Helen Kim (actress)
Helen Kim | |
---|---|
Born | 1907 Baltimore, Maryland, US |
Died | April 24, 1937 Manhattan, New York, US |
Occupation | Actress |
Spouse(s) | James Mont Randolph J. Thomson (div.) |
Helen Kim was an American actress who worked on Broadway and in radio in the 1920s and 1930s.[1]
Beginnings and career[]
Kim was born in Baltimore, Maryland, to William June Kim and Lillian Turner. Her father was Korean, and her mother was white. After being raised in New York City with her two siblings, Helen attended the University of California at Berkeley. She soon began appearing in Broadway plays like Roar China and The Gilded Princess.[2]
Personal life[]
Kim made headlines in 1930 when a poet she had been dating, Robert Carroll Pew, committed suicide in front of her by drinking poison.[2] She later married Randolph J. Thomson, who represented himself as a wealthy British theatrical producer, but he ended up being a fraud. The same day she secured a divorce from Thomson, she married her second husband, interior designer James Mont, who is associated with the Hollywood Regency craze of the 1940s and 1950s.[3]
Death[]
Twenty-nine days after marrying Mont, Kim committed suicide in her Manhattan apartment's kitchen by inhaling gas. At the time, partygoers had gathered in her building for a murder mystery party thrown by another tenant, and journalists mistakenly reported that Helen had planned the affair.[4]
Selected Broadway credits[]
- Roar China
- The Gilded Princess
- The Shanghai Gesture
References[]
- ^ "Actress and Joke Party Linked by Odd Quirk of Fate". The Los Angeles Times. 26 Apr 1937. Retrieved 2021-05-07.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ a b "Police Say Bride Suicide, Party Hoax a Coincidence". The Oakland Tribune. 26 Apr 1937. Retrieved 2021-05-07.
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: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ "James Mont, swanky decorator, who was unmasked yesterday as James..." Getty Images. Retrieved 2021-05-07.
- ^ McQueen, Keven (2018-09-15). New England Nightmares: True Tales of the Strange and Gothic. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-03473-1.
- American film actresses
- 1907 births
- 1937 deaths
- Actresses from Maryland
- People from Baltimore
- Actresses from Baltimore
- American stage actresses
- American film actor, 1900s birth stubs
- American theatre actor stubs