Helen Ford

Ford's father was a manufacturer in Troy, and she was considered a musical prodigy as a child. She studied voice and piano at a conservatory of music in Troy.^[2]

Ford appeared in a production of The Heart of Annie Wood in New York in 1918 and in Sometime shortly thereafter.^[2] In 1920, she had the role of Toinette in Always You, Oscar Hammerstein's first musical.^[3] She was a stage actress in musicals in the 1920s. A "Rodgers, Hart, and Fields' favorite",^[4] she starred in three of their Broadway productions: Dearest Enemy (1925), Peggy-Ann (1926) and Chee-Chee (1928).^[5][6] She also starred in the touring production of Dearest Enemy.^[7]

She went on to appear in films and television programs, including The Raid.

In 1926, Ford was involved in a court case in District Court in New York City. The trial related to her appearance at the Knickerbocker Theater "clad only in a barrel".^[8] The trial focused on whether her husband, George Ford, had committed perjury when he told a grand jury that the barrel did not contain champagne.^[8]

On August 9, 1918, she married George Ford, who produced touring Shakespearean festivals.^[2]

She died of a stroke on January 19, 1982. She was cremated and her ashes interred in the crypt below the chapel at Grand View Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.^[9]