Film Actress
Her Fox Film screen test came in March 1931 and within three weeks she was on the studio lot. Mack began her film career, first billed as Helen Macks, in Success. The motion picture featured Brandon Tynan, Naomi Childers, and Mary Astor. In Zaza, Mack worked with Gloria Swanson. She also had a small role in D. W. Griffith's last film The Struggle (1931).
She made her debut as a leading lady opposite Victor McLaglen in While Paris Sleeps (1932) and was cast with John Boles in his initial Fox Film venture, Scotch Valley. Mack played in several westerns in the early 1930s. Among these are Fargo Express (1933) with Ken Maynard and The California Trail with Buck Jones.
Reviewer Norbert Lusk commented favorably regarding Mack's performance in the 1933 motion picture, Sweepings (1933). He said "she has a lively personality, appreciated all the more in a heavy, loomy picture, and she plays her shopgirl role with understanding and finesse." Prior to this film Mack's career had declined for three years. Three of her productions failed. One reason for this career downturn is that she was usually a character star. Her employers had used Mack as an ingenue. RKO Radio Pictures Inc. offered her a second chance as Mamie Donahue in Sweepings.
She may be best remembered for the 1933 movie sequel The Son of Kong, as Harold Lloyd's sister in The Milky Way (1936) and as the suicidal Molly Malloy in His Girl Friday (1940). She also played an important role as Tanya in Merian C. Cooper's production of H. Rider Haggard's She (1935) opposite Randolph Scott, Nigel Bruce, and Helen Gahagan (who did the title role as She, who must be obeyed). Other roles for Mack included the bank-robbing ingenue opposite Richard Cromwell and Lionel Atwill in 1937's The Wrong Road for RKO.
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