By HENRY FREDERICK / Headline Surfer
LAKE MARY. Fla. -- Yours truly is shown interviewing actress and two-time Oscar-winner Helen Hayes in 1989 at Helen Hayes Hospital in West Haverstraw, NY, for a community award.
The intrepid reporter was 27 years old and in his first year with the Rockland Journal-News/Gannett Suburban Newspapers (1989-1996) in West Nyack, NY.
Helen Hayes, "The First Lady of the American Theater," passed away in 1993 at 93.
The reporter, now 63, has been a member of the working press for nearly 40 years in Florida, New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, with dozens of award-winning journalism bylines in print newspapers and online.
Did You Know?
Helen Hayes won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1932 for her role as Madelon Claudet in The Sin of Madelon Claudet. She was the first actress from the stage to win an Academy Award and the first person to win an Oscar in two categories (Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress).
Hayes won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in 1971 for her role in the 1970 movie "Airport."
A leading philanthropist in later decades, Hayes was most proud of her 49-year association with the Helen Hayes Hospital, a non-profit rehabilitative center overlooking the Hudson River in West Haverstraw, NY.
Hayes was hospitalized a number of times for asthma, which was aggravated by stage dust, forcing her to retire from the theater in 1971, at age 71. She died on March 17, 1993, of congestive heart failure in Nyack, NY.
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