Ida M. Adams

Ida M. Adams (c. 1888 – November 4, 1960) was an American actress and singer whose work spanned musical theatre in both the United States and London's West End. Her career in the United States ran from 1909 to 1914, after which she relocated to England and performed there through 1917.

Adams made her third stage appearance on April 27, 1909, at the Knickerbocker Theatre on Broadway, where she played Miss Glick in The Candy Shop. Later that same year she toured in Three Twins, taking on the roles of Summer Girl and Boo Hoo Tee Hee Girl. In 1911 she appeared on Broadway in The Lady, and that same year she played Desirée in the musical The Pink Lady at the New Amsterdam Theatre, subsequently joining the production on tour. Her next engagement brought her to Florenz Ziegfeld's A Winsome Widow in 1912 at the Moulin Rouge in New York, where she portrayed the role of Tony. Beginning in October 1912, she performed in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1912, a run that continued through January 1913. A costume drawing of Adams held by the Museum of the City of New York is attributed to Lucy, Lady Duff-Gordon, who contributed work to the Ziegfeld Follies.

Adams transitioned to the London stage in 1915, appearing at the London Hippodrome before taking a role in the revue Half-Past Eight at the Comedy Theatre the following year. She then joined Charles B. Cochran's production of Houp La! in 1916 at St Martin's Theatre. During that run, Cochran later noted that Binnie Hale received her first professional opportunity as Adams's understudy, though Hale's debut was complicated by Adams's stipulation that no understudy could wear the costumes Adams had personally paid for. On January 11, 1917, Adams recorded two songs from Houp La! for His Master's Voice at the Gramophone Company's studios in Hayes, Middlesex. The first recording was "Oh! How She Could Yacki Hacki Wicki Wacki Woo," performed with a female choir and the St Martin's Theatre Orchestra. The second was Paul Rubens's "Wonderful Girl, Wonderful Boy, Wonderful Time," recorded as a trio alongside Gertie Millar and Nat Ayer.

Her final known theatrical appearance came in 1917, when she played Jane Gerson in Inside the Lines at the Apollo Theatre in London, a production that enjoyed a lengthy run. A 1977 account published in The Listener by a fellow cast member from Houp La! described Adams as spectacular and noted that bank staff were kept on duty each evening so she could deposit her jewelry after performances. Adams died on November 4, 1960, at the age of 72.