Dolores Diane, her first stage name, made her film debut at the tender age of 14 in the 1942 "B" picture Girls' Town, a production from low-rent PRC. She then went on to play a series of juvenile roles at Universal Studios between 1943 and 1945, often as part of a teen dancing group known as The Jivin' Jacks and Jills.
As her career progressed, Dolores worked at MGM, where her stage name was changed to Helene Stanley, and elsewhere from 1945 to 1950. She also appeared at 20th Century-Fox in 1952, but her roles never quite rose above starlet level. One of her most notable, if uncredited, roles was in The Asphalt Jungle (1950),where she played the sexy teenager who causes Doc's downfall.
Dolores's live-action cinematic career came to a close with Dial Red O (1955),which was released in both English and German-language versions. However, she went on to make significant, if behind-the-scenes, contributions to Disney animated features, which used live-action films as the basis for animation.
In this second career, Helene modeled for several iconic Disney films, including Cinderella (1950),Sleeping Beauty (1959),and the young wife in One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961). Interestingly, one critic complained that Cinderella was too "voluptuous"! Additionally, Dolores appeared in the Davy Crockett TV-films as Davy's wife Polly.
Dolores was briefly married to gangster Johnny Stompanato, whose subsequent fatal affair with Lana Turner made headlines. Her second marriage to David Niemetz, a Beverly Hills physician, was happier, and she formally retired from show business on the birth of her son in 1961.
Sadly, Dolores passed away in 1990, but the cause of her death was not reported.
