During the late 1960s, Helena Kallianiotes was the resident belly dancer at The Intersection, a Greek restaurant in North Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. This engagement led to her first film appearance as an uncredited belly dancer in the 1968 film Head, directed by Bob Rafelson and starring The Monkees. Two years later, Kallianiotes was cast in another Rafelson film, Five Easy Pieces, starring Jack Nicholson and Karen Black. She played Palm Apodaca, a neurotic, cleanliness obsessed lesbian hitch-hiker, traveling with her companion (played by Toni Basil).
