The headline of this article takes the form of a question because I know little about the topic and am going to educate myself as I write and educate you about the topic.
I'm loosely aware of an Oscar-winning actress named Helen Hayes but why exactly is she revered so much in Washington D.C? Why have I often heard of her as "the First Lady of the Stage." She is referred to in the information section of the Helen Hayes award website as "The greatest American actress to grace the stage." That just makes me wonder what ever happened to the other American actresses who've held that title in moviedom: Katherine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Meryl Streep, Ginger Rogers, Judy Garland, Vivian Leigh, Joan Crawford and the like. Perhaps, none of them ever bothered to do a Broadway show giving Helen Hayes the title of ultimate Broadway champion by default?
Whatever the case, Helen Hayes is certainly 1) a very accomplished woman who did it all in the arts world and she is 2) one of those rare non-political figures who the D.C. area can claim as its own.
Hayes was born in Washington D.C. in 1900 before the city was infused with massive levels of bureaucracy. Her mother was an aspiring actress and her father was a patent clerk. In her memoirs she describes her mother as overly amibitious and her father as "laid-back and easily satisfied, happy with a family and a home."
It didn't take long before Hayes was acting herself. Helen Hayes saw her first theater performance at the National Theater at age 5 and was cast as a child in the DC-based theater troupe "The Columbia Players." She made her Broadway debut at the age of 9.
Against the advice of her controlling manager, she got married and had a child as her career was blooming. Because of her pregnancy, she had to quit work on the set of "Coquette" and the play shut down. Her early marriage, however, turned out to be the best thing that happened to her professionally. Her first film, "The Sin of Madelon Claudet", when she got to Hollywood was hated by the audiences during previews. Her husband tinkered with the screenplay and added scenes that greatly changed the movie. The rereleased version won her a Best Actress Oscar.
From then, the rest was history. She even won a second Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in the 1970 film "Airport" in which she played a stowaway aboard a dommed flight (the author just saw this film two days ago and highly recommends it).
Helen lived to the ripe old age of 93 and lived out her later years in Nyack, New York, but her last stage performance in 1971 was in D.C.
In 1983, Broadway Producer and Washingtonian Bonnie Nelson Schwartz wanted to promote D.C. theater by creating an awards-governing body that would honor the best in D.C. theater and help promote the D.C. scene. Needing a marquis name to headline the awards, she approached Helen Hayes in her New York residence about lending her name to the awards. Hayes didn't just want to lend her name and took an active interest in the awards and collaborated on them.
Hayes artistic endeavours spanned all ten decades of the twentieth century and she is one of only 12 people to have a Grammy, a Tony, an Emmy, and an Oscar.
Recommended Helen Hayes films: Sin of Madelon Claudet, Anastasia, Richard III, Anna Karenia, Carrbiean Mystery, A Farewell to Arms.
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