Helen Westley

Westley, Helen (1879–1942), character actress. The Brooklyn native made her debut in 1897 and acted in stock for many years before becoming a founder first of the Washington Square Players and then of the Theatre Guild. She never became a star but continued throughout her career to play important featured roles, among them Mrs. Clegg in Jane Clegg (1920), Mrs. Muskat in Liliom (1921), Mrs. Zero in The Adding Machine (1923), Ftatateeta in Caesar and Cleopatra (1925), Mrs. Evans in Strange Interlude (1928), Aunt Eller in Green Grow the Lilacs (1931), Frau Lucher in Reunion in Vienna (1931), Mrs. Wells in They Shall Not Die (1934), and Grandma in The Primrose Path (1939). Theresa Helburn praised her sure instinct in helping the Guild select plays, and noted, “She had a theatrical appearance and manner, and dressed rather like a femme fatale—coal‐black hair and black, slinky dresses, a little like Charles Addams's young witch.”