Don Ameche

Ameche has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6101 Hollywood Boulevard. He died on the 20th of March 1891. His final scenes for the film Corrina, Corrina (1994) were completed only days before his death in Scottsdale, Arizona from prostate cancer. He wrote a life of Edwip Forrest in the American Actors Series (Boston, 1881), and an admirable sketch of Edwin Booth in Edwin Booth and his Contemporaries (Boston, 1886). Ameche's next role, in Cocoon (1985), won him an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and he continued working for the rest of his life (including a role in the sequel, Cocoon: The Return). He acted in London in 1867, 1881, 1883 and 1884, his Richelieu in Bulwer Lytton's drama being considered his best part. The actors played rich brothers intent on ruining an innocent man for the sake of a bet and the film's great success, and their acclaimed comedic performances, brought them both back into the limelight. He played Othello to Booth’s Iago and Cassius to his Brutus.

For three decades he was virtually absent from films, until he was cast alongside fellow veteran actor Ralph Bellamy in the film Trading Places in 1983. Among his many and varied parts may be mentioned Hamlet, Lear, Macbeth, Shylock, Richard III., Wolsey, Benedick, Richelieu, David Garrick, Hernani, Alfred Evelyn, Lanciotto in George Henry Boker's (1823—1890) Francesca da Rimini, and Janies Harebell in The Man o’ Airlie. By the end of the decade his films had lost appeal, and he turned to radio where he achieved great success during the fifties playing opposite Frances Langford in The Bickersons. From 1867 to 1870, with John M'Cullough, he managed the California theatre, San Francisco. He was so associated with his role as Bell that for a time, "Ameche" was slang for telephone. He served with distinction in the Civil War as captain in the 28th Massachusetts infantry regiment. He appeared successfully in such films as Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938), as Alexander Graham Bell in The Story of Alexander Graham Bell (1939) and Heaven Can Wait (1943). In 1858 he was in the stock company at the Boston Museum.

He made his film debut in 1935 and by the late thirties had established himself as a leading actor in Hollywood. In December 1856 he made his first New York appearance at the Chambers Street theatre as Sir Thomas Clifford in The Hunchback. Born Dominic Felix Amici in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Ameche began his career in vaudeville with Texas Guinan until Guinan dropped him from the act, dismissing him as "too stiff". He made his first stage appearance at Detroit as Murad in The French Spy in 1853. Don Ameche (May 31, 1908 - December 6, 1993) was an American actor. His family name was Brannigan. Lawrence Barret (1838—1891), American actor, was born of Irish parents in Paterson, New Jersey, on the 4th of April 1838.