More What's My Line?

Let's head back to What's My Line? for a new 'Mystery Guest' segment.  This time, the contestant is Helen Hayes, often referred to as the "First Lady of the American Theater."  And that's understandable, with her receiving four Tony Awards (though some were special awards), but also two Academy Awards.  (Oddly, for all the performances in her legendary career, she's probably best known by most people for her second Oscar, as Supporting Actress, playing a pixie-ish stowaway in the movie, Airport.)  Her appearance here in What's My Line? starts around the 19-minute mark, if you want to jump directly to it.

By the way, Helen Hayes was married to Charles MacArthur who began as a newspaper reporter in Chicago and later partnered with Ben Hecht to write the famous plays, The Front Page and Twentieth Century, and got an Oscar nomination for their co-writing Wuthering Heights.  

And her son was James MacArthur, who had a solid career as an actor, best known for his role as 'Danno' on original version of the long-running series, Hawaii Five-0.  There was a funny story at the time -- I don't remember the exact details at this point -- where someone on the show wanted their mother to have a small, cameo role on the series, and the show's producer quipped that that would be fine...as long as James MacArthur would get his mother to be on the show, too.  In fact, she later did appear, playing Danno's aunt.  Here's a clip of the two of them meeting --

​Oh, and what the heck, here's a bonus because it's a better clip of her, along with series star Jack Lord as 'Steve McGarrett.'