Adrienne Ames (born Ruth Adrienne McClure; August 3, 1907 – May 31, 1947) was an American film actress. Early in her career she was known as Adrienne Truex.

Early years

Ames was born in

Fort Worth, Texas Fort Worth is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Texas and the 13th-largest city in the United States. It is the county seat of Tarrant County, covering nearly into four other counties: Denton, Johnson, Parker, and Wise. According ...

, one of six children of Samuel Hugh McClure and Flora Parthenia (née Potter) McClure.

Career

Film

Ames began her film career in 1927 as a

stand-in A stand-in for film and television is a person who substitutes for the actor before filming, for technical purposes such as lighting and camera setup. Stand-ins are helpful in the initial processes of film and television production. Stand-ins a ...

for

Pola Negri Pola Negri (; born Apolonia Chalupec ; 3 January 1897 – 1 August 1987) was a Polish stage and film actress and singer. She achieved worldwide fame during the silent and golden eras of Hollywood and European film for her tragedienne and femme ...

. Ames was soon cast in small film roles in

silent film A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, when ...

s. With the advent of

talking pictures A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades passed before ...

, Ames' popularity grew and she was usually cast as society women, or in musicals. She made thirty films during the 1930s with her biggest success in ''

George White's Scandals ''George White's Scandals'' were a long-running string of Broadway revues produced by George White that ran from 1919–1939, modeled after the ''Ziegfeld Follies''. The "Scandals" launched the careers of many entertainers, including W. C. Fie ...

'' (1934). She appeared with the three leading men from the 1931 version of ''

Dracula ''Dracula'' is a novel by Bram Stoker, published in 1897. As an epistolary novel, the narrative is related through letters, diary entries, and newspaper articles. It has no single protagonist, but opens with solicitor Jonathan Harker taking ...

'' (

Bela Lugosi Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó (; October 20, 1882 – August 16, 1956), known professionally as Bela Lugosi (; ), was a Hungarian and American actor best remembered for portraying Count Dracula in the 1931 horror classic ''Dracula'', Ygor in ''S ...

David Manners David Joseph Manners (born Rauff de Ryther Duan Acklom; April 30, 1900 – December 23, 1998) was a Canadian-American actor who plays John Harker in Tod Browning's 1931 horror classic '' Dracula'', which stars Bela Lugosi in the title role.Pac ...

, and

Edward Van Sloan Edward Van Sloan (born Edward Paul Van Sloun; November 1, 1882 – March 6, 1964) was an American character actor best remembered for his roles in the Universal Studios horror films such as ''Dracula'' (1931), ''Frankenstein'' (1931), and ''Th ...

) in ''

The Death Kiss ''The Death Kiss'' is a 1933 American pre-Code mystery film starring David Manners as a crusading studio writer, Adrienne Ames as an actress, and Bela Lugosi as a studio manager. The thriller features three leading players from the previous year ...

'' (1932).

Radio

Ames left Hollywood for New York. In 1941, she was host of two talk shows on station WHN in New York City. Her schedule included broadcasts at noon and 3:30 p.m. six days a week and 7:30 p.m. broadcasts on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. She continued broadcasting until two weeks before her death in 1947.

Television

In December 1941, Ames began a weekly series of movie-review programs on WNBT in New York City. The 10-minute programs ran on Tuesday afternoons.

Personal life

Ames was married three times. In 1920, while still a teenager, she married Derward Dumont Truax, the son of an oil businessman. They had a daughter, and divorced in 1924. A later marriage to broker Stephen Ames ended in divorce on October 30, 1933. Her last marriage, on October 31, 1933, was to fellow actor Bruce Cabot; they divorced on July 24, 1935.

Death

Ames died of cancer on May 31, 1947, in New York City, aged 39. She is interred in the Oakwood Cemetery in her hometown of Fort Worth, Texas. For her contributions to the film industry, Ames has a motion pictures star on the

Hollywood Walk of Fame The Hollywood Walk of Fame is a historic landmark which consists of more than 2,700 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along 15 blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, Californ ...

at 1612

Vine Street Vine Street is a street in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California that runs north–south between Franklin Avenue and Melrose Avenue. The intersection with Hollywood Boulevard was once a symbol of Hollywood itself. The famed intersection fell into ...

. It was dedicated February 8, 1960.

Filmography

References

External links

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The Private Life and Times of Adrienne AmesAdrienne Ames
at Virtual History {{DEFAULTSORT:Ames, Adrienne 1907 births 1947 deaths 20th-century American actresses American film actresses American silent film actresses Deaths from cancer in New York (state) Actresses from Fort Worth, Texas American radio personalities