Lot 687 , § Arthur George Mills (1907-1996) Portrait of the actress Helen Walker 36 x 28in.

§ Arthur George Mills (1907-1996)
oil on canvas
Portrait of the actress Helen Walker
signed
36 x 28in.
Estimate £500-800

Oil on canvas in good original untouched condition, perhaps a little neglected, paint a little dirty and in need of a good clean, some light scratching showing in the brown of her jumper and lower left corner along with some white paint splashes across the bottom, signed lower left, housed in an overpainted gilt scroll frame which is now rather tatty and has numerous inscriptions across the back suggesting that the artist re-used the frame on various occasions, the stretcher has the artist full detail giving a title of Mrs Whittaker however the vendor has more knowledge of the painting and assures us of the correct identification of the sitter.

Helen Walker was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, and made her film debut in 1942. She earned a solid reputation playing leading roles in comedies – a "reactress" to comic leads, as she described it.

Walker's film debut came in 1942's Lucky Jordan, a comedy about a gangster (Alan Ladd) who ends up drafted in the Army, where Walker's character reports him AWOL. In the farce Brewster's Millions, her sweetheart inherits $8 million, but can't keep it unless he can spend a million of it within a specified time. Walker also played the romantic interest of Fred MacMurray in the popular comedy Murder, He Says in 1945.

After a promising start in Hollywood, Walker was involved in a 1946 car wreck. A hitchhiker was killed, and Helen and two others were seriously injured. She was charged with drunk and reckless driving. She was subsequently acquitted and made a comeback, but her career never fully recovered. Her final big-screen appearance was in Joseph H. Lewis's film noir The Big Combo in 1955. She retired from acting at the age of 35 and died in North Hollywood, California from cancer at the age of 47


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Sold for £1,600