On this day in 1993, actress Helen Hayes dies at the age of 92.Hayes, the daughter of an actress, made her stage debut at age five and appeared on Broadway four years later. She became a major Broadway fixture, starring in plays like The Glass Menagerie and Long Day’s Journey into Night. Although more comfortable on stage than on screen, she moved to Hollywood in the early 1930s when her husband signed as a screenwriter with MGM. Her first film appearance, in The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1931), landed her a Best Actress Oscar.
Although she appeared in several highly regarded films, her first love was the stage, and she returned to Broadway in 1935 to great acclaim. Dubbed “The First Lady of the American Theater,” Hayes only occasionally returned to film but won a second Oscar, for Best Supporting Actress, in Airport (1970). Her only daughter died of polio in 1949; her adopted son, James MacArthur, became an actor. Her last film, Candleshoe (1978), featured David Niven and the young Jodie Foster.
In 1959, a Broadway theater was named after Hayes: the theater was torn down in 1982, provoking such outrage that another theater was promptly named after her. Hayes won the Life Achievement Award from the Kennedy Center and was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1988 by President Reagan.
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