Helen Hayes MacArthur was born on 10th October 1900 in Washington DC, US. She was an American actress who had an acting career of 80 years. She received the name 'First Lady of American Theatre' and won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony Award. She was the first person to win the Triple Crown of Acting. She was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1988.
Hayes began acting at a very early age. Her stage debut was as a five-year-old singer. She starred in a short film, Jean and the Calico Doll at the age of ten. She attended Dominican Academy's primary school and later joined the Academy of the Sacred Heart Convent. Her debut film was The Sin of Madelon Claudet. She also featured in Arrowsmith, The White Sister, Another Language, A Farewell to Arms, What Every Woman Knows, and many more.
She returned to Theatre in 1935. Hayes starred in My Son John and Anastasia. She took part in several Disney films like Herbie rides again, One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing, and Candleshoe. The Fulton Theatre was renamed for her in 1955.in 1983, the Little Theatre on West was renamed Helen Hayes Theatre.
She was a Catholic and attended many Republican National Conventions. She wrote three memoirs: A Gift of Joy, On Reflection, and My Life in Three Acts.
Helen died due to congestive heart failure on 17th March 1993 in Nyack, New York. She was honored with a US postage stamp in 2011.
Some of the most famous Helen Hayes Quotes are as follows.
Age is not important unless you're a cheese.
Age is not as important as much as we think it is. It is just a number. You can never grow old until you choose to grow old from the inside. Those who are young at heart never really grow old. It is not about physical appearance; rather, it is a mental state. If food gets old, it gets spoilt; humans don't.
From your parents you learn love and laughter and how to put one foot before the other. But when books are opened you discover that you have wings.
Parents nurture us, teach us how to walk and how to speak. They teach us to laugh and love and become a worthy person. When you read books, you discover another world. You learn to fly high; you learn to dream. Books are the best teachers. One learns and experiences a lot when he reads. Reading is fuel to the mind.
There is only one terminal dignity - love.
The only fatal dignity is love. When we love someone, we respect them. Love and respect go hand in hand. Loving someone is the most and ultimate dignifying action or gesture. Love is above all, and those who can love are the supreme beings.
Childhood is a short season.
Childhood is the most innocent and beautiful but short period of our life. Childhood is a phase when nobody holds angst for another person, and nobody hates anyone. All the negative thoughts and feelings grow when we become old. We are of the utmost innocence when we are a child. Everybody cherishes their childhood.
People who refuse to rest honorably on their laurels when they reach retirement age seem very admirable to me.
One should never stop working. People often stop working when they achieve heights and reach the age of retirement. Those who don't stop working even when they achieve a lot in life are admired the most.
Few more quotes by Helen Hayes...
I cry out for order and find it only in art.
We should seek order in art. Art is the only form that offers order. One who does art religiously works wonders. They achieve great heights. They find the true order and meaning of everything.
I'm leaving the screen because I don't think I am very good in the pictures and I have this beautiful dream that I'm elegant on the stage.
Sometimes the fear of aging makes people weaker. The fear of aging makes them doubt themselves and feel insecure about themselves. One should continue what they love to do no matter how old they get.
When traveling with someone, take large doze of patience and tolerance with your morning coffee.
Traveling is a beautiful experience but it is somewhat painstaking too. When we travel with someone, we have to be very patient and tolerant. Everyone is not alike. We are different from each other, and when we have to go on a journey together, we have to compromise, adjust and listen to each other.
Legends die hard. They survive as truth rarely does.
Legends die very slowly just like truth. Truth never dies; neither it changes. Legends never die easily. They live as long as their good deeds remain in this society.
Only the poet can look beyond the detail and see the whole picture.
Poet has that feeling, intuition, and knowledge to read and understand every single thing that he sees. The poet knows more than what you see. He understands everything but in a deeper sense. He notices everything and realizes everything too much.
Continue reading some more Helen Hayes Quotes...
We relish news of our heroes, forgetting that we are extraordinary to somebody too.
We often are in awe of some heroes. We admire and look up to them. We forget that we are extraordinary to somebody too. We might not realize it, but we play a very important role in someone's life. We leave our imprints in their lives, too, and they look up to us as their heroes.
If you rest, you rust.
Rest is the evil of a person's life. When you become lazy and try to take a rest, you gradually rust. When you are out of practice, you stop excelling in what you are good at. You should take little breaks to reenergize yourself but never take rest.
The hardest years in life are those between ten and seventy.
Childhood and old age are the two phases when people are often dependent on others for everything. But the hardest years are the ones between the age of ten and seventy. That is when you have to struggle the most, you face all the adversities and failures that life throws at you, and that is the time when you reach heights. You take a dream and start working for it. The hard work and efforts you will put in will determine the kind of future you will have.
The story of a love is not important what is important is that one is capable of love. It is perhaps the only glimpse we are permitted of eternity.
We don't have to always be with the person we love. The most pivotal aspect is that whether or not we have the capability to love someone. A love story is not important, loving someone is important.
Few more Helen Hayes Quotes...
One has to grow up with good talk to form the habit of it.
One's personality reflects his upbringing. Those who have grown up in a family that has strong beliefs and positive thoughts incorporate the same in their personality and behavior.
Every human being on this earth is born with a tragedy, and it isn't original sin. He's born with the tragedy that he has to grow up... a lot of people don't have the courage to do it.
The tragedy is omnipresent in everyone's life. Only the wise one accepts their tragedy in life and moves on. A lot of people hesitate to do that. They cannot accept the tragedy that they have to face. A courageous soul knows how to handle that.
Stardom can be a gilded slavery.
Stardom is nothing but a sugarcoated form of slavery. No matter what field you are in or what you do, to become famous, one has to work hard as a slave and under someone. Until and unless you work under someone or toil a lot, you can never gain stardom.
Mere longevity is a good thing for those who watch Life from the side lines. For those who play the game, an hour may be a year, a single day's work an achievement for eternity.
For those who only sit back and watch, longevity is the best thing. Those who are happy and want to live a long life, but only those whose life has been knocked down are the ones who know how hard it is to stay alive. Those who face troubles and have to struggle for everything, for them, each moment counts. The one hour of hardship might seem like a year's toil for them.
