The Hawksian Woman
Cary Grant and “Hawksian Woman” Rosalind Russel in Howard Hawks’ 1940 film His Girl Friday
The formidable Helen Hawks and her son Howard. Photo taken in 1898.
1898. Helen Hawks with her son, future Hollywood legend, Howard Hawks. She was the former Helen Howard, daughter of the wealthy Neenah industrialist, C.W. Howard. C.W. was a larger than life character - loud, often drunk, a fabulist and amateur thespian who would become fictionalized as "Barney Glasgow" in Edna Ferber's 1935 best seller, COME AND GET IT. The book was described by Ferber, a girl from the nearby river city of Appleton, as "primarily a story of the rape of America by the wholesale robber barons of that day."
Theda Clark, namesake for the Theda Clark Hospital and Thedacare, a health care company in Neenah.
Pictured above is Helen's best friend, Theda Clark. She was the daughter of Charles Clark, a co-founder of the Kimberly-Clark corporation. The two women were the leading lights of Neenah, a small city well on it's way to becoming one of the wealthiest cities in the United States. Headstrong, intelligent and independent, the two women attended college together. Later, they would both marry men of considerable wealth from Goshen,Indiana. Helen to Frank Hawks and Theda to Will Peters. The two are thought by many to be the template for the strong women's roles that are typical in Howard's films - the prototype of what would be known as the Hawksian Woman.
Howard Hawks was born in Goshen, Indiana in 1896. Theda and Will moved to Neenah in 1897. The Hawks family moved to Neenah in 1899. Theda Clark's tragic death in 1903 while giving birth to a daughter, coupled with Helen's failing health due to being continually pregnant(five children in short order)prompted the family's move to Pasadena, California in 1906. The Hawks family would, however, spend their summers in Neenah until Howard was 15 years old.
C. W. Howard, the grand old Lion of the paper industry, died in 1916 at the age of seventy. He was buried in a family plot at Oak Hill cemetary in Neenah. Years later, Helen, now a devout Christian Scientist and proponent of cremation, returned to her hometown. She had her father, mother, and brother Neil - who had drowned in Lake Winnebago at the age of 5 - dug up and cremated. "After mixing the ashes in an urn, she went out to Riverside Park and threw it in the river, where it was discovered decades later, with the names and dates still legible, by scuba divers. " Howard Hawks was the first director assigned to the 1936 film version of COME AND GET IT. He was later removed from the project and replaced by William Wyler. Producer Sam Goldwyn felt that Hawks was "too close" to the material to deliver a good movie.
The photo of Howard and Helen is from Neenah Public Library Local History Collection at the University of Wisconsin Digital Collections http://uwdc.library.wisc.edu/collections/WI/NeenahLocHist