Anne Helm

Follow That Dream, 1962

Born: September 12, 1938, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Husband(s): John Sherlock (1968 - 1969)
Robert Viharo (1971 - 1979)

When Anne was 14, her mother took her to New York and enrolled her in the Metropolitan Opera Ballet School, convinced that Canada wasn't big enough for Anne's talents. Ballet wouldn't pay the bills, however, so Anne soon took up modeling on the side to help pay expenses. By the time she was 17, Anne was bringing in $25,000 a year doing TV commercials. "I realized," she said, "that I wanted money more than the strict life of the dancer. So I let the dancing drift." From there, it was a natural progression to TV guest appearances, and in 1960, a role in the film, Desire In The Dust, a typical soap-opera film. In 1962, Anne starred as Princess Helene in the fantasy film The Magic Sword, opposite another Elvis co-star, Gary Lockwood (Wild In The Country and It Happened At The World's Fair).

The same year, she played Holly Jones in Follow That Dream. Although all of Elvis' films would probably be considered sexist, or at least chauvinistic by today's standards (Gloria Steinem probably used them as ammunition even back then), Follow That Dream was also a little "anti-government" (in a charming-innocent-Will-Rogers kind of way). It's main premise is the backwoods little guy against the rules, regulations and the government beaurocracy. As the Kwimper family sets up its little homestead, and builds a small business, and even chases the bad guys out, they seem almost downright libertarian by today's standards. The "leave us alone, we ain't hurtin' nobody" stance is usually eyed with suspicion nowadays by political progressives, who probably watch this film and cheer for Joanna Moore's character (OK, I'm kidding. Nobody cheers for the nosy social worker!). The rest of us cheer for Anne of course!! But ya gotta watch it for the fun of it, and to see Elvis in one of his funniest performances.

Through the rest of the Sixties and early Seventies, Anne made a few more films, and quite a few more TV appearances, including a stint on the soap opera General Hospital. In 1979, she made an appearance on the horror series, The Next Step Beyond, in an episode titled, "Thunderbolt". To date, her last appearance was in 1986 with John Lithgow on the Emmy winning episode of Amazing Stories called "The Doll", produced by Steven Spielberg.

Anne was married to writer John Sherlock, and they have a son, Peter Sherlock. Her second marriage was to actor Robert Viharo. She mostly gave up acting when she had her second child, Serena Viharo. Serena is also an actress and model.

Sources:
Starlet, by Kim Holston, 1988. pages 111 - 115.
TV Guide, May 12, 1962, page 7. A copy of this article was emailed to me by Ty Lightner, keeper of Ty's Yvonne Craig Homepage.
email from "scott h.", a fan. - thanks, Scott, for the info about her husband and daughter.
email from Julie Parrish, who also provided more personal info, as well as career details.
finally, email from Anne herself, who cleared up some details.

• Anne Helm - IMDB
• Anne Helm - Wikipedia
• Anne Helm Pictures - FanPix
• Follow That Dream Photo Shoot Session - lots of photos of Anne (and the rest of the "Kwimper family") here at the EPSS page for Follow That Dream.
• Hawaii Five-O - Anne made a guest appearance in the episode, "Just Lucky I Guess".
• Follow That Dream - Betcha didn't know Follow That Dream was a libertarian movie.

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