page_title: Helen Hayes
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Helen Hayes / Career
caption_attribution_description: Cropped screenshot of Helen Hayes from the film What Every Woman Knows
context_page_description: Helen Hayes MacArthur was an American actress whose career spanned 80 years. She eventually received the nickname "First Lady of American Theatre" and was one of 16 people who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony Award. Hayes also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America's highest civilian honor, from President Ronald Reagan in 1986. In 1988, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts.
  The annual Helen Hayes Awards, which have recognized excellence in professional theatre in greater Washington, DC, since 1984, are her namesake. In 1955, the former Fulton Theatre on 46th Street in New York City's Broadway Theater District was renamed the Helen Hayes Theatre. When that venue was torn down in 1982, the nearby Little Theatre was renamed in her honor. Helen Hayes is regarded as one of the greatest leading ladies of the 20th-century theatre.
context_section_description: Her sound film debut was The Sin of Madelon Claudet, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. She followed that with starring roles in Arrowsmith (with Ronald Colman), A Farewell to Arms (with Gary Cooper), The White Sister (opposite Clark Gable), Another Language (opposite Robert Montgomery), What Every Woman Knows (a reprise of her Broadway hit), and Vanessa: Her Love Story also with Robert Montgomery. But Hayes did not prefer film to the stage.
  Hayes eventually returned to Broadway in 1935, where for three years she played the title role in Gilbert Miller's production of Victoria Regina, with Vincent Price as Prince Albert, first at the Broadhurst Theatre and later at the Martin Beck Theatre.
  In 1951, she was involved in the Broadway revival of J.M. Barrie's play Mary Rose at the ANTA Playhouse. In 1953, she was the first-ever recipient of the Sarah Siddons Award for her work in Chicago theatre, repeating as the winner in 1969. She returned to Hollywood in the 1950s, and her film star began to rise. She starred in My Son John (1952) and Anastasia (1956), and won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as an elderly stowaway in the disaster film Airport (1970). She followed that up with several roles in Disney films such as Herbie Rides Again, One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing and Candleshoe. Her performance in Anastasia was considered a comeback—she had suspended her career for several years due to her daughter Mary's death and her husband's failing health.
  In 1955, the Fulton Theatre was renamed for her. In the 1980s, business interests wished to raze that theatre and four others to construct a large hotel that included the Marquis Theatre. Hayes's consent to raze the theatre named for her was sought and given, though she had no ownership interest in the building. Parts of the original Helen Hayes Theatre on Broadway were used to construct the Shakespeare Center on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, which Hayes dedicated with Joseph Papp in 1982. In 1983 the Little Theater on West 45th Street was renamed the Helen Hayes Theatre in her honor, as was a theatre in Nyack, which has since been renamed the Riverspace-Arts Center. In early 2014, the site was refurbished and styled by interior designer Dawn Hershko and reopened as the Playhouse Market, a quaint restaurant and gourmet deli.
  Hayes, who spoke with her good friend Anita Loos almost daily on the phone, told her, "I used to think New York was the most enthralling place in the world. I'll bet it still is and if I were free next summer, I would prove it." With that, she convinced Loos to embark on an exploration of all five boroughs of New York. They visited and explored the city; Bellevue Hospital at night, a tugboat hauling garbage out to sea, parties, libraries, and Puerto Rican markets. They spoke to everyday people to see how they lived their lives and what made the city tick. The result of this collaborative effort was the book Twice Over Lightly, published in 1972.
  It is unclear when or by whom Hayes was called the "First Lady of the Theatre". Her friend, actress Katharine Cornell, also held that title, and each thought the other deserved it. One critic said Cornell played every queen as though she were a woman, whereas Hayes played every woman as though she were a queen.
  In 1982, with friend Lady Bird Johnson, she founded the National Wildflower Research Center, now the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, in Austin, Texas. The center protects and preserves North America's native plants and natural landscapes.
  The Helen Hayes Award for theater in the Washington, DC, area is named in her honor. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6220 Hollywood Blvd. Hayes is also in the American Theatre Hall of Fame.
caption: Hayes in the film What Every Woman Knows (1934)
exif: {}