Helen Gahagan Douglas

Actress

• Born: November 25, 1900
• Birthplace: Boonton, New Jersey
• Died: June 28, 1980
• Place of death: New York, New York

American representative (1945-1951) and social reformer

Both personally and as a U.S. representative from California, Douglas advocated for civil liberties and opportunities for oppressed minorities. She became only the third woman elected to Congress from California and the first who did not take her congressional seat from a deceased husband.

Areas of achievement Social reform, government and politics, civil rights, theater and entertainment

Early Life

Helen Gahagan Douglas (HEH-lehn geh-HAY-gehn DUHG-lahs) was born Helen Mary Gahagan in Boonton, New Jersey, where her parents briefly rented a home so that her father could supervise a construction project nearby. Her twin brothers had been born two years earlier, and a sister and brother would follow in 1902 and 1910. She grew up in Brooklyn, New York, in a comfortable household with strong-willed parents intent on imbuing their children with strong moral and educational ideals. Her father, Walter, was an engineer who founded his own construction company in 1899 and prospered from the outset. A graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he read insatiably and filled the Gahagan house with shelves of books. Helen’s mother, Lillian, had been reared on the Wisconsin frontier. She was a country schoolteacher before her marriage, and her beauty, optimistic outlook, and exquisite singing voice were inherited by her elder daughter.

Douglas had the benefit of the accoutrements of affluence during her childhood. These included a summer home in Vermont, a family trip to Europe when she was twelve, accompanying her mother to the opera (which, ironically, Douglas disliked intensely), and private schools. The first of these was the Berkeley School for Girls, which was located only a block from the Gahagans’ home. It was at this school that her interest in acting blossomed under the direction of her drama teacher, Elizabeth Grimball. Her grades were mediocre in subjects unrelated to performing, but she studied intensely for a college preparatory school. She matriculated at Barnard College in New York to be close to the stage and her drama instructor.

Douglas would spend only two years at Barnard College before her debut into the Broadway theatrical world. Her impressive performances in school productions and an Off-Broadway play led director William A. Brady, Jr., to cast her as the ingenue in Dreams for Sale by Owen Davis in 1922. Over the extremely strong protests of her father, who insisted that she complete her education, Douglas accepted.

Douglas quickly became a star. Her generally favorable reviews led to contracts with Brady and other well-known producers and assured her a niche in the roster of leading ladies of the 1920’s stage. Practically every new theatrical season brought a new role, and she toured the country in roles she established in New York. She was the subject of much press coverage, not only for her acting talent but also for her great beauty.

Douglas’s ambition to perform ultimately led in another direction. During the run of a New York play in 1926, she began to take vocal lessons from a Russian émigré, Madame Sophia Cehanovska. For the next several years, Douglas would devote time, money, and trips to Europe to the pursuit of performing operatic roles with leading companies, a pursuit that was never as successful as her Broadway acting career.

Douglas’s performance in the 1930-1931 Broadway production of Tonight or Never by Lili Hatvany was important for a number of reasons. The play was her only collaboration with the legendary David Belasco (he would die during its run), her father died during the same run, and she married her costar, Melvyn Douglas. By the end of 1931, she had moved from New York to the West Coast, where Melvyn began his career in motion pictures. Except for some brief performing engagements, Helen would not live in New York again until after her immersion in and forced withdrawal from another career of a very different type.

Life’s Work

The first task for Douglas and her husband, on reaching California, was to establish a new way of life in new surroundings. Melvyn had a studio contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), and Douglas was busy with singing lessons and performances on the West Coast stage in both acting and singing roles. Although Douglas would have the opportunity to read dozens of film scripts in search of suitable parts, her efforts to find strong roles or to receive reasonable financial offers were stymied. She appeared in only one picture, She (1935), a film later considered a “classic” for its overblown production and acting rather than for any positive contributions to the cinematic arts.

The hectic pace of life on the dramatic and sound stages for the couple soon led both to seek a respite. They accomplished this by traveling around the world in 1933. A few months after their return home, Douglas gave birth to their first child, Peter. A daughter, Mary Helen, would follow five years later. Douglas continued her theatrical performances and vocal training, and the family settled into a new home built on three acres in the hills above the Hollywood Bowl.

Two significant events contributed to Douglas’s involvement in political causes. The first involved her awakening to conditions in Germany and Austria during a concert tour there in 1937. She ultimately canceled several engagements on the tour after encountering anti-Semitism directed against the pianist who was traveling with her. Although she was not Jewish, her husband Melvyn was, so she regarded these sentiments as a personal affront.

Back in California, Douglas became involved in Democratic Party campaign activities in 1938. Her husband had joined in the statewide gubernatorial and congressional campaign efforts; at first, she merely accompanied him to meetings. After becoming acquainted with social and economic conditions firsthand, however, she began to take the lead in organizing efforts to assist migrant workers. As a result of their activities on behalf of California Democrats, the Douglases were invited to visit President Franklin D. Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt in the White House in 1939. Douglas was greatly impressed by Eleanor Roosevelt, who became for her something of a political mentor and role model.

Douglas’s intelligence and capacity for hard work, as well as her friendship with the First Lady, led to her rapid rise within the leadership of the Democratic Party in California. In 1940, she was selected as the state’s Democratic national committeewoman. In that capacity, she attended the party’s national convention, where she was an enthusiastic supporter of a third term for Roosevelt. Following Roosevelt’s reelection, Douglas was appointed vice chair and head of the Women’s Division for the California State Democratic Party. Her efforts for Southern California Democratic candidates in 1942 contributed to party successes there in spite of Republican victories throughout the rest of the state.

