Helen Carr
Biography Helen Carr
Helen Carr
was born in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1922. She started singing as a child, and realized there was money in singing for an audience at a very young age. So, even though her first job in high school was as an usherette in a theatre, her dream was always to become a singer. Her family later moved to Illinois, and in 1936, after her father’s death, Helen and her mother started traveling around the country to finally settle in Oakland, California.
There is much speculation about her artistic beginnings, as there was another vocalist named Helen Carr on the west coast, presumably older, who performed in an amateur vocal contest at the Gateway Theater in Oakland in 1936, as published by the Oakland Tribune on July 28th of that year. It was not the same Helen though, because our singer took her last name Carr only after marrying Walter Carr in June 1941. A third singer with same name was working in the Pennsylvania area at the time. And in December 1947, possibly a fourth Helen Carr, or maybe one of the Helen’s we have already mentioned, appeared in a Broadway production of “Caribbean Carnival” and later in 1956 at the Copacabana in the revue “Spring Will be a Little Great this Year.” All in all, a real source of confusion for music historians.
There is no available information about what Helen Carr did during the first three years of her failed marriage, but it is certain that her life took a turn when she met Donn Trenner in San Francisco, in March 1945, a boy five years younger than her. By then, Helen was 23 years old, already separated, but not yet divorced from her husband, and had a four-year-old son, Gordon Carr, who lived with his father’s sister.
Donn Trenner was the pianist for the popular Ted Fio Rito Orchestra, engaged at the Golden Gate Theater in San Francisco from March 7-20. In his biography, Leave It to Me… My Life in Music, Donn explains: “I hooked up with her and we started to date. I didn’t know she sang until after we started going out.” Shortly after finishing Fio Rito’s stint at the Golden Gate Theater, Donn enlisted in the military.
Meanwhile, Helen continued to develop her singing career as a nightclub vocalist, as can be seen in an ad published on the San Luis Obispo Telegram of November 20, 1945, in which Helen is the headliner at Nina’s Shell Beach Cocktails. “Every night starting Monday— Helen Carr Vocalist. A cute little blonde singer who has been with big name bands in Seattle and the best places in San Francisco. You will really enjoy her.” If we take this advertisement at face value, we can surmise that Helen had already been singing professionally for a few years.
In the meanwhile, Donn was stationed at Sheppard Field, Texas, serving as a band musician. Before long, he was assigned to Special Services, where he wrote for the libraries of three different bands, and produced a weekly show called Shep Parade. “We put the show together and did it on Monday and Tuesday nights at the theater on the post. I invited Helen Carr to come down and sing in the show.” After eleven months, he was transferred to Scott Field, in Bellville, Illinois, about 25 miles east of downtown St. Louis. .... (Source: freshsoundrecords.com)
