Louise Henry (actress)

Jessie Louise Henry Weltz (June 14, 1911 – February 17, 1967) was an American film actress who worked in Hollywood during the 1930s.

Early years
Born Jessie Louise Heiman, Henry was the daughter of Dr. Jesse Strauss Heiman, a physician, and his wife, stage actress Louise Henry Heiman. Her father was a Syracuse, New York, native and practiced medicine there until he moved the family to New York City when Henry was 4 years old. Between 1914 and 1916, Henry and her family lived at 1027 Genesee Street in Syracuse. She was educated at Marymount convent in Tarrytown until she reached the high-school level. At that point she went to Paris to study at a branch of Marymount.

Career
While Henry was in France, she became fluent in French and began singing and dancing professionally. Her professional debut occurred in Monte Carlo when she was 14, as she danced at a party given in honor of the Duke of Conought. She declined offers to entertain in Europe, preferring to study in New York and work in stock theater. She performed for several years with a stock company headed by Chamberlain Brown.

By the age of 14 in 1926, Henry was engaged in dancing events throughout Europe and under contract for making movies in Berlin.

Henry went to London in the summer of 1933 to appear as "the American show girl" in a Seymour Hicks production. After returning to the United States, she sang at the Deauville Yacht Club in Miami. Her work there led to a screen test in New York, and the test resulted in a long-term film contract.

Death
On February 17, 1967, Henry died of cancer in New York City, at the age of 55.

Some sources erroneously give other accounts of Henry's death. Obituaries in the Performing Arts, 2011 says, "Actress Louise Henry ... died in Syracuse, New York, on December 12, 2011." The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 23 also gives December 12, 2011, as the date of her death. In contrast, the third edition of Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons says, "Internet stories that she lived to 100 in Syracuse notwithstanding, she was married to Samuel Robert Weltz until her death in New York City from Cancer at 55." A source for such confusion may be that Henry's uncle, Dr. Mark Heiman, lived all of his life with his sister (also Henry's aunt) and her family in the Meadowbrook neighborhood of Syracuse. Henry is buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York.