HELEN BRODERICK

Helen Broderick was an stage and screen actress and comedian from the 1920s to the 1940s. She began on Broadway as a chorus girl in the Follies of 1907, the first of Florenz Ziegfeld's annual revues. Her talent for comedy was discovered when, as an understudy in a romance, she filled in for the lead actress and soon had the audience in stitches (the play was then changed to a farce with her as the lead). By the late 1920s, she was consistently playing leads and featured roles, most often in comedies. She was the wife of actor Lester Crawford, and mother of Academy Award-winning actor Broderick Crawford. Some of her roles include: Fifty Million Frenchmen, High Speed, Top Hat, Murder on a Bridle Path, Stage Door Canteen, and Because of Him/ She passed away in 1959 at the age of 68.