- As Helen Wood, she was directed by two Academy Award winners, Stanley Donen and William Friedkin in mainstream Hollywood films, before she started acting in adult films as Dolly Sharp.
- Began appearing in adult films at a time when she was an unemployed single mother. She used the stage name Dolly Sharp, wore different colored wigs, and counted on the comparative anonymity of early 1970s porn. The huge, unexpected success of Deep Throat (1972) dashed Wood's hopes of becoming a dance teacher for children, and she withdrew from the public eye.
- According to her last husband, Wood believed the only people who would see her adult films were "dirty old men in long raincoats". She didn't even know the title of Deep Throat (1972) until, to her horror, the movie started getting lots of attention from the mainstream press.
- Is buried next to her parents at Calvary Cemetery in her hometown of Port Arthur, Texas. The only hint of Wood's show biz career on her grave marker is a musical note on the cross between her dates.
- Apart from her acrobatic dance skills, Wood was a violin prodigy. At 16 she played a solo in a 1951 episode of the NBC variety program Broadway Open House (1950).
- Worked on Deep Throat (1972) for six days in January 1972. She got $750 and a trip to Miami, where her scenes with Linda Lovelace were filmed.
- As her Hollywood career fizzled Wood performed in Las Vegas with Sammy Davis Jr. and Liberace, and did several guest spots on The Ed Sullivan Show (1948). From 1957 to 1965 she was principal dancer of Radio City Music Hall's Ballet Corps (not the Rockettes) in NYC.
- Wood derived the pseudonym Dolly Sharp from her love for music. Dolly Parton was her favorite singer at the time, while in musical notation, sharp means "higher in pitch" and is the opposite of flat (lower). As a violinist Wood would've known these terms.
- In 1972 she left show business and became a waitress in Winchester, VA. She later moved to Las Vegas, NV, and eventually settled in Los Angeles, CA, where she died of colon cancer in 1998.
- Wood was portrayed by Debi Mazar in the biopic Lovelace (2013).
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content