Helen Freeman was born in St. Louis, Missouri and raised in Denver, Colorado. Her father was Benjamin Freeman, a banker, who was killed in an auto crash in 1937. Helen appeared in several silent films in 1915. Thereafter, she appeared on the New York stage, and entered the motion picture business again in 1930. She played Nancy Hanks Lincoln in Abraham Lincoln (1930). She appeared in small parts, later in stately dowager parts. In 1932, she married the writer Edwin Corle. They were divorced in 1943. There were no children. Helen Freeman retired from films in 1947.