Helen

The Walters' big fall exhibit celebrates four larger-than-life heroes from Greek mythology: Achilles, Odysseus, Hercules - and, um, Helen of Troy, an unfaithful wife who caused a war that wreaked havoc on two cities. Under what criteria could Helen even conceivably be considered a "hero"? Might she be more accurately termed a celebrity? Wasn't she merely the 12th century B.C. equivalent of Britney Spears, whose romances and legal scrapes vastly entertained the citizenry? Regine Schulz, curator of ancient art at the Walters Art Museum, begs to differ.

Helen Bruce Thomas, a retired nurse and homemaker, died April 23 at the Rogerson House assisted-living facility in Boston of unknown causes. The longtime resident of Phoenix, Baltimore County, was 89. Born Helen Whitridge Bruce in Baltimore, she was the daughter of Albert Cabell Bruce, a businessman, and Helen Whitridge Bruce, a homemaker. She was raised in Guilford on Charlcote Road. She attended the Calvert and Bryn Mawr schools before graduating from the Foxcroft School in Middleburg, Va., where she rode horses.

On June 14, 2004, HELEN (nee Novak), beloved wife of the late Herman Letke. Funeral arrangements by the Connelly Funeral Home of Essex, . Due notice.

Jimi Helen McCormick, a first lady of the McCormick spice, seasonings and flavorings firm, died Friday of cancer at Stella Maris Hospice. She was 74 and had homes in Reisterstown and Stuart, Fla. Born Jimi Helen Faulk in Jackson, Miss., she lived in Southern California as a child. After her father's death, she was partially raised by aunts and uncles in Methodist parsonages in Mississippi and Louisiana, where she attended schools. Her mother, Minnie Rae Faulk, was a Washington dressmaker.

On January 22, 2007, HELEN HULSHOFF (nee Polianski); beloved mother of Barbara A. Cohn, Joan M. Fitzpatrick and Mary R. Stitz. Also survived by seven grandchildren and one great-granddaughter. Service and interment private. Contributions may be made to the School Sisters of Notre Dame, 6401 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21212. Arrangements by the family owned Mitchell-Wiedefeld Funeral Home, Inc.

On August 4, 2007, HELEN CIAMBOTTI, (nee DiMemmo) born July 18, 1915. In our hearts and thoughts forever. Services were held on Thursday, August 9, 2007.

H elen M. Daniels, A memorial service will be held at Metropolitan Community Church at 401 W. Monument Street in Baltimore, Maryland at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday, December 2, 2006. In lieu of flowers, a memorial fund has been set up in Helen's honor for future seminarians, and donations can be made to the Metropolitan Community Church of Baltimore marked for Helen Daniels Memorial Fund.

On October 13, 2003 HELEN HACKETT. Friends may call at the family owned MARCH FUNERAL HOME WEST, INC., 4300 Wabash Avenue on Thursday after 4 p.m. where funeral service will be held on Friday at 1 p.m.

On October 1, 2006, HELEN CRAYTON. Friends may call at the family owned MARCH FUNERAL HOME WEST, INC., 4300 Wabash Avenue on Thursday after 12 noon, where the family will receive friends on Saturday at 1 P.M.

Executive producer Barry Levinson urges viewers to think of his HBO film "Phil Spector" as a two-person play - not a docudrama about the first murder trial of the rock producer. "It really is a two-person piece," Levinson said in a telephone interview last week. "And if you're looking for some kind of docudrama, which we are more familiar with on television, this isn't it. " The two persons, Academy Award-winners Al Pacino as Spector and Helen Mirren as his defense attorney, Linda Kenney Baden, can fill a screen like few others.

Helen B. Wolfe, an outspoken advocate of women's rights who also had been a member of the faculty of McDaniel College for more than a decade, died March 5 from cancer at Carroll Hospice Center's Dove House in Westminster. She was 79. With a head of thick white hair, flashing porcelain-blue eyes and an outsized personality, Dr. Wolfe made an instant and lasting impression on those she met, friends said. "When she came to the college, she had already had a distinguished career and in that sense showed a lot of the younger women the variety of roles she had undertaken," said Joan Develin Coley, who retired as president of McDaniel College in 2010.

Helen M. Belz, a homemaker, died of heart failure Saturday at her Lutherville home. She was 106. Born Helen Mary Rosendale in Baltimore, she lived on Hollins Street and was a graduate of St. Martin's Academy. She was the great-granddaughter of Henry Rosendale Sr., who founded the Rosendale Furniture Co., which crafted the pews and choir loft in St. Alphonsus Church and donated one of its 15 bells and a stained-glass window. "While working as a secretary for [United States Fidelity and Guaranty Co.]

What a great weekend: HBO sent a screener for "Phil Spector," a made-for-TV movie about the legendary music producer, starring Al Pacino and Helen Mirren. Barry Levinson is the executive producer, with David Mamet as writer and director. That enough talent for you? David Mamet, whose "Glengarry Glen Ross" is made of the same fine angry American genius as Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman," and he's writing and directing a Sunday-night made-for-television movie on HBO. Talk to me some more about how TV dumbs down the culture.

A Roman Catholic nun whose advocacy against capital punishment has made her a national figure will be in Annapolis today to lobby for repeal of Maryland's death penalty. Sister Helen Prejean will attend Gov. Martin O'Malley's State of the State address and later meet individually with lawmakers considering whether to overturn the state's 35-year-old death penalty law. O'Malley has called for ending capital punishment, which he has described as costly and an ineffective deterrent to crime.

Our favorite Hamptonites return from winter break, though it is summer in the Hamptons now, which is just rubbing it in because most of us were watching this wearing a sweatshirt and covered in a blanket. But they came back in grand style. The magic "X" red marker returned, as did a lip lock with an ex, a drug bust and some good old fashioned black mail. Emily reminded me why I loved this show to start with - the targets that she took down, one by one. Tonight's target was Judge Barnes, who you may have recognized as Joe Biden's doppelganger.

When women complain about men who can't commit, they can thank -- or blame -- two people: Playboy magazine publisher Hugh Hefner and the former editor of Cosmopolitan magazine, Helen Gurley Brown, who died this week at age 90. Ms. Brown was the flip side of Mr. Hefner, offering women permission, even encouragement, to embrace a female version of Mr. Hefner's freewheeling "Playboy philosophy" of unrestrained sexual pleasure. Ms. Brown and Mr. Hefner offered one-way tickets to fantasyland, a journey supposedly without cost to a destination seemingly without consequences.