Helen Chandler

Helen Chandler (February 1, 1906 – April 30, 1965) was an American actress who worked across Broadway, film, and radio. Born in New York, New York, she attended the Professional Children's School in New York City and began her stage career at a young age, making her Broadway debut on September 2, 1918, at the Globe Theatre in Penrod, an adaptation by Edward E. Rose of Booth Tarkington's stories. She and her brother were raised by their mother as stage children.

Chandler's Broadway career spanned from 1918 to 1938 and encompassed more than twenty productions. Her early stage work included Arthur Hopkins' 1920 production of Richard III starring John Barrymore, a 1921 Macbeth with Lionel Barrymore, and the role of Hedvig in Henrik Ibsen's The Wild Duck in 1925. That same year she played Ophelia in a modern dress production of Hamlet starring Basil Sydney. Additional Broadway credits include King Richard II, The Light of the World, The Ivory Door, and Daddy Dumplins. Among her later stage work were Within the Gates in 1934, Pride and Prejudice in 1935, Lady Precious Stream in 1936, productions of Boy Meets Girl, Noël Coward's Tonight at 8.30, and a 1938 stage reprise of Outward Bound.

Chandler made her film debut in 1927 in the silent picture The Music Master. In 1930 she appeared in the film adaptation of Outward Bound alongside Leslie Howard, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and Beryl Mercer, a story centered on ocean liner passengers who gradually discover they are dead and facing the Last Judgment. The following year she appeared in Dracula opposite Bela Lugosi and David Manners, playing Mina Seward in what became one of the most commercially successful films of its time. Also in 1931, she and Manners appeared together in The Last Flight, which additionally starred Richard Barthelmess and John Mack Brown. Further film credits include A House Divided in 1931 and Christopher Strong in 1933. In 1934 she appeared in the British film Radio Parade of 1935, starring Will Hay, and in 1937 she performed on Lux Radio in Alibi Ike with Joe E. Brown. Throughout this period Chandler divided her professional activity among film, radio, and stage work in New York, Los Angeles, and London.

In her personal life, Chandler married writer Cyril Hume in 1930; they divorced in 1934. On February 14, 1935, she married actor Bramwell Fletcher at Riverside Church in New York, and the two appeared together on stage in Lady Precious Stream in 1936. That marriage ended in divorce in 1940. From February 3, 1943, until her death, she was married to Walter S. Piascik, a merchant seaman.

By the late 1930s Chandler was contending with alcoholism, and her acting career declined as a result. She was hospitalized on multiple occasions. In 1950 she sustained severe burns in an apartment fire caused by falling asleep while smoking, leaving lasting physical injuries. She died on April 30, 1965, following surgery in Hollywood, California, and was cremated. Her husband Walter Piascik survived her. Chandler was originally interred in a private vault at the Chapel of the Pines Crematory in Los Angeles. Following an online fundraising effort led by researcher Jessica Wahl and Hollywood Graveyard YouTube channel creator Arthur Dark, and with the permission of her surviving family, her ashes were reinterred in the Cathedral Mausoleum of Hollywood Forever Cemetery on July 13, 2023.