When she auditioned for Soap, Helmond said that Harris sat very seriously, never laughing, but by the time the actress had arrived home from their first meeting, she learned that she had gotten the part.

My agent said, ‘I just can’t bear to see you knocked around on television any more. “That’s one of the reasons I got switched to comedic roles. “I was married to drunks, I got knocked around and battered and beaten and taken advantage of,” she said of her first TV roles in a 2008 interview with the Archive of American Television. She often said that the theater was her first love.Īfter Helmond toiled for years in small, dramatic parts on television, her agent thought it was time that the actress did some comedy.

The 5-foot-2-inch Helmond also showed off her glorious cheekbones when she earned a Tony nom in 1973 for best featured actress in a play for her work in Eugene O’Neill’s The Great God Brown. And she won two Golden Globes, one for each show. She was nominated again for Who’s the Boss? in 19 and for Everybody Loves Raymond in 2002. Helmond received Emmy noms for lead actress in a comedy for playing Jessica in every season of Soap, which aired from 1977-81.

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