Leon Ames

Leon Ames was born on Jan 20, 1902 in USA. Leon Ames's big-screen debut came with Murders in the Rue Morgue directed by Robert Florey in 1932, strarring Pierre Dupin (as Leon Waycoff). Leon Ames is known for The Best Place to Be directed by David Miller, Donna Reed stars as Sheila Callahan and Efrem Zimbalist Jr. as Bill Reardan. The most recent award Leon Ames achieved is Screen Actors Guild Awards. The upcoming new movie Leon Ames plays is Peggy Sue Got Married which will be released on Oct 10, 1986.

Leon Ames was born Harry Wycoff in Portland, Indiana, to Cora Alice (DeMoss) and Charles Elmer Wycoff. He had always wanted to be an actor and he did it the hard way, serving a long apprenticeship in touring amateur theatre companies -- even selling shoes for a while on 42nd Street in the 1920s. It took him until 1933 to make his debut on Broadway. His play at the Morosco Theatre, "It Pays to Sin", lasted for only three performances after receiving disastrous critical reviews. By then he had already appeared in his first movie, the sombre, expressionistic Double assassinat dans la rue Morgue (1932), an Edgar Allan Poe adaptation, in which Leon played the dependable love interest of heroine Sidney Fox.For the next three year, he appeared under his birth name (Leon Waycoff) in a variety of B-movies for "Poverty Row" studios like Mayfair, Showmen's Pictures, World-Wide, