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Katherine Helmond
Highest Rated: 98% Brazil (1985)
Lowest Rated: 31% The Hindenburg (1975)
Birthday: Jul 5, 1929
Birthplace: Galveston, Texas, USA
A spry and quick-witted comic presence on television for more than four decades, actress Katherine Helmond won critical praise and numerous Emmy nominations for playing society women whose well-bred veneer often obscured a wicked tongue or earthy interests on such series as "Soap" (ABC, 1977-1981) and "Who's the Boss" (ABC, 1984-1992). Born Katherine Marie Helmond on July 5, 1929 in Galveston, Texas, she was the eldest of three daughters by firefighter Patrick Helmond and his wife, Thelma. After her parents' divorce, Helmond was raised primarily by her mother and grandmother, and attended Catholic school; there, she gained her first acting experience in a school play when the teaching sisters assigned her a role to help wear down her shyness. Theater soon became her abiding interest, and Helmond performed in local theater productions and pageants while also learning the ins and outs of backstage work, which she credited as helping to ground her when she made acting her profession. After a semester at Bob Jones University - where she made her screen debut in a school-funded feature, "Wine of Morning" (1955) - Helmond performed with theater companies in Texas and New York; when work dried up in the latter location, she and a few friends opened their own theater upstate. By the mid-1960s, Helmond was drawing praise for roles for theater companies across the United States, most notably the Hartford Stage Company in Connecticut, where she spent seven years, and at the Trinity Square Repertory Theater in Providence, Rhode Island, where her turn as Blanche DuBois in "A Streetcar Named Desire" earned glowing praise from Boston Globe critic Kevin Kelly. Her performance in the New York premiere of John Guare's "The House of Blue Leaves" in 1971 earned her a Drama Critics Award, which was followed by her first Tony nomination for the Broadway run of "The Great God Brown." When Helmond followed "Blue Leaves" to Los Angeles, California, she tried her hand at film and television, and soon became an in-demand character actor in both mediums. A supporting turn in the Paddy Chayefsky-scripted black comedy "The Hospital" (1971) led to a handful of additional film roles, including "The Hindenburg" (1975) and Alfred Hitchcock's "Family Plot" (1976), but television would prove to be a more consistent and rewarding showcase. Guest roles on "Gunsmoke" (CBS, 1955-1975) were quickly eclipsed by supporting turns in Emmy-winning TV-movies like "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman" (CBS, 1974) and "The Legend of Lizzie Borden" (ABC, 1976) and her first work as a series regular on "Soap" (ABC, 1977-1981). The comedy, a spoof of daytime soap opera excesses, cast her as wealthy Jessica Tate, who remained blithely unaware of the chaos that ensued around her; so convincing was her performance, which earned her a Golden Globe and four Emmy nominations, that Helmond told an interviewer that people were disappointed to find that she was not as flighty in real life as her screen character. When "Soap" ran its course in 1981, Helmond stepped in to replace an injured Ruth Gordon as the wife of grumpy ogre Peter Vaughn in Terry Gilliam's "Time Bandits" (1981); she would later appear in two other films for the "Monty Python" alum, most notably in "Brazil" (1985), as the plastic surgery-addicted mother of hero Jonathan Pryce. But Helmond remained a staple of television, and after numerous guest appearances - and several turns behind the camera as director on episodes of the "Soap" spinoff "Benson" (ABC, 1979-1986), she returned to series regular work on "Who's the Boss?" The comedy, with Tony Danza as housekeeper for divorced working mom Judith Light, cast Helmond as Light's amorous mother. It too proved remarkably successful for Helmond, earning her a second Golden Globe and two more Emmy nominations in 1988 and 1989. When "Boss" closed shop in 1992, Helmond moved into a recurring role on "Coach" (ABC, 1989-1997) as the owner of a fictional football team, and on "Everybody Loves Raymond" (CBS, 1995-2005), where she and Robert Culp played the well-heeled parents of Patricia Heaton's Debra Barone. Helmond earned her seventh and final Emmy nomination for "Raymond," and remained active on television and stage and in the occasional feature for the next decade. She provided the voice of a weathered automobile in "Cars" (2006) and its two sequels (2011 and 2017), and enjoyed guest turns on "Providence" (NBC, 1999-2004) and "True Blood" (HBO, 2008-2014), among numerous other projects. Helmond logged her final screen appearance in the 2018 feature "Frank and Ava" (2018) before succumbing to complications from Alzheimer's disease at her home in Los Angeles on February 23, 2019 at the age of 89.
