Don Ameche

Don Ameche, born Dominic Felix Amici on May 31, 1908, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, was an American actor, comedian, and vaudevillian whose career spanned from the late 1920s through the early 1990s. The second oldest of eight children, he was the son of Felice Amici, a bartender who had emigrated from Montemonaco, Ascoli Piceno, in the Marche region of Italy, and Barbara Etta Hertel, who was of Scottish, Irish, and German ancestry. His siblings included sisters Elizabeth, Catherine, Mary, and Anna, and brothers Louis, Umberto, and James, the last of whom also became a well-known actor. Ameche attended Marquette University, Loras College, and the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where his cousin Alan Ameche played football and won the Heisman Trophy in 1954.

His entry into performing came through college dramatics at the University of Wisconsin, where he stepped in as a replacement for a missing lead actor in a stock company production of Excess Baggage. That experience led to a juvenile lead role in Jerry For Short in New York and a subsequent vaudeville tour with Texas Guinan. He then relocated to Chicago, where he launched a radio career in 1930 on Empire Builders, a program broadcast from the Merchandise Mart. By 1932 he had become the leading man on two additional Chicago-based programs, the dramatic anthology First Nighter and Betty and Bob, the latter widely regarded as a forerunner of the soap opera genre.

His growing radio prominence attracted the attention of 20th Century Fox producer Darryl Zanuck, who brought Ameche to Hollywood in 1935. At the studio he was cast predominantly in romantic leads opposite many of the era's top female stars. His portrayal of the title character in The Story of Alexander Graham Bell in 1939 became so culturally embedded that the word "ameche" entered juvenile slang as a synonym for telephone, a connection referenced that same year when Groucho Marx quipped in Go West that the telephone had not yet been invented because it was 1870 and Don Ameche had not done so yet. Also in 1939, Ameche appeared in the comedy film Midnight and served as Alice Faye's leading man in Hollywood Cavalcade, then played Stephen Foster in Swanee River. He continued with Faye in the biopic Lillian Russell in 1940 and was top-billed in the war film Four Sons that same year. His musicals Down Argentine Way and Moon Over Miami, released in 1940 and 1941 respectively, helped establish Betty Grable and Carmen Miranda as stars. In 1940 he was ranked the twenty-first most popular star in Hollywood, and by 1944 he was reported to be the second-highest earner at 20th Century Fox after Spyros Skouras, having earned $247,677 for the previous year.

During the late 1940s Ameche achieved further recognition in radio by playing opposite Frances Langford in The Bickersons, Philip Rapp's comedy series about a combative married couple, which debuted on NBC in 1946 before moving to CBS the following year. He also hosted his own program, The Old Gold Don Ameche Show, on NBC Red in the early 1940s. Two albums recorded with Langford charted on the Billboard Top LPs: The Bickersons in 1962, which reached number 76, and The Bickersons Fight Back, also released that year, which reached number 109. In 1950 he became the star of Holiday Hotel on ABC-TV, and from 1961 to 1965 he hosted NBC's International Showtime.

Ameche's Broadway career extended from 1929 to 1988 and encompassed a wide range of productions. His stage credits included the musical Silk Stockings in 1955, the comedy Holiday for Lovers in 1957, the musical Goldilocks in 1958, 13 Daughters in 1961, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying in both 1966 and 1981, the musical Henry, Sweet Henry in 1967, No, No, Nanette in 1972, Mame in 1978, Life with Father in 1979, and the drama Our Town in 1989, in which he served as a replacement for Spalding Gray. Additional stage work included Hazel Flagg in 1954, The Moon Is Blue in 1972, and Never Get Smart with an Angel in 1977.

After more than a decade away from film, Ameche returned to the screen in Trading Places in 1983, cast by director John Landis in a villainous role after Landis sought an actor from the 1930s and 1940s who had rarely played such parts. Ray Milland had been considered but was passed over after failing an insurance physical. Locating Ameche proved difficult, as the Screen Actors Guild directed inquiries to his son in Arizona rather than to Ameche himself, who was eventually found in Santa Monica, California. The role initiated a sustained career revival. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Cocoon in 1985 and received the Volpi Cup for Best Actor for his work in Things Change in 1988, a film written by David Mamet and Shel Silverstein. Subsequent film appearances included Harry and the Hendersons in 1987, Coming to America and Cocoon: The Return both in 1988, Oscar in 1991, Folks! in 1992, and the voice of Shadow in Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey in 1993. His final screen appearance was in Corrina, Corrina, released posthumously in 1994.

Beyond his performing career, Ameche was among a group of Los Angeles entertainment figures, including Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, who co-owned the Los Angeles Dons of the All-America Football Conference from 1946 to 1949. He was instrumental in forming the ownership group and initially served as team president. Ameche was married to Honore Prendergast from 1932 until her death in 1986; they had six children together: daughters Connie and Bonnie, and sons Lonnie, Dominic, Thomas, and Ronald, who owned a restaurant called Ameche's Pumpernickel in Coralville, Iowa. His younger brother Jim died in 1983 at the age of 67. Ameche was Roman Catholic and a Republican who supported Thomas Dewey's 1944 presidential campaign. He died on December 6, 1993, at his son Richard Ameche's home in Scottsdale, Arizona, of prostate cancer at the age of 85. He was cremated, and his ashes are interred at Resurrection Catholic Cemetery in Asbury, Iowa.