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.
Known For
James Duxbury (Lou Tellegen) is an exponent of polygamy, which may not be legal but certainly provides him with several evenings of entertainment. Professor Charles Orme (Matt Moore) falls in love with Duxbury's fourth wife Amy (Margaret Livingston). Things get dicey indeed as Orme tries to figure out whether Amy is still married to Duxbury or not -- in fact, Duxbury isn't sure either.
Married Alive
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 Big Parade
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.
The Penalty
Claire Adams as a girl forced to marry the man she suspects killed her father. When she refuses, she is virtually kept a prisoner along with kid-brother Frankie Lee until a handsome stranger (Jack Conway) rescues them.
The Killer
No description available.
The Fast Set
Pirate melodrama.
Barnaby Lee
Ailing ranch owner Al Auchincloss (Harry Lorraine) sends for his two nieces, Helen and Bo Raynor (Claire Adams and Charlotte Pierce), who are his heirs. Milt Dale, who lives in the forest (Gantvoort), comes down to help round up the cattle, and a romance springs up between him and Helen. This does not please Harvey Riggs (McKim), who is trying to get control of the ranch.
The Man Of The Forest
Ralph Ince stars as Brute Shane, a South Pacific trader who has adopted native girl Saina (Olive Broden). When Shane rescues English lass Nona Deering (Claire Adams) from white slavers, the jealous Saina begins plotting Nona's demise.
Yellow Fingers
Aviator Richard March, is shot down over France, though not badly hurt in the crash, he steals a kiss from Marion Weston, the Red Cross nurse whose ambulance comes to his aid. After the war, Richard resumes his professional life as an actor and meets Marion by chance at a skating party. At first she snubs him, but he soon charms her, and they become constant companions. Marion later believes that Richard is having an affair with Suzette, his leading lady, and she again turns the cold shoulder toward him. Richard writes a play based on his own experiences, and Marion comes to see she misjudged him. Connie, who is jealous of Richard's love for Marion, attempts to compromise him. Connie herself later confesses her scheme to discredit Richard, and Richard and Marion are reunited.
The Kiss Barrier
Monte Bixby's grandfather leaves a will providing each native-born citizen of his small town with $50,000 while giving Monte one dollar. Monte's society fiancée, Mary Reynolds, abandons him, but grandfather Bixby's pretty young secretary, Phyllis Andrews, resolves to help him. Meanwhile, life in the town is chaotic as the legatees begin to spend their money.
The Clean Up
A German Shepherd puppy is "adopted" by a wolf pack in the snowy and frozen Great North and raised by them as one of their own. A few years later he comes upon a fur trapper and saves the man from certain death, and begins to feel a kinship with him that is stronger than the one he has with his adopted pack.
Where the North Begins
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.
Stepping Fast
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.
The Devil's Cargo
Our Western star begins this actioner rather improbably, as a New York City gangster. But soon enough he heads for the more comfortable expanse of the open spaces.
The Night Hawk
A cowboy seeks revenge against the man who shot him in a bar-room brawl. While searching for him, he comes across a wild stallion that he is determined to capture and break, and unknowingly falls in love with the daughter of the man who shot him.
Just Tony
A socially-ambitious mother is pushing her younger daughter into a life-style that will satisfy the desires of the mother but the older daughter, having tasted the consequences of such a life, determines to save her younger sister from the same mistakes.
The Painted Flapper
"Flash" Lanning returns to Bozzam City from the East to put an end to cattle rustling. Gloria Hallowell, who has known him by reputation, falls in love with Lanning but believes that he loves Ellen Bosworth, an eastern "lady." Campan, the leader of the rustlers, hoping to lure Lanning into a trap, kidnaps both girls. Lanning rescues the girls, punishes Campan, and indicates to Gloria that she is the girl for him.
Brass Commandments
Tony and Freddie, who have been rivals all their lives, vie for the hand in marriage of their childhood sweetheart. Big Freddie has the upper hand when Tony gets himself kidnapped by a ring of muggers whose M.O. is to have one of their members dress up as a woman to lure men into the back seat of their limousine, where they are beaten up and robbed.
The Girl in the Limousine
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.
Golden Dreams
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.