Helene Stanley

Helene Stanley, born Dolores Diane Freymouth on July 17, 1929, in Gary, Indiana, was an American actress whose career spanned film, television, stage, and animation reference work. Her father, Michael Freymouth, was an acrobat who performed in Europe, and her mother was Gerty Freymouth, née Seigert. Stanley spent the majority of her childhood in southern California. At the age of four, she competed as an acrobatic dancer at the World's Fair Contests of Contests in Chicago, taking first place and earning a $25 prize.

Stanley performed under two stage names before settling on the one she became known by. She first worked as "Dolores Diane," then adopted the name "Helene Stanley" after signing a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1946. Her screen work included a brief but notable role in director John Huston's crime film The Asphalt Jungle in 1950, the same year she appeared on Broadway in Pardon Our French.

Her work with Walt Disney Studios began around 1948 and produced some of the most enduring contributions of her career. Stanley served as the live-action reference model for the title character and the stepsister Anastasia Tremaine in Cinderella, for Aurora in Sleeping Beauty, and for Anita Radcliffe in One Hundred and One Dalmatians. In 1957, she appeared as herself in a season three episode of Walt Disney's Disneyland titled Tricks of Our Trade, performing a ballet routine that studio animation directors used as reference while animating scenes from the Dance of the Hours segment of Fantasia.

On January 17, 1953, Stanley married Johnny Stompanato; the marriage ended in divorce on February 10, 1955. She subsequently married a Beverly Hills physician named David Niemetz. The couple had a son, David Niemetz Jr., born in 1961, and Stanley formally retired from show business the following year, in 1962.

Stanley died on December 27, 1990, in Los Angeles from ovarian cancer. She was 61 years old.