Ann Blyth in The Helen Morgan Story - on TCM

Ann Blyth stars as torch singer Helen Morgan in The Helen Morgan Story (1957), her last motion picture.  Director Michael Curtiz, with whom she worked in Mildred Pierce (1945), chose her among several other actresses for her stunning audition, and she enjoyed working with him again, despite the controversy of the studio's decision that her singing voice would be dubbed.  Her sensitive portrayal of the troubled Jazz Age star is the highlight of the film.  From my book Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star.:

At the time he was writing his column in New York, when Helen Morgan was starring at the Ziegfeld Theater on Sixth Avenue and 54^th Street (long since torn down) in Hammerstein and Kern’s colossal hit Show Boat (Edna May Oliver played the role of the overbearing Parthy), Ann Blyth was a baby on the other side of town, in a considerably lower rent district, an area along East 31^st Street.  In twelve years Ann would be on Broadway herself while still a child, and in fifteen she’d be in Hollywood, where she got to know Mark Hellinger when she appeared in his productions of Swell Guy (1946), and Brute Force (1947).  Hellinger would say of Ann:

Outside, she’s as untouched as a convent girl—and inside, she’s as wise as a woman of 50.

Perhaps one could say the opposite about Helen Morgan.

You have a chance to watch The Helen Morgan Story today on Turner Classic Movies, 11:30 a.m. ET.