Helena Carter was born into a family of Irish origin. While she was studying English Literature at the Columbia University Graduate School--to get a teacher's diploma--she began to work as a model for the Conover modeling agency. Renowned photographer Dick Isaacs shot some covers of her that garnered her some attention, and soon producer Leonard Goldstein of Universal Pictures offered her a contract. She only made about a dozen pictures before leaving the business, her most famous one probably being the sci-fi classic Les Envahisseurs de la planète rouge (1953).