Helen Gahagan

Infobox_Congressman|name=Helen Gahagan Douglas


caption=Gahagan in the 1920s
order=Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from California's 14th congressional district
term_start=1945
term_end= 1951
predecessor=Thomas F. Ford
successor=Samuel W. Yorty
birth_date=birth date|1900|11|25|mf=y
birth_place= Boonton, New Jersey
death_date=death date and age|1980|6|28|1900|11|25
death_place= New York City
religion= Roman Catholic
spouse=Melvyn Douglas
occupation=Actress
alma_mater=Barnard College
party=Democratic|

Helen Gahagan (November 25, 1900 – June 28, 1980) was an American actress and (under the name Helen Gahagan Douglas) a politician. She was of Scottish and Irish descent. She was the second woman and first Democratic woman elected to Congress from California.

Actress

Gahagan was born in Boonton, New Jersey, and reared Roman Catholic. Graduating from Barnard College in 1924, she became a well-known star on Broadway in the 1920s. In 1931, she married actor Melvyn Douglas. Gahagan starred in only one Hollywood movie, "She" in 1935, playing Hash-a-Motep, queen of a lost city. The movie, based on H. Rider Haggard's novel of the same name, is perhaps best known for popularizing a phrase from the novel, "She who must be obeyed."

Political career

In the 1940s, Gahagan Douglas entered politics. She was elected to the United States House of Representatives from California's 14th congressional district as a liberal Democrat in 1944, and served three full terms. During this time, according to author Robert Caro, she carried on an affair with then-Senator Lyndon B. Johnson.

In 1950, Gahagan Douglas ran for the United States Senate even though the incumbent Democrat Sheridan H. Downey was seeking a third term. William Malone, the Democratic state chairman in California, had advised Douglas to wait until 1952 to run for the Senate, rather than split the party in a fight with Downey. Gahagan Douglas, however, told Malone that Downey had neglected veterans and small growers and must be unseated. Downey withdrew from the race in the primary campaign and supported a third candidate, Manchester Boddy, the owner and publisher of the "Los Angeles Daily News". When Gahagan Douglas defeated Boddy for the nomination, Downey endorsed the Republican U.S. Representative Richard M. Nixon. [Kenneth Franklin Kurz, "Nixon's Enemies", NTC/Contemporary Publishing Group, 1998, p. 104]

In the race against Nixon, Gahagan Douglas was considered by many liberals to have been the prototypical victim of a smear campaign. Alluding to her alleged Communist (or "Red") sympathies, Nixon suggested that she was a "fellow traveler", citing as evidence her supposed "Communist-leaning" votes in Congress. He referred to her as "the Pink Lady", and said that she was "pink right down to her underwear." His campaign manager, Murray Chotiner, even had flyers printed up on sheets of pink paper, to underline the point.

Gahagan Douglas, in return, bestowed upon Nixon one of the most enduring nicknames in American politics: "Tricky Dick". Nonetheless, Nixon won the election, with over 59 percent of the vote. Gahagan Douglas' political career hence came to an end. The conservative Democrat Samuel W. Yorty (later a Republican convert) succeeded her in Congress.

Later life

At its 1979 commencement ceremonies, Barnard College awarded Gahagan Douglas its highest honor, the Barnard Medal of Distinction.

She died at the age of seventy-nine from breast and lung cancer.

Actress Illeana Douglas is her step-granddaughter.

ee also

* Dick Tuck (pulled jokes on Nixon's campaigns)
* Jerry Voorhis (Nixon's first political opponent)

External links

* [http://www.ou.edu/special/albertctr/archives/exhibit/hgdbio.htm Biographical Sketch of Helen Gahagan Douglas]
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