Helen Parrish

 Helen Parrish (March 12, 1924 – February 22, 1959)

She started in movies at age five, getting her first part playing Babe Ruth's daughter in the silent film, Babe Comes Home (1927). However, most of her movies were in the "B" category, including X Marks the Spot (1931), When a Feller Needs a Friend (1932), A Dog of Flanders (1935), I'm Nobody's Sweetheart Now (1940), Too Many Blondes (1941), and The Wolf Hunters (1949). By her mid-twenties she had left motion pictures and turned to television, co-hosting Hour Glass, the first U.S. network variety show in 1946-47. In an era when "... it was a social 'taboo' for a pregnant woman to display herself in public," Parrish was forced to leave Hour Glass as a result of her pregnancy. One notable TV role was that of Geraldine Rutherford in the first season of Leave It to Beaver. Her last role on television was as women's editor of a morning program, Panorama Pacific, on the West Coast. She died of cancer at age 34, and is buried at Hollywood Forever Cemetery (then Hollywood Memorial Park).