Anne Helms Irons, social worker

Anne Helms Irons, a social worker who held starring roles in local community theater productions for nearly 50 years, died Nov. 28 of heart disease at Gilchrist Hospice Care in Towson. She was 83.

Born in Baltimore and raised in Guilford, she was the daughter of Dr. Samuel T. Helms, medical director of the Emerson Drug Co., and Selina Clair Helms.

She was a 1949 graduate of Roland Park Country School and earned a bachelor's degree in theater from the College of William and Mary in 1953. She attended the University of Maryland School of Social Work, graduating in 1969.

After working as a caseworker with children in the foster care system in Baltimore County, Ms. Irons became an administrator and executive in what was then known as the state Social Services Administration. She retired as chief of the administration's adult services division.

But acting was her passion, friends and family said.

While a student at William and Mary, she spent her summers acting in "The Common Glory," an annual production in Williamsburg depicting the American Revolution. The event drew about 80,000 attendees each summer, according to the college.

She briefly went to New York to pursue acting, returning to Baltimore in 1955 and beginning a 40-year career in social work, said her daughter, Jane Irons Moore of Baltimore. But she continued to act in local theatre.

"She did shows constantly, even while she was a social worker," Moore said.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, she was an ingenue of local theater, playing the title roles in "Gigi" and "Anna Christie" at the Vagabond Arena Theater. She starred as Eliza Doolittle in the Baltimore Actors' Theater's production of "Pygmalion."

A Baltimore Sun reviewer of "Arms and the Man" at Center Stage in 1963 said Ms. Irons "radiated" a spirit of impudence in playing a maid seeking to improve her social status.

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Anne Helms Irons, social worker