Occupation Actress, model Years active 1943-1963 | Name Ramsay Ames Role Movie actress | |
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Movies The Mummy's Ghost, Ali Baba and the Forty Thie, G‑Men Never Forget, Beauty and the Bandit, The Black Widow Similar People Reginald Le Borg, Dale Wasserman, Arthur Lubin, William Beaudine, William Nigh | ||
Ramsay Ames (born Phillips Ames, March 30, 1919 – March 30, 1998) was a leading 1940s American B movie actress, model, dancer, pin-up girl and television host. She appeared in the film The Mummy's Ghost (1944), where she played the Princess Ananka.
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Career
After her career subsided in the 1940s, Ames and her husband lived in Spain, where she had her own television interview show and occasionally took on support roles in films produced in Europe.
During a trip to California to visit her mother, Ramsay had a chance meeting at the airport with Columbia Pictures President Harry Cohn. The meeting resulted in a screen test and then her movie debut in Two Señoritas from Chicago (1943).
From there, she moved to Universal Pictures, where she was featured in such films as Calling Dr. Death and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. She later appeared in a Monogram Pictures drama, Below the Deadline (1946), and in Republic serials including G-Men Never Forget (1948).
Ames had attended the Walter Hillhouse School of Dance, specializing in Latin-style dance. She later became part of a dance team under the name "Ramsay Del Rico" and appeared as a model at the Eastman Kodak-sponsored fashion show at the 1939 New York World's Fair. An injury forced her to alter her dance career plans. She took up singing and became the vocalist with a top rhumba band.
Athletic in high school, she excelled as a swimmer. Of Spanish/English descent, Ames first was recognized as a dancer/singer before moving into sultry-eyed 40s film roles.
She was wed to "Man of La Mancha" playwright Dale Wasserman, and the couple later lived in a villa called "La Mancha" on the Costa del Sol.
According to director William Witney, some of Republic Pictures' stuntmen suffered more injuries running on rooftops to get a better look at Ramsay Ames walking across the backlot than were hurt performing dangerous action sequences in the studio's westerns.
Personal life
She was married to and later divorced Dale Wasserman, a Tony Award-winning musical writer. She died of lung cancer in 1998 on her 79th birthday.
Soundtrack (5 credits)
Archive footage (5 credits)
References
Pictorial Yank (USA)4 May 1945 Yank (USA)20 April 1945 Yank (USA)24 December 1943