Douglas’s high visibility in state Democratic politics made her a natural choice for the congressional race in the Fourteenth District in 1944, when popular congressmember Thomas Ford announced his retirement. Although she did not live in the largely working-class district in central Los Angeles, she campaigned thoroughly there and won the nomination in the May primary. Prior to the general election, Douglas delivered a principal address before the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, in which she reviewed the accomplishments of the Roosevelt administrations. In the fall campaign, she followed the lead of Democrats nationally in identifying her programs with Roosevelt and the New Deal, a strategy that produced a narrow victory. She became only the third woman elected to Congress from California and the first who did not take over her seat from a deceased husband.

In Washington, D.C., Douglas adhered to the same formula that had produced political success in California. She maintained a grueling schedule, largely eschewed social events, and applied her keen mind to the process of absorbing all available information on issues pending before Congress. Her legislative interests lay in two areas, one involving foreign affairs, the other domestic. She secured an appointment to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which is usually an unimportant body, since only the Senate ratifies treaties. Nevertheless, with negotiations under way for the postwar international organization that became the United Nations, Douglas believed that the House as well as the Senate would play an integral role in the increased nationwide commitment to internationalism. Membership on the House Foreign Affairs Committee would provide a forum for activities designed to ensure world peace. In domestic affairs, Douglas’s natural inclinations were bolstered by the makeup of her congressional district. She lent support throughout the postwar period to legislation benefiting organized labor and African Americans and other minorities.

Through her diligence, her charismatic appeal, and her high visibility in the press, Douglas became a leading figure in California politics. Following her second reelection, in 1948, her congressional seat seemed to be secure; she and her supporters now looked to a greater challenge the seat in the U.S. Senate held by the conservative Democrat Sheridan Downey. Following the incumbent’s withdrawal from the 1950 primary, Douglas won the nomination in spite of vicious attacks on her internationalist position as being procommunist.

The smear tactics begun in the Democratic primary intensified in the general election, when Douglas faced Congressman Richard M. Nixon. In an election that has since become famous for the infamous dirty tricks of the Nixon campaign, Douglas was removed from public office. In her autobiography some thirty years later, she wryly remarked that “There’s not much to say about the 1950 campaign except that a man ran for the Senate who wanted to get there, and didn’t care how.”

Douglas’s life after politics was spent partly in the public eye, since she continued to speak in favor of causes such as world peace. She campaigned for Democratic presidential candidates Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 and George McGovern in 1972. During the last three decades before her death from cancer in 1980, she was certainly not forgotten, but neither was she occupying her accustomed place in the limelight.

Significance

In a number of respects, Douglas had an enviable life and a great deal of good fortune. She became a famous actor almost overnight, not only because of her talent but also because of her great beauty. Capitalizing on her acting fame, she became a force in politics through intelligence and hard work. Although her fame boosted her political career at the outset, it eventually became a liability to Douglas as a politician seriously intent on pursuing an important agenda. She constantly downplayed her glamour in order to be taken seriously.

She was able, in the end, to use the press attention focused on her to advance an international and domestic social program that was liberal, enlightened, and forward-looking. She did not hesitate to challenge bigotry, isolationism, and red-baiting. Although her public service was cut short because of Nixon’s malicious campaign against her in 1950, she stood as a symbol for other intelligent, forthright, public-spirited women and men to emulate.

Bibliography

Douglas, Helen Gahagan. The Eleanor Roosevelt We Remember. New York: Hill & Wang, 1963. In her autobiography, Douglas clearly indicated that Eleanor Roosevelt was a major influence in her decision to become a political activist. This book, a tribute to Roosevelt, contains photographs from a variety of sources and an admiring text by Douglas.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. A Full Life. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1982. An engaging autobiography in which the author thoroughly discusses her family life, stage experiences, and involvement in political affairs.

Douglas, Melvyn, and Tom Arthur. See You at the Movies: The Autobiography of Melvyn Douglas. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1986. A posthumously published autobiography that focuses on the author’s acting career and includes occasional anecdotes about his wife’s careers and their marriage.

Lowry, Margaret M. S. “Pretty and Therefore ’Pink’: Helen Gahagan Douglas and the Rhetorical Constraints of U.S. Political Discourse.” Rhetoric Review 22, no. 3 (2003): 282. Lowry’s feminist and rhetorical analysis examines Douglas’s 1946 speech “My Democratic Credo.” She concludes that Douglas adapted a “masculine” discourse to create the image of a rational, authoritative representative.

Mitchell, Greg. Tricky Dick and the Pink Lady: Richard Nixon Versus Helen Gahagan Douglas Sexual Politics and the Red Scare, 1950. New York: Random House, 1998. Mitchell examines the California Senate campaign of 1950.

Morris, Roger. Richard Milhous Nixon: The Rise of an American Politician. New York: Henry Holt, 1990. Includes the fullest description and analysis of the 1950 Senate campaign in California. Especially valuable for establishing the context of California politics. Morris covers the Douglas and Nixon primary campaigns as well as the general election.

Scobie, Ingrid Winther. Center Stage: Helen Gahagan Douglas, a Life. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. A thorough biography by a professional historian who conducted research in manuscript and oral history collections around the country. Scobie also met with and interviewed the Douglases.

Related Articles in Great Events from History: The Twentieth Century

1971-2000: June 17, 1972-August 9, 1974: Watergate Affair.