These were some of the comments received on the original printing of THE MURDER OF CHRISTA HELM at Booksteve's Library:
L.R. wrote: Has her daughter read this article yet? There are some pretty questionable things said about Christa Helm. I think alot of "media attention", negative as it is, is what Christa got. Some knew of another side of her...a spiritual side, a kinder, gentler side. She didn't have a good manager for her career and as smart as she was, she didn't have the knowledge of knowing how to get into the Hollywood scene in a way that would spare her the "bad press." So she went in blind and naive. Hell, she was still in her 20's! Again, there was another side of Christa Helm that most did not see. They only saw the public Christa. Sure she wanted to be well known in Hollywood, but she went about it in a very naive fashion. If she had someone to take her under their wing and train her and show her the ropes maybe things would have been different for her. However, she knew no other way...it caused her to gain a questionable reputation in the public eye. People can speculate all they want about her and the Enquirer can print it's crap and people can just say what they want but the truth is, this is still someone's mother and I think she was a good mother and a good person. Her daughter, Nicole, lost her mother in a horrid way. This is not something anyone should have to go through. Christa Helm was murdered in it's most terrible form. She didn't deserve that.
My response was: I agree l.r. As I stated, the whole piece I did was simply summarizing the various contemporary articles. She certainly didn't seem to mind her reputation as one of the gossip column bits that I didn't include has her rating her various famous paramours as far as "sex appeal or whatever they're calling it nowadays." Yes, she was somebody's mother and no, of course she didn't deserve what happened to her. Neither does she deserve to be forgotten.
Ilya intriguingly wrote of a magazine article on her but the named magazine did not exist at that time. Was it a different magazine, a different issue? We've been unable to determine. If you HAVE any info on this, please contact me!I just found a pretty long interview with Christa Helm in Volume I Issue I of The American Film Magazine from December 1974 in which she discusses her move to New York and her early career. In it she doesn't mention anything about being a playmate and she specifically talks about turning down come-ons from sleazy photographers, although she does imply that she is promiscuous. The film is mentioned a lot and frankly the plot doesn't make sense, but I don't think its supposed to. It talks about how she plays a reporter who found the "ultimate weapon," pills that can apparently turn things into chopped-meat.
Perhaps the most intriguing though was this later comment which was reported by us to the L A Police detectives investigating the murder as a cold case. suzan said...
About twenty years ago my friend and I hitchiked up to hollywood, freshly out of highschool, looking for fun and excitement, which we got more than our share of. But anyways, back to this story, anyways, we came upon Christa,s lesbian lover lounging by the pool. We bummed a cigarette off her and then started chatting. I guess she felt comfortable with us because she started asking if we knew who Christa helm was, that she had been on some t.v. shows. I said I thought so, and my friend said her name was also krista, but it was spelled with a "k'.She brought up the subject about being cheated on, and I said that I was very jealous, when I,m with a sweetheart, and she said she was too. Then she said that she had stabbed Christa, and that she had been cheating on her with a man. First, I had never met a lesbian, that I knew of, and She was pretty, so I was a bit confused. I didn,t really get the jist of what she was telling us, and I remember saying "I understand. I didn,t think anything more than it had been a fight, not a death. Then I think she realized what she had said to us, and I got a creepy feeling that we better leave, now. So I said "we got to go". I totally put it in the back of my mind until I saw the story of Chista,s death on t.v. , and saw the women we had met, lounging by the pool, exactly as we had met her. I just want her daughter to know that this experience happened exatly, as I recalled above. I didn,t know where to get a hold of her, that,s why I printed this here. God bless her daughter, and Crista. I f anyone is wondering why she confessed this to us, I think it,s because we both probably appeared like young naieve juvenille,s to her, and I feel she was in a way trying to confess it and justify it in her mind, and who best to tell than a couple of delinquent kids, so to speak. Take care all!
About twenty years ago my friend and I hitchiked up to hollywood, freshly out of highschool, looking for fun and excitement, which we got more than our share of. But anyways, back to this story, anyways, we came upon Christa,s lesbian lover lounging by the pool. We bummed a cigarette off her and then started chatting. I guess she felt comfortable with us because she started asking if we knew who Christa helm was, that she had been on some t.v. shows. I said I thought so, and my friend said her name was also krista, but it was spelled with a "k'.She brought up the subject about being cheated on, and I said that I was very jealous, when I,m with a sweetheart, and she said she was too. Then she said that she had stabbed Christa, and that she had been cheating on her with a man. First, I had never met a lesbian, that I knew of, and She was pretty, so I was a bit confused. I didn,t really get the jist of what she was telling us, and I remember saying "I understand. I didn,t think anything more than it had been a fight, not a death. Then I think she realized what she had said to us, and I got a creepy feeling that we better leave, now. So I said "we got to go". I totally put it in the back of my mind until I saw the story of Chista,s death on t.v. , and saw the women we had met, lounging by the pool, exactly as we had met her. I just want her daughter to know that this experience happened exatly, as I recalled above. I didn,t know where to get a hold of her, that,s why I printed this here. God bless her daughter, and Crista. I f anyone is wondering why she confessed this to us, I think it,s because we both probably appeared like young naieve juvenille,s to her, and I feel she was in a way trying to confess it and justify it in her mind, and who best to tell than a couple of delinquent kids, so to speak. Take care all!
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