Helen Seamon was a talented dancer, singer, and actress on the chorus line in more than 15 MGM films from 1935 to 1945. She is best known for her pivotal role in the film classic The Wizard of Oz.
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Helen Virginia Seamon was born on April 15, 1919, in Dermott, Arkansas, to railroad ticket agent Alpha C. Seamon and Lottie Seamon. Seamon was raised in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. She made her theatrical debut in one of Pine Bluff’s movie houses, singing and playing the organ console during children’s matinees. Seamon loved the stage, studied dance, and dreamed of becoming a dancer in Hollywood.
So, some years later, her parents saved up enough money to send her to Los Angeles, California, to train under film music director Ernest Belcher. In 1916, Belcher founded the Celeste School of Dance, which supplied dancers for films and produced ballets for Hollywood Bowl concerts from 1923 to 1936. He trained and coached many Hollywood actresses, including Beth Beri, Mary Pickford, Pola Negri, Ramon Navarro, Nanette Fabray, and Shirley Temple. Belcher even trained Temple for her now famous dream sequence ballet number in the film classic The Little Princess. Belcher also created 70% of all dance sequences in more than 200 films before the 1930s, including The Phantom of the Opera and The Jazz Singer.
One day, Seamon accompanied a friend auditioning for a part at a movie studio. As she sat in the waiting room, an executive raced in, waved Helen into his office, and told her he needed a female dancer for a musical number. He had just gotten off the phone with Belcher, who informed him that Seamon was already at the studio.
Seamon worked continually from 1935 to 1945 in movies at MGM Studios. She danced and sang, serving as a chorus girl in numerous films, including Folies Bergère de Paris (1935), Hearts in Bondage (1936), Strike Me Pink (1936), Star for a Night (1936), Gold Diggers of 1937 (1936), The Singing Marine (1937), Comet Over Broadway (1938), Broadway Serenade (1939), Strike Up The Band (1940), Mr. District Attorney in the Carter Case (1941), Balls of Fire (1942), and Diamond Horseshoe (1945). Seamon’s most memorable role came in 1939 when she landed a part in The Wizard of Oz, a musical fantasy starring Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr, and Jack Haley. Seamon played an Emerald City citizen whose role was pivotal to the film's climax. Dorothy accidentally gets left behind by the Wizard after Toto jumps out in response to a cat that Seamon's character was holding. Glinda the Good Witch then reappears and tells Dorothy she always had the power to return to Kansas using the ruby slippers. After a tearful farewell, Dorothy utters the now-famous lines, "There's no place like home," and is transported back to Kansas, waking up safely in bed.
The Wizard of Oz and Ball of Fire, two of the films Seamon appeared in, were selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant.
After Seamon left the film industry in 1945, she found a great deal of success in theater. She appeared in four plays, Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep (1950), The Waltz of the Toreadors (1957), Goodbye, My Fancy (1948-1949), and The Vigil.
On July 10, 1964, Seamon married Thomas Evans Beal, the son of a wealthy oil operator, credited with discovering some of California’s greatest oil fields. Beal’s husband had three children from a previous marriage, Mary Elizabeth, Thomas Evans, and Donald Nilson. Beal and her husband lived in Orange County and were active in the local philanthropic and civic community. After her husband died in 1979, Beal moved to Garden Grove, where she continued to support the Children’s Hospital of Orange County through the Helen Seamon Beal Trust.
Beal died on February 2, 2001, in Garden Grove, California.
Sources:
Helen Seamon - IMDb
Written by: Ninfa O. Barnard
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