Helen Parrish
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Helen Parrish (March 23, 1924 – 22 February 1959) was an American movie actress.
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[edit] Early life
The daughter of stage and bit film actress Laura Parrish, Helen Parrish was born in Columbus, Georgia in 1924.
[edit] Career
She started in movies at the age of five, getting her first part playing Babe Ruth's daughter in the silent film, Babe Come Home in 1927. She was then featured in Our Gang comedy shorts and sometimes played the lead character as a child co-starring some of the great female stars of the day. In her teens she made herself known as a kid sister. But during this time, she is probably most notable as the bane of sweet Deanna Durbin's existence in several of her vehicles, playing a jealous, spiteful teen rival. Their first film together, Three Smart Girls, worked so well that they soon formed a sort of Shirley Temple/Jane Withers team in a couple of other movie confections for Universal. Her films were pleasant but unexceptional and in the "B" caliber, including X Marks the Spot (1931), When a Feller Needs a Friend (1932), A Dog of Flanders (1935), I'm Nobody's Sweetheart Now (1940), Too Many Blondes (1941), X Marks the Spot (1942; a remake of her earlier film), and The Wolf Hunters (1949).
By her mid-twenties she left motion pictures and turned to television.
[edit] Family
Her brother, Robert Parrish, was a minor child actor who earned respect as a film editor and director and her other sister Beverly Parrish, died suddenly at the age of 11 after filming only one movie. Her first husband was screenwriter Charles Lang and her second was television producer John Guedel, who survived her.
[edit] Death
Parrish died from cancer in Hollywood, California in 1959.
