Helen Barnes

Helen Gertrude Barnes (July 5, 1895 – June 1, 1925) was an American actress who worked in musical comedy and appeared on Broadway between 1914 and 1920. Born in Shelton, Connecticut, she was the elder of two daughters of William and Anna Barnes. Her father, originally from Pennsylvania, worked as a day laborer and later as a typewriter salesman. Her mother was born in England to Scottish parents and emigrated to America at approximately two years of age. William and Anna married in 1894, and their second daughter, Ruth, was born in July 1896. The family subsequently relocated to Washington, D.C.

Barnes entered the professional theater at nineteen, joining the chorus of the Broadway musical Watch Your Step during its 1914–15 run at the New Amsterdam Theatre. In May 1915 she began a four-year association with producer Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr., performing in his annual Ziegfeld Follies productions at the same venue. Later that year she took on the role of Lotta Nichols in the musical comedy Stop! Look! Listen!, which ran for four months at the Globe Theatre.

In 1918 Barnes appeared at the Bijou Theatre in The Squab Farm, a satire by Frederic Hatton and Fanny Hatton that drew comparisons between a motion picture set and a barnyard. She played the role of Hortense Hogan, and a New York Times reviewer noted on May 14, 1918, that Barnes appeared to be the audience's favorite in the production. The play closed after four weeks and featured among its cast a sixteen-year-old Tallulah Bankhead. Barnes continued building her Broadway record with the role of Georgie Van Alstyne in the musical Oh, My Dear! during the 1918–19 season, followed by Rhy Mac Donald in The Five Million in 1919. She then played Myrtilla Marne in the play An Innocent Idea and Tillie in Ladies' Night during the 1920–21 season.

In the early 1920s Barnes shifted her focus to travel. Between 1920 and 1921 she spent several months touring England and France. In 1922 she undertook a nearly year-long around-the-world journey that took her through Scandinavia, Belgium, Monaco, Australia, New Zealand, India, Burma, Thailand, Ceylon, China, Hong Kong, Japan, and Hawaii.

Barnes died in the early morning hours of June 1, 1925, in an automobile accident near Woodmont, Connecticut. She and her companion, John Griffin — a junior at Sheffield Scientific School and the son of a manufacturer from Indiana — were traveling at high speed when their vehicle struck a slow-moving car, collided with another, and rolled over multiple times, killing both almost instantly. The other driver was later cited for operating a vehicle without a license, and friends of Griffin attributed partial responsibility for the crash to that driver's erratic behavior. Barnes and Griffin had gone out that morning to dine at an all-night hotdog stand in nearby East Haven. Griffin had previously told friends that the two intended to marry, though no formal announcement had been made. Barnes was twenty-nine years old at the time of her death.