Helen Broderick
Helen Broderick was an American actress known for her comic roles, especially as a wisecracking sidekick.
Career
Broderick began on Broadway as a chorus girl in the Follies of 1907, the first of Florenz Ziegfeld's annual revues. She went on to perform in the vaudeville duo "Broderick & Crawford" until the entertainment form went out of style, moving to a solo career in her first play Nifties of 23. By the 1920s, Broderick had established herself as a comic performer on Broadway. She appeared in several musical comedies and revues, including Jumping Jupiter, where she reportedly gained attention after substituting for a lead actress. Her Broadway work continued through the decade, and she became known for her dry humor and character roles. By the late 1920s, she was playing leads and featured roles, then shifted from stage to Hollywood in the early 1930s to play the role of Violet Hildegarde in the Cole Porter musical Fifty Million Frenchmen. In the early 1930s, she starred in the revues The Band Wagon and As Thousands Cheer. Her move to Hollywood came when her stage successes such as Fifty Million Frenchmen were made into movies, and an image as the quick-quipping friend soon followed in support roles for the Astaire-Rogers movies such as Top Hat, where she played Madge Hardwick, and Swing Time, portraying Mabel Anderson She also appeared in The Rage of Paris, No, No, Nanette (1940 film), Father Takes a Wife, and Stage Door Canteen (film). Before moving to Hollywood, Broderick toured extensively across the United States with the Ziegfeld Follies troupe between 1910 and 1915. She had leading roles in a few B movies, such as amateur sleuth Hildegarde Withers in Murder on a Bridle Path.The wife of actor Lester Crawford, they were the parents of Academy Award-winning actor Broderick Crawford.
Broderick's last appearance on film was with Deanna Durbin in the comedy Because of Him.