Helen Morgan (August 2, 1900 – October 9, 1941)
... was an American singer and actress who worked in films and on the stage. A quintessential torch singer, she made a big splash in the Chicago club scene in the 1920s. She starred as Julie LaVerne in the original Broadway production of Hammerstein and Kern's musical Show Boat in 1927, and appeared in its two subsequent film adaptations, in 1929 (prologue only) and in 1936, becoming firmly associated with the role. She suffered from bouts of alcoholism, and despite her notable success in the title role of another Hammerstein and Hart's Broadway musical, Sweet Adeline (1929), her stage carreer was relatively short. Helen Morgan died from of cirrhosis of the liver at the age of 41. She was portrayed in the 1957 biopic The Helen Morgan Story.
