Helen Bonfils

Helen Gilmer Bonfils (November 16, 1889 – June 6, 1972) was an American heiress, actress, theatrical producer, newspaper executive, and philanthropist. She acted in local theatre in Denver, Colorado, and on Broadway, and also co-produced plays in Denver, New York City, and London. She succeeded her father, Frederick Gilmer Bonfils, as manager of The Denver Post in 1933, and eventually became president of the company. Lacking heirs, she invested her fortune into providing for the city of Denver and the state of Colorado, supporting the Belle Bonfils Blood Bank, the Bonfils Memorial Theatre, the University of Denver, the Denver Zoo, the Dumb Friends League, churches, and synagogues. Her estate endowed the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. She was posthumously inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame in 1985 and the Colorado Performing Arts Hall of Fame in 1999. Early life and family Helen Gilmer Bonfils was born in Peekskill, New York to American newspaper publisher Frederick Gilmer Bonfils and his wife Belle Barton Bonfils. She and her older sister, Mary Madeline ("May") Bonfils (1883–1962), had a strict Catholic upbringing. In 1894 the family moved to Kansas where Frederick ran legal lotteries, and in 1895 to Denver, where Frederick and his partner Harry H. Tammen bought a newspaper that they renamed The Denver Post. In Denver, the Bonfils girls attended an elite private girls' school. Helen attended finishing school at the National Park Seminary in Forest Glen Park, Maryland. Frederick kept a tight rein on his daughters, forbidding them to date and warning them that "the boys were only out for their money". Helen became the "favored daughter" after May eloped at age 21 with a non-Catholic salesman, a move that estranged May from her family for decades. Upon their father's death in 1933, Helen, who still lived at home, received $14 million from his estate. She received another $10 million bequest in 1935 upon the death of her mother, plus newspaper stock and possession of the family's Humboldt Street mansion. May received only a $25,000 annual allowance from a trust, and sued her sister over her mother's estate. After a pitched, three-year legal battle, May was awarded $5 million cash from her mother's estate, some cash from her father's estate, 15% of the Denver Post stock, and additional real estate. The court case divided the sisters even further and they cut off all communication with each other.