Born Helen Riggins, she began her career as a singer in a small Chicago cabaret. In the '20s she became a Broadway and nightclub star, and has been referred to as the original "torch singer." In the early sound era she appeared in a handful of films, often playing fallen women. She managed several speakeasies during Prohibition; suffering from alcoholism, she died at 41 from cirrhosis of the liver. She was portrayed by Ann Blyth in the biopic The Helen Morgan Story (1957).