Claire Adams
Actor · 1898 – 1978 · Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
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.
Movies24
Movie7.6RomanceWarThe 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
1925 · 132 votes
Movie6.9CrimeDramaBlizzard, 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
1920 · 60 votes
Movie10.0RomanceDramaAfter his assistant, Bud Lester, is killed, Texas Ranger Speedy Meade bids farewell to his girl friend, convent student Mary Dillman, and sets out to break up a gang of cattle thieves operating on the border.
Speedy Meade
1919 · 1 votes
Movie8.0Western"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
1923 · 1 votes
Movie6.0ComedyA group of confirmed bachelors finds their informal "anti-matrimony club" turned into a home for adopted orphans when six orphaned children are suddenly foisted on them.
Daddies
1924 · 2 votes
Movie5.2FamilyActionA 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
1923 · 8 votes
Movie8.0WesternClaire 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
1921 · 1 votes
Movie9.0DramaProfessor Lampton's work of excavating the tomb of Akhnaton (Ikhnaton) is held up by lack of funds, and Prince Dagmar, scion of a Balkan royal family, finances him with the ulterior motive of robbing the tomb of its treasures. Michael Amory, an artist assisting Lampton, loves Margaret, but believing her to be in love with the prince he departs with Gondo Koro, a Bedouin prophet who knows the location of the tomb. Dagmar sends Millicent, an adventuress, to obtain the information from Michael, and when Dagmar enters the tomb at night Michael surprises him. The thieves wound Michael, but they are captured and he and Margaret are reconciled.
The Lure of Egypt
1921 · 1 votes
Movie7.0DramaAfter her boss sexually harasses her and has an affair with her sister, stenographer Janet Butler quits to support a mill workers' strike, falls in love with a stockholder named Brooks Insall, witnesses her mother shoot the boss during the strike, is wrongly imprisoned but exonerated by Insall, and ultimately enjoys a happy future with him, her recovered mother, and her sister Elsie.
The Dwelling Place of Light
1920 · 1 votes
Movie10.0CrimeDramaLucy Hegan, the proprietor of a settlement house for the poor, is engaged to Hugh Gordon, the head of a large pharmaceutical and chemical firm who, unknown to Lucy, is also the ringleader of a powerful drug and white slave operation in the Chinese quarter.
The Money Changers
1920 · 1 votes
Movie9.0WesternAiling 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
1921 · 1 votes
Movie6.5ComedyTony 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
1924 · 2 votes
Movie6.0AdventureDramaCaptain "Wolf" Larsen, the absolute master of a seal schooner, is a mystic and philosopher, though he rules his men with an iron hand. On a ferry going from San Francisco to Oakland, Van Weyden, a critic, and Maud Brewster, a novelist, meet in masquerade costumes and are forced overboard when their boat collides with a steamer. Humphrey, then Maud, are picked up by Larsen's crew. Because of her costume, Maud is taken for a boy and placed in the custody of Mugridge, the cook, who attempts to attack her upon discovering her identity. Larsen takes her under his protection and decides to marry her; but as the ceremony begins, the crew mutinies, and Larsen is stricken with blindness as he faces the rebels. The ship is set afire, and though Humphrey and Maud are rescued by another steamer, Larsen, deserted by his crew, refuses to quit his ship and is enveloped in flames.
The Sea Wolf
1926 · 2 votes
Movie5.7ComedyA short comedy in which the newest employee is teased by the office girls, but he retaliates by putting black polish in a powder-box. Ultimately the girls use the resulting black powder on the young employee himself.
Revenge Is Sweet
1912 · 3 votes
Movie10.0DramaIn the small town of Sycamore Ridge live youthful sweethearts Bob Hendricks and Molly Culpepper; Bob's banker father, General Hendricks; and John Barclay, head of the Golden Belt Wheat Co. When Adrian Brownwell comes to town to publish a newspaper, his cash deposits in Hendricks' bank relieve the banker's worry that an expected bank examiner will discover the shortage in bank funds resulting from Hendricks' support of Barclay. Adrian falls in love with Molly and decides to leave Sycamore Ridge when she refuses to marry him. Barclay threatens Molly with the financial ruin of many whom she holds dear unless she marries Adrian, and Bob returns from the East to find Molly the new Mrs. Brownwell.
A Certain Rich Man
1921 · 1 votes
Movie9.0WesternA 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
1922 · 1 votes
Movie10.0ComedyWesternThe Earl of Dunhaven, who disinherited his son for marrying an American, tries, on his deathbed, to leave his estate to his nephew, the Honorable Guy Wyndham. To stop him, the Dunhaven solicitor, John Grahame, travels to America and finds the earl's grandson, Jim Dunn, a Wyoming cowpuncher.
A Misfit Earl
1919 · 1 votes
Movie8.0DramaBilly Winthrop is in love with Beatrice Forbes, who is engaged to Ernest Peabody, a reform candidate for mayor backed by Billy's father. When Billy learns that Peabody has betrayed Violet Gaynor and plans to doublecross Mr. Winthrop, he exposes the candidate with the help of Mitt Deagon and wins Beatrice.
The Scarlet Car
1923 · 1 votes
MovieComedySecond release in James Montgomery Flagg's 'Sweethearts and Wives' series of short comedies.
Movie9.0DramaJohn 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
1925 · 1 votes
Movie10.0Oil 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
1922 · 1 votes
Movie10.0ComedyJames 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
1927 · 1 votes
Movie8.0DramaEthel Warren returns from studying in Europe to make her debut in New York with the opera company in which Jean Paurel, world-famous baritone, is the star. Carlo Sonino, also a member of the company, falls in love with Ethel and warns her against becoming infatuated with the amorous singer.
The Great Lover
1920 · 1 votes
Movie7.0WesternMix 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
1923 · 1 votes