Photos
Filmography
Movies
Credit | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
73% |
|
Collaborator | Irene Longfellow (Character) | - | 2011 |
No Score Yet |
|
A Grandpa for Christmas | Roxie (Character) | - | 2007 |
75% |
|
Cars | Lizzie (Voice) | - | 2006 |
No Score Yet |
|
Beethoven's 5th | Cora Wilkens (Character) | - | 2003 |
No Score Yet |
|
Mr. St. Nick | Carlotta (Character) | - | 2002 |
No Score Yet |
|
Living in Fear | Mrs. Ford (Character) | - | 2001 |
No Score Yet |
|
The Perfect Nanny | Mrs. McBride (Character) | - | 2000 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | How to Marry a Billionaire: A Christmas Tale | Shatzie (Character) | - | 2000 |
51% |
|
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas | Desk Clerk at Mint Hotel (Character) | $10.6M | 1998 |
No Score Yet |
|
Ms. Scrooge | Maude Marley (Character) | - | 1997 |
No Score Yet |
|
The Spy Within | Dr. Pamela Schilling (Character) | - | 1995 |
75% |
|
Inside Monkey Zetterland | Honor Zetterland (Character) | - | 1992 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Deception: A Mother's Secret | Geena Milner (Character) | - | 1991 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | When Will I Be Loved? | Barbara Patterson (Character) | - | 1990 |
71% |
|
Lady in White | Amanda (Character) | $282.7K | 1988 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Save the Dog! | Unknown (Character) | - | 1988 |
46% |
|
Overboard | Edith Mintz (Character) | $23.9M | 1987 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Shadey | Lady Constance Landau (Character) | $1.9K | 1986 |
98% |
|
Brazil | Mrs. Ida Lowry (Character) | $3.7M | 1985 |
No Score Yet |
|
World War III | Dorothy Longworth (Character) | - | 1982 |
91% |
|
Time Bandits | Mrs. Ogre (Character) | - | 1981 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Scout's Honor | Pearl Bartlett (Character) | - | 1980 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Diary of a Teenage Hitchhiker | Elaine Thurston (Character) | - | 1979 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Getting Married | Vera Lesser (Character) | - | 1978 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Baby Blue Marine | Mrs. Hudkins (Character) | - | 1976 |
93% |
|
Family Plot | Mrs. Maloney (Character) | - | 1976 |
No Score Yet |
|
James Dean | Claire Folger (Character) | - | 1976 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Wanted: The Sundance Woman | Mattie Riley (Character) | - | 1976 |
No Score Yet |
|
The Legend of Lizzie Borden | Emma Borden (Character) | - | 1975 |
31% |
|
The Hindenburg | Mrs. Mildred Breslau (Character) | - | 1975 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Cage Without a Key | Mrs. Little (Character) | - | 1975 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | The Family Nobody Wanted | Mrs. Bittner (Character) | - | 1975 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | The First 36 Hours of Dr. Durant | Nurse Katherine Gunther (Character) | - | 1975 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | The Other Woman | Liz Cunningham (Character) | - | 1974 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Locusts | Claire Fletcher (Character) | - | 1974 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Larry | Maureen Whitten (Character) | - | 1974 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Dr. Max | Libby Oppel (Character) | - | 1974 |
TV
Credit | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Coach |
Doris Sherman (Character), Unknown (Guest Star) |
1989 1995-1997 2023 |
No Score Yet | 85% | Everybody Loves Raymond | Lois Whelan (Guest Star) | 1996 1998-2004 |
No Score Yet | 97% | The Wild Thornberrys | Unknown (Guest Voice) | 1999 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Liz: The Elizabeth Taylor Story | Hedda Hopper (Character) | 1995 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Who's the Boss? | Mona Robinson (Character) | 1984-1992 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Girls on Top | Unknown (Guest Star) | 1986 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Benson |
Unknown (Guest Star), Director |
1983-1984 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Fantasy Island | Unknown (Guest Star) | 1983 |
No Score Yet | 93% | Soap | Unknown (Character) | 1977-1981 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Bionic Woman | Dr. Harkens (Guest Star) | 1977 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Joe Forrester | Unknown (Guest Star) | 1976 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | The Blue Knight | Unknown (Guest Star) | 1976 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | The Six Million Dollar Man | Middy (Guest Star) | 1975 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Harry O | Unknown (Guest Star) | 1975 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | The Rookies | Unknown (Guest Star) | 1974-1975 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Barnaby Jones | Unknown (Guest Star) | 1975 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Mannix | Martha Cole (Guest Star) | 1974 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Snoop Sisters | Unknown (Guest Star) | 1974 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | The Bob Newhart Show | Dr. Webster (Guest Star) | 1973 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Adam's Rib | Unknown (Guest Star) | 1973 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Gunsmoke | Ena Spratt (Guest Star) | 1972 |