Helen Twelvetrees

Helen Marie Twelvetrees was an American movie and theatre actress, who became a top female star through a series of womens pictures in the early 1930s.

She was born Helen Marie Jurgens in Brooklyn, where she attended Public School 119. Her family moved to Flatbush, where her younger brother was born. During the winter of 1919, the fourbedroom apartment in which the family resided caught fire one night. Twelvetreess brother perished in the burning structure, but the rest of the family was rescued. Later she attended Brooklyn Heights Seminary. After graduation, she enrolled in the Art Students League of New York, where she studied for a year before enrolling at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. While attending AADA, she met actor Clark Twelvetrees, whom she married in 1927. She adopted her husbands surname which she used as her professional name.

Source: Wikipedia