Point Reyes Light - August 19, 2004
A good but unusual Pearl dies in Bolinas at 45
By Larken Bradley
Bolinas musician Pearl Helyar, a performer in local choruses, theater companies and jazz ensembles died Friday, Aug. 13, by hanging himself with an electrical cord in a girlfriend’s Bolinas home.
In the past, the 45-year-old man had enjoyed cross-dressing in public and for awhile it was his trademark in Bolinas.
Mr. Helyar’s suicide came as a shock to family and friends, as his life appeared to be going well. He seemed to have beaten a methamphetamine addiction, said friends who believed he’d been clean for more than a year.
Mr. Helyar worked as a handyman and carpenter. He also filled in grilling oysters at the Coast Café. Last year he refurbished the town’s Free Box, where residents recycle clothing and other goods. For several years he was employed at the Bolinas Hardware Store.
A musical genius
After moving to Bolinas in the mid-1980s, Mr. Helyar became active in the local music scene. He played the lead in a 1987 production of the musical Carnival. A talented accompanist, he played guitar and bass for singers in talent shows. He was a member of the West Marin Chorus and the Bolinas town choir.
"He was a musical genius," said friend and fellow musician Stacey Henderson of Bolinas.
Vamped in women’s clothes
Vamping as a cross-dresser in downtown Bolinas, he managed to piece together glamorous women’s clothing ensembles from donations he scavenged from the Free Box, more typically a repository for hippie-chic couture. Mr. Helyar enlisted Ms. Henderson to teach him the art of applying makeup. He grew his hair long, eliminating the need for wigs.
"Pearl was better looking than lots of women," admitted longtime friend Franis Engel of Bolinas. "He had great legs."
Explaining his attraction to dressing up like a female, "cross-dressing was a way of making a social statement," Ms. Engel ventured. "He loved to get a rise out of people."
Born in London
Peter Anthony Helyar was born in London on Oct. 2, 1958. As a young child he moved with his family to Lawrence, Kansas, after his father accepted a post as a librarian at the University of Kansas. His mother later became a librarian at the university along with her husband.
After graduating from high school, Mr. Helyar studied cello at the University of Kansas.
In Kansas in 1981 he married Nancy Randall, a California native, with whom he had his son Adam. After five years, the couple’s marriage ended in divorce and he had a second son, Max Lawson, with a woman friend.
The name ‘Pearl’
After an acquaintance of his commented when cross-dressed he resembled a pearl, which at first glance appears white but is iridescent on close inspection, he dropped his birth name in favor of Pearl, said Ms. Randall. Like a pearl "there was more [with Mr. Helyar] than meets the eye," she explained.
Mr. Helyar moved from Kansas to Northern California to be near his former wife and their son after they returned to her native state.
Charming, talented and good-looking, Mr. Helyar had no trouble attracting girlfriends in Bolinas and had a series of relationships with women from stable homes and living stable lives.
Perhaps ‘too smart’
Remembered by friends as intelligent and emotionally intense, "he was very passionate," his son Adam Helyar said. "He may have been too smart for his own good."
Six years ago, in the throes of drug addiction, he had a brush with death after falling asleep at the wheel while driving over White’s Hill between San Geronimo Valley and Fairfax.
He is survived by his sons, Adam Helyar of Cambria, Santa Barbara County; and Max Lawson; his parents Jim and Thelma Helyar of Lawrence, Kansas; and a brother, John Helyar of Los Angeles.
A community potluck memorial service will be held at 5 p.m., Friday, Aug. 20, at Bolinas Community Center.