Helene Stanton

Born in Philadelphia, Helene Stanton was an American singer and actress who began as an opera singer with the Cosmopolitan Opera Company in Philadelphia. In 1943 she sang in a stage production of The Merry Widow, then shifted to popular music after relocating to Hollywood. In 1955 an Allied Artists producer saw her in Las Vegas and offered her a role in The Big Combo (1955). She moved to Los Angeles to act, appearing with Johnny Weissmuller, Arthur Franz and Tom Drake. She believed she would often be cast in flashy roles like a burlesque dancer, and she tried to look as plain as possible offstage. In 1956 she took a silent role opposite comic Ben Blue, which required conveying emotion without speech. Her final film was Four Girls in Town (1957), in which she played a temperamental movie star, and she retired from acting that year.