Katherine Helmond

Katherine Helmond married her boyfriend, George N. Martin, in 1957, way before she achieved fame. The marriage didn’t last long and after five years of being together, the couple got divorced in 1962. In the same year, she started dating David Christian and went on to marry him. She never had a child from any of her marriages.

Katherine is an ardent follower of Zen way of life and believes in leading a calm and composed life. In her own words, it has helped her greatly in going through the ups and downs of her acting career.

Katherine Helmond was born in Texas, USA on 5th July 1929. She was the only child of Joseph and Thelma Helmond and her middle class family had no prior connection to the American entertainment industry. But that wasn’t enough to stop little Katherine from dreaming about becoming an actress.

Her parents’ marriage didn’t last long as they got divorced a few years after Katherine was born. She was then raised by her mother and her grandmother. Her family members were ardent Roman Catholics and she was given lessons on Christianity right from her primary school days.

She did her early schooling in a Catholic school and constantly participated in school plays. By the time she reached her high school, she was already a fine and beautiful actress. She wanted to learn more before plunging into an acting career and hence, while in her high school, joined a local theatre and did odd jobs with minimal pay.

But she considers those days to be the formative days of her career as she used to learn the nuances of professional acting by observing other actors. She was also made a part of few of the plays.

Once out of the high school, she underwent a professional training in acting at the Dramatic Academy, and she also got well versed in the musical theatre. While at the Texas University, she graduated in Theatre and once she was done with it, she moved to New York and became part of the theatre scene.

She started her acting career in New York in the mid-50s and performed for the first time in ‘As You Like It’, a play. Her performance was appreciated, but as she carried on with more theatrical productions, she realized that although theatre was a lucrative place to start her career with, it wasn’t financially viable. Hence, she started organizing acting workshops and spent some time at the New York University where she taught the nuances of acting to students.

After concentrating for some more time on gathering enough acting experience, she started auditioning for roles in television. After ignoring some minor roles, she finally said yes to ‘Car 54, Where Are You?’ The series had her playing a small role which was uncredited.

She carried on with similar roles and this went on for quite some time. It was only at the beginning of the 70s that she was finally getting noticed by the directors, and she started getting some meaty roles.

In 1971, she started her big screen career with a minor role in the film, ‘Believe in Me’. She then got a slightly better role to play in ‘The Hospital’. Despite her good looks and acting skills, it seemed very hard for her to break into the major roles.

In 1973, she returned to her theatrical roots for a while and became part of the Broadway ‘Great God Brown’ and ended up winning a Tony Award for her performance. Her success streak continued and she earned acclamations for her performances in productions, such as ‘Don Juan’, ‘Private Lives’ and ‘Mixed Emotions’.