American actress who had a brief film career. Her death certificate gives her birth date and place as 06 December 1907 in Norfolk, Virginia, and her parents' names as Sarah Mae (Dale) and Bert Anthrim, birthplaces both unknown (the informant was Helen's husband, Paul Bragdon). I cannot locate anything matching for any Bert or Sarah or Helen Anthrim, or for any spelling variants (Antrim, etc.) I can think of.
I'm thinking it's more likely she was actually born Hazel Helen Dellmae Williams, daughter of Jane Lee Helen (Dale) and Bert L. Williams, who married then-assistant director and future Roach director Lewis R. Foster on 27 August 1924. The 1924 marriage certificate gives Miss Williams' age as 21 years old (b. ca. 1903), and has her living at 1710 Harvard in Hollywood, CA; it gives her birthplace as Virginia (which is also given as the birthplace for both of her parents), which matches the Norfolk, VA birthplace given on Helen's death certificate. Though this seems more concrete (the info more than likely came from the bride herself, rather than second-hand from a man whom the deceased had been married to for, at the longest, four years), I haven't found any census records or what-have-you matching for this Williams family either. Hazel H. Foster filed for divorce from Louis [sic] R. in November 1929; by the 1930 Census, she and Lewis were living separately (Helen Mae Foster, age 25, she and parents all b. VA, is living at 421½ Stanley Ave, Los Angeles). Hazel H. Foster is listed as filing again in August 1930, and the divorce was granted a month later.
Sometime between 1942 and 1946, Helen married Paul Odell Bragdon (1894-1948); in the 1942 Los Angeles City Directory, both Helen and Paul were living at Whitley Heights Apartments at 1930 Whitley Avenue (Helen is living there as early as the 1937 L.A. City Directory). She and her husband were living at the Regent Hotel (6162 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, CA) at the time of her death. Helen Dale Bragdon, a "retired actress" of "stage and screen," died there at 4:00pm on 14 March 1946, of congestive heart disease (12 months) due to malnutrition and alcoholism. She was buried at Inglewood Park Cemetery in Inglewood, California on 19 March 1946.
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