Confirmed Years: 1917
Biography:
A native of Seattle, Helen Starr attended both the University of Washington and Stanford University and was a member of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority. She began her career as both an actress and a writer. In May 1914, she was hired to work on the publicity team for the Mutual Film Corporation, American’s domestic distributor. She contributed heavily towards their publications “Reel Life” and “Mutual Girl Weekly.” In October of 1915, she moved to the publicity department at the Universal Film Company and in June of the following year, moved from New York to Los Angeles to continue work in Universal City. She resigned from Universal in June of 1917 and continued to contribute articles to magazines such as Photoplay (which she did throughout her career) as well as write scripts. Three of her scripts were made in 1917: “Lone Larry” for Bison, “High Speed” for Butterfly Pictures, and “Jilted Janet” for the American Film Company. Starr joined American as a scenarists in August 1917, but “Jilted Janet” was the only film she wrote that got produced by American. During WWI, she worked for the Intelligence Department for the United States government and returned to LA in August of 1919. She then joined Goldwyn in the publicity department the following month before being promoted to writing titles in November. In April 1920 she left Goldwyn and later joined the publicity departments of B. P. Schulberg Productions, Donald Parker Studios, and even the Herbert Hoover European Relief Campaign.
- Peyton McLeish, September 2023