Auto Accident
She was filming Heaven Only Knows when an auto accident drastically disrupted her career. On December 31, 1946, while driving the car of director Bruce "Lucky" Humberstone from Palm Springs to Hollywood, she gave a ride to three hitchiking soldiers named Robert E. Lee, Philip Mercado, and Joseph Montaldo. Near Redlands, California, the car hit a divider and flipped over, killing Lee and causing serious injuries to Helen and the other two passengers. She was charged with drunk driving and reckless driving, and Mercado brought a civil suit for $150,000 against her.
Her criminal trial for manslaughter ended with a dismissal on the motion of San Bernardino County District Attorney Jerome B. Kavanaugh.
Read more about this topic: Helen Walker
Famous quotes containing the word accident:
“Predictions of the future are never anything but projections of present automatic processes and procedures, that is, of occurrences that are likely to come to pass if men do not act and if nothing unexpected happens; every action, for better or worse, and every accident necessarily destroys the whole pattern in whose frame the prediction moves and where it finds its evidence.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)