Born in Toronto, Canada to John F. Helm, a banker, and his wife Isabel, who worked as an innkeeper and dairy farmer.
Trained as a dancer at the National Ballet School of Canada at the age of twelve. Two years later, in 1952, she moved to New York to study at the Metropolitan Opera Ballet School.
After her acting career ended in 1986, Helm started writing children's books, as Annie Helm. Prior to that, she worked as a teacher with an afternoon school program in Santa Monica, California.