Claire Adams | WatchedThis
Claire Adams
Acting
Biography
From Wikipedia Claire Adams (September 24, 1898 – September 25, 1978) was a Canadian silent film actress and benefactor. She was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, as the daughter of Stanley Wells Adams, a Welsh-born accountant, and his Canadian wife, Lillian Adams (née Kennedy). Educated in Canada and England, Claire Adams worked briefly as a nurse with the Red Cross during World War I. In 1920 Adams signed a five-year contract with Benjamin Bowles Hampton, a Hollywood producer and her future husband. She later moved to California where she acted in more than forty silent films, including melodramas, comedies and westerns. Described as "patricianly beautiful", Adams worked with many of Hollywood's leading actors, including Adolphe Menjou, Tom Mix, Wallace Beery, and Lon Chaney. In 1923 she was Rin Tin Tin's leading lady in Where the North Begins, which was a huge success and is often credited with saving Warner Bros. from bankruptcy. She later maintained that Rin Tin Tin was her "favourite leading man". Her best known film was The Big Parade, the second largest grossing silent film in cinematic history. It was directed by King Vidor and Adams starred alongside John Gilbert. Perhaps her most memorable role came in 1920 as Barbara, the artist who helps humanize the crippled crime boss played by Lon Chaney in The Penalty. She married film producer Benjamin B. Hampton in Hollywood on September 18, 1924. They had no children. He died in 1932 leaving her very wealthy. Later that year Adams met Scobie Mackinnon, the second son of L.K.S. Mackinnon, at a party in London and three weeks later they married on April 1 in Mayfair. They remained childless. After a protracted honeymoon, in March 1938, Mackinnon brought Adams to Victoria, Australia. On his death in 1974, Scobie Mackinnon's estate was worth A$2,111, 729, which was left entirely to Adams. She died on September 25, 1978, in Windsor, Victoria and was cremated.
Filmography Movies
Acting
The Big Parade
The story of an idle rich boy who joins the US Army's Rainbow Division and is sent to France to fight in World War I, becomes friends with two working class men, experiences the horrors of trench warfare, and finds love with a French girl.
The Penalty
Blizzard, deranged from a childhood operation in which both his legs were needlessly amputated after an accident, becomes a vicious criminal, and eventually mob leader of the San Francisco underworld.
Oh, You Tony!
This silent Western features Tom Mix as a rancher who goes to Washington to affect better conditions for the anonymous man of the soil. Having lost his money to some scheming lobbyists, Mix, unaware that oil has been found on his property, stakes his possessions on wonder horse Tony winning the big race.
Stepping Fast
Mix is Grant Malvern, a rancher who befriends scientist Quentin Durant (Tom S. Guise) after rescuing him from a trio of Chinese crooks. The crooks want to find Durant's Arizona gold mine, and the map to the location is contained in a pair of rings. After the crooks track down Durant and kill him, one of the rings winds up with Durant's daughter, Helen (Adams), and the other falls into Malvern's hands.
Do and Dare
When Henry Boone hears his grandfather's stories of his youth as a pioneer and scout, he is gripped by the fires of romance and decides to hunt adventure. Boone finds himself in an airplane carrying a military message to a leader of a revolution in a South American country. He is arrested as a spy but escapes and saves the ruler's daughter from the revolutionaries.
The Devil's Cargo
John Joyce arrives in Sacramento with his sister, Martha, and aunt to become the editor of a newspaper. He is determined to clear the town of the low-down mining camp types who are flaunting their freewheeling ways. When Joyce meets Faro Sampson, he falls in love, believing that she is the daughter of a minister. Actually she's the daughter of the man who runs a gambling den, "Square Deal" Sampson.
Romance and Brass Tacks
Second release in James Montgomery Flagg's 'Sweethearts and Wives' series of short comedies.
The Mysterious Rider
Hell Bent Wade is the victim of an attack in which is wife is killed and daughter kidnapped. A couple of decades later, he is a sheriff known only as the "mysterious rider," because of his nighttime prowls in search of cattle rustlers.
The Brass Bowl
After arriving unexpectedly at his country home, Dan Maitland discovers a young woman attempting to open his safe. She mistakes him for Anisty, a notorious thief who is Dan's double, and he gives her the jewels from the safe. Anisty appears, and there follow confusion and thrilling episodes in which Anisty is captured, escapes, and poses as Dan. Dan finally brings Anisty to justice and declares his love for Sylvia, who confesses she was searching Dan's safe to recover papers that might incriminate her father.
Golden Dreams
Oil is discovered on the Countess de Elberca's estate in a mythical Spanish American country. Mercedes McDonald, her niece, falls in love with Sandy Buchanan, a young Scotch engineer hired by the countess. Don Felipe, a neighbor in need of money to avoid arrest for embezzlement, conspires with his nephew, the Duke of Othomo, for the latter to wed Mercedes. The aunt approves the suit. Felipe and Othomo attempt to kill Mercedes' sweetheart, but Buchanan, with the aid of her brother and a traveling American circus, foils their plans. Felipe and Othomo are killed by the circus animals, and the aunt consents to Mercedes' marriage to Buchanan.
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