Helen Gilmore


Helen Gilmore was an American actress of the stage and silent motion pictures from Chicago, Illinois. She left acting to become a magazine editor.

Stock company player

Gilmore came to New York City in 1917 and studied for a time at Columbia University. In 1922 she made her acting debut in When We Were Young with Henry Hull. She appeared with the stock company of George Cukor in Providence, Rhode Island. On tour she acted in support of Bette Davis, William Hodge, Spencer Tracy, and other stars.

Silent film actress

As an actress in silent films Gilmore appeared in more than one hundred features, beginning with a role in Notoriety in 1914. As Mrs. Hobbs, in A Petticoat Pilot, Helen was commended for her careful character study. The Paramount Pictures film was directed by Rollin S. Sturgeon and was based on the novel by Evelyn Lincoln. She played the head nurse in Too Much Business. This was a comedy which originated with a Saturday Evening Post story by
Earl Derr Biggers. In it Gilmore was cast with Elsa Lorimer and Mack Fenton. Her final motion picture credit is for the role of a motorist in the Laurel and Hardy short Two Tars.

Magazine editor

Gilmore left the theater in 1933. She became affiliated with Liberty. In 1938 she was appointed editor of Movie Mirror Magazine, a Macfadden publication. She became editor of Photoplay in 1941 after the periodical merged with Movie Mirror. Her career as an editor lasted approximately a decade.
In private life Helen was Mrs. Richard Florac.
Gilmore died of acute leukemia at Mt. Sinai Hospital, New York, of acute leukemia, in 1947. She was 47 years old.