Helen Ferguson — The Battle of Helen and the Jinx (1924) 🇺🇸
What is the matter with Helen Ferguson?
That query has often been heard this past year along Hollywood’s highway of chatter. For, despite a glowing promise, the passing months have not seen any advancement of her decidedly worth-while talent.
Ideally cast as the immigrant girl of “Hungry Hearts” — she put into that picture every particle of feeling that was in her. Great things were predicted for her, but rôles like that seldom happen. It seemed that Helen was doomed to inactivity because she wasn’t an ingénue type.
She grew morbid. She felt that fate was against her, had given her momentary success that she might feel more poignantly the hurt of failure. She saw her life, her friends, through dark glasses. It seemed then that life had beaten Helen.
“A pity, too,” was the substance of Hollywood’s thought, “for she’s a plucky one.”
Then, a few months ago, Helen began to wake up to herself. Everybody marvels now at the new Helen, the irresponsible, rollicking Helen, apparently getting such a good time out of life — looking younger than ever with her new bob and her ness.
“I read a fan’s comment in Picture-Play [Picture Play Magazine], saying my name should be taken from ‘The Stars of Tomorrow’ list. That was the last straw. I thought I was done for. For a while I thought I might as well quit, but consoled myself with the idea that there were other things I could do. Once, in New York, I earned eighteen dollars a week counting those felt pads that go into grand pianos. Another time I had to sling hash in a Gotham beanery, when nobody would let me act.
“I resented that letter at first. I’d tried so hard and it seemed so unjust to cut me right off without a fighting chance.
“My discontent all came about,” Helen has admitted several times, “from self-consciousness and that started when I let myself get too fat. I felt awkward, knew I couldn’t compete with lovely, graceful girls. I brooded over it and that melancholy led to hypersensitiveness. If I saw two girls talking, I was wild with fear that they were saying something catty about me, when probably they weren’t even thinking of me. In my self-analysis, I played up my own importance too much.
“Then I began to diet and the awkwardness dropped off with the layers of fat. I quit, worrying’ about how joyous I looked and soon I lost my self-consciousness. I seldom get into heated arguments any more and I don’t depend upon what people say and think as much as I used to. I’m still a little uncertain about myself and everything, and erratic, but I have kidded myself into a better humor, and that’s something.”
Beneath her raillery one can sense the will that brought Helen out of her slough of despondency.
“We mustn’t take ourselves too seriously,” Helen says emphatically. “Life is pretty much of a joke. Why not have a good time out of it? People don’t want to be bothered with the pessimists. I used to think all the time about my work. That’s the bunk” — decisively. “I’m going to put whatever sincerity and ability I have into my acting, but I’m not going to get gray worrying about it any more.”
She has lost ten pounds in weight and five years in age, she has gained new friends, and better still, brought back the old ones. She isn’t so eager to lead, as always before, but is more content to follow.
In making herself over, she has conquered her jinx and we may look for finer things from her when the chance comes her way again.
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Photo by: Hoover
Collection: Picture Play Magazine, March 1924