Tom Helmore Biography

Well-mannered, well-tailored British character actor Tom Helmore made his first film in 1928. He remained in films until the 1960s, nearly always playing men of wealth and property, and nearly never winning the heroine from the hero (e.g. losing Lauren Bacall to Gregory Peck in Designing Women [1957]). Helmore's most famous role was as Gavin Elster, the outwardly concerned husband of mental case Kim Novak, in Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958). A member in excellent standing of Hollywood's unofficial "British colony," Tom Helmore counted among his best friends actor Boris Karloff -- and that was even after Karloff married Helmore's ex-wife Evelyn. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi