Helen Mack (born Helen McDougall; November 13, 1913 – August 13, 1986) was an American actress. She started her career as a child actress in silent films, moving to Broadway plays and touring one of the vaudeville circuits. Her greater success as an actress was as a leading lady in the 1930s. She made the transition to performing on radio and then into writing, directing, and producing shows during the Golden Age of Radio. She later wrote for Broadway, stage and television. Her career spanned the infancy of the motion picture industry, the beginnings of Broadway, the final days of vaudeville, the transition to sound movies, the Golden Age of Radio, and the rise of television.
Youth and stage
Mack was born in Rock Island, Illinois,[1] the daughter of William George McDougall, a barber, and Regina (née Lenzer) McDougall, who had a repressed desire to become an actress.[2] She attended the Professional Children's School of New York City.[1] Her friend Vera Gordon helped her along as a child actress.[3] She appeared on Broadway and in vaudeville and debuted in films at age 10 in 1924.[1] Her stage debut was in The Idle Inn with Jacob Benami. She performed with Roland Young in Pomeroy's Past,[2] and toured America with William Hodge in Straight Through The Door.[4]
Before the film Sweepings (1933), Mack's career had declined for three years. Three of her productions failed. One reason was that she was usually a character star, and her employers had used her as an ingenue. RKO Radio Pictures Inc. offered her a second chance as Mamie Donahue in Sweepings.
In the early 1940s, Mack performed in the radio series Myrt and Marge, replacing actress Donna Damerel after Damerel's sudden death in childbirth.[8] She was chosen from more than 200 applicants for the role.[9]
During that decade and the next, Mack also worked as a producer and director of radio programs, including such series as Richard Diamond, Private Detective; The Saint; and Meet Corliss Archer. She also co-wrote A Date with Judy with Aleen Leslie, and was its producer-director, one of the few women to fill that role in network radio. Her friend Leslie originally wanted Mack to play the title role, but they decided she was too old for the high-school-girl part when the series begain in 1941. [8] As TV displaced radio, Mack continued to write plays and TV episodes until her death.[citation needed]
^"Helen Mack, 72, an Actress In Silent and Talking Movies". The New York Times. August 16, 1986. Retrieved April 8, 2021. Helen Mack, a child actress who appeared in both silent and talking motion pictures as well as on the stage, died of cancer Wednesday at the home of a friend, Aleen Leslie, with whom she lived in Beverly Hills, Calif. She was 72 years old...
