in those meetings!! Like being surrounded by the international meeting of the unfuckables! No knob bobbing for me if there ain't no knobs to bob!"

Does anyone remember the teen musical she did with Connie Francis in the early 60s?

Why did she think a film adaptation of Sex and Bacon would be a good idea?

God Bless Helen Lawson.

[quote]What a shame. For Christ's sake, this summer they even broadcast Lawson's 1969 insipid children's film, "Mother and the Elephant."

Hey, I liked that movie! Especially the part where the elephant tries to sit on her.

I remember when Helen was lording it over her contemporaries that she’d been signed up for one of The Exorcist sequels. She shot her sequence in the San Fernando Valley (the producer was shooting some scenes at his own home to cut costs, her told her.)

A few months later she was horrified to learn it was all to be inserted in the triple X feature [italic]Do You Know What She Did, Your Cunting Daughter?

[quote]Loved her second attempt as a blind woman in "I Can't See!"

And Helen achieved the near impossible feat of making the sequel, "I Still Can't See", as good or better than the original (as with The Godfather II)...

"I Still Can't See" is not only one of Helen's best pictures, it's one of Hollywood's best pictures too...

And while Helen deserved the accolades for work in those movies...

and in her subsequent films, "I Can't Walk" and the sequel "Goddammit, I Still Can't Walk"...

some critics felt it was just once too often to the well...

R107, this is exactly why no one ever shows up at your sad New Years Eve parties. You Always end up sitting there alone drinking Everything you bought for the guests and eating All of the catered food you paid for from the cash "borrowed" from your job. Time to face the truth. And also STOP making those New Years resolutions to lose the weight. You try All Year to lose it and then gain it All back at that depressing New Years Eve party. And YES, we Know who you are.

[quote]And while Helen deserved the accolades for work in those movies...and in her subsequent films, "I Can't Walk" and the sequel "Goddammit, I Still Can't Walk"...

It was B-movie made for the old Drive-In theaters,

but I thought Helen did some of her best work in "What Happened to My Titties?"

They're difficult to find these days

but Helen's attempt to cash in on the Blaxploitation movies of the early 1970s

were far better than the critics gave her credit for

Helen has had a tendency to play parts that she was just TOO old for

But having said that, the scene where she robs the video store in "Different Strokes: the Dana Plato Story" still takes my breath away

Even though it wasn't Helen playing a role

I've always loved the documentary about Helen

"Go Buy Your Own Goddamned Cigarettes, You Cheap Mother Fucker!"

From the documentary as the interviewer asks Helen about her marriages:

"Listen, I know you want to go down your list and have me tell you some story about each one of 'em..."

(Helen, taking a long drag of her cigarette)

"But it was really the same old things that most women struggle with,"

"Either they gave me the Clap too often or they turned out to be Fags."

Wasn't Helen originally in competition with Blanche Hudson for CLOG, a.k.a. IS IT DEAD YET? (1970), which would become Blanche's last picture?

I admit Helen was very good in the "I Can't See" and "I Can't Walk" series of movies

but by the time she started doing the themed TV movies, "I Have Cramps" and "I Have a Heavy Flow"

I just felt she was a little too old for the roles

I'd settl;e for a reel of her appearances on the Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethons. Now [italic]that[/italic] was the definition of insanity.

I had no idea this was her!

Did anybody ever find a subtitled version of that German breast cancer comedy, Nehmen Sie ihre Klumpen? The one they said she did to pay off her divorce from Buddy Hackett.

I have a special fondness for the movies that Miss Lawson filmed in Europe after her Hollywood career hit the skids. The cheap quality and peculiar editing give them an amusing quirkiness. I especially love "For Three Drachmas You Get Souvlaki," about a recent widow (Lawson) on holiday in Athens with her mildy "special" teenage daughter, played by Suzanne Cupito. Lawson encounters a crusty street vendor, played by Burgess Meredith, who becomes enamoured of her, pretends to be a rich restauranteur, and wines and dines her on his measly income. Things take a turn when the daughter breaks out in hives due to bad seafood.