— by Maliyah Schiff

Imagine my disbelief when I found out that not a lot of people know about incredible singer and actress Helen Grayco. Helen was born here in our wonderful city of Tacoma and was already singing by the age of 4. Two years later she became the six-year-old blues singer for Seattle’s KOL radio station. Then at age 8 she got a job singing at a radio station in Los Angeles called KHJ. Talk about accomplishing amazing things at such a young age!

After her time on KHJ, she was hired by Universal Studios and pursued small acting roles from 1935 to 1938. Some of the films she played in were: Here Comes The Band (1935), A Night At The Opera (1935), Our Gang Follies of 1936 (1935), and That Certain Age (1938). Learn more about her film credits at IMDb.com!

When Helen was 18 years old, she met Spike Jones and years later began working with him. She and Spike got married in 1948. He hired her as a singer and together they worked in Vegas and other top nightclubs. They were very popular and an example of one of the performances they did together was Spike Jones ‘Musical Depreciation of 1951’. People describe Helen’s singing as focusing on Latin American numbers while also having focus on romantic ballads. Tacoma residents were able to attend this performance at the C.P.S Memorial Fieldhouse on September 9^th, 1950. I would have loved to attend if I was alive during that time.

Helen also starred in ‘The Spike Jones Show’ through 1954 and then through 1957. There is a beautiful video of her singing for a pilot of the show in the 1950’s. She is singing ‘One for My Baby’. She looks very elegant, and you can tell that she enjoys doing what she does. Her voice is soft and sounds extraordinary. She does a very well job at holding her notes and puts in her all.

Even though Helen’s first single was released in 1949, she did not release her first album until eight years later in 1957. Her first album was named ‘After Midnight’ and contained 12 songs on the track list. Her husband had said that “it is her best work” when referring to ‘After Midnight’. Helen expressed to Spike that an album gives her a chance to be herself because she does not have compete with everyone like she does when releasing a single.

One of my personal favorites from this album has to be ‘Take Me In Your Arms’. Helen’s voice in this song is very soothing, as with most of her songs. It makes you feel like you are in an old movie. I feel like I should be sitting in a romantic restaurant or hotel wearing a long black dress and smoking a cigarette. It also reminds me a bit of the movie ‘Burlesque’ but I know that ‘Burlesque’ songs are a little more upbeat. This song is slower in tempo, but it does give me the urge to dance to it. But I could also probably fall asleep listening to this album because of how calming it feels to me.

Another album that Helen released was called ‘Lady in Red’ and this album consisted of 11 tracks. This was actually Helen’s last album release and it’s unfortunate that I cannot find any performances of the songs on the album. Considering that Helen performed Latin numbers and taking into account that most of the song names are in Spanish, I think that this album most likely contains Latin tunes. On the back of the record of ‘The Lady in Red’ it says, “she has the quality of transmitting to the listener all the electricity of love”. Therefore, the album is a Latin inspired album about love “which start that tingling feeling in the listener”.

In the summer of ’61 Helen became the spokesperson promoting Kahlua coffee liqueur. She appeared in several advertisements as ‘Lady Kahlua’. This resulted in a 13-week tour of promotion. One of the cities she was supposed to stop in was her hometown city of Tacoma. She did not come back to Tacoma often because her family had moved with her to Los Angeles. I am sure Tacoma residents were excited to see her back in town.

It seems that from this time on her career slowed down especially considering the death of her husband Spike, in 1965. She continued to sing at different venues and even on the Dean Martin show in 1968, but that was her last public appearance. That year also happened to be the year that she married William Rosen. William owned a restaurant in Los Angeles named Gatsby’s. In fact, in 1979, Helen worked as a hostess nightly in an attempt to maintain closeness to entertainment. She hadn’t given up singing at that time either, she had two songs released that year, but they did not hit it off. Despite that, she continued to sing at Gatsby’s with drop-in stars like Vic Damone.

In 2002, Helen lost her second husband and after that she lived a pretty quiet life. It looks like in 2012, Helen attended the Paley Center for Media event that saluted her late husband Spike Jones. This seems to be her last public appearance.

It is with great sadness that I share that Helen Grayco is no longer with us today. She passed away from cancer on August 20^th, 2022. She lived a long and eventful life, from her days as a child singer on a radio station up until her mini performances at Gatsby’s. Her music will always hold a special place in my heart, and I hope that I can eventually listen to ‘The Lady in Red’. I know it is out there somewhere. Helen is survived by her three children with Spike Jones: Spike Jones Jr, Leslie Ann Jones, and Gina Marie Jones.

About the Author

Maliyah Schiff prepared this article as her final project for TARTS 225: Musical History of Tacoma, taught by Kim Davenport at the University of Washington, Tacoma. At the time she took the class in Spring Quarter 2024, she was a senior majoring in Psychology.