Helen Holmes: The Original Railroad Girl

Two toots on the steam whistle today for stage and screen actress Helen Holmes (1892-1950). Holmes’ greatest claim to fame was starring in the Hazard of Helen movie serials (1914-1917), a principal competitor to Pearl White of The Perils of Pauline. Over the course of the 119 episode series she plays a telegraph operator who must constantly commit feats of hair-raising heroism along the railroads, frequently finding herself wrestling with villains atop moving trains, and sometimes being tied to the railroad tracks. The actress and stunt woman is today considered one of the very first female action stars.

As coincidence would have it Holmes father actually worked as a clerk on the Illinois Central Railroad, and she grew up around locomotives. (She was no apparent relation to that famous Chicagoan H.H. Holmes, whom I just have to bring up whenever I can). Holmes’ physical endowments allowed her to work as an artists’ model early in her career and to break into films. Pal Mabel Normand, whom she met while modeling drew her in. When Holmes’ family went west for health reasons, she looked up Normand, who got her work in Keystone comedies. She was only there a few months. One of the better known movies she appeared in there was Barney Oldfield’s Race for a Life (1913).

In 1913 she was signed by Kalem Studios. Her director for most of her films there was J.P. McGowan, to whom she was married through 1925. After Kalem, Holmes starred in films for Thomas Ince and Universal, and for her own production company, occasionally returning to Broadway to take a roles as well. Meanwhile Helen Gibson stepped into her old role in The Hazards of Helen. Throughout the ’20s Holmes starred in western features opposite the likes of Jack Hoxie,Hoot Gibson, and William Desmond.

Holmes starred in nearly 150 films through 1926. Then, with sound coming in, and having divorced McGowan, she returned to Broadway, appearing in a 1928 adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray, followed by Adam’s Apple and The Love Expert the following year. She returned to the stage in the 1935 for the play This Our House, her final acting credit. At some point in the ’30s she returned to the west coast, married a stunt man, trained animals for movie shoots, and finally opened an antiques store.

For more on silent film, please read Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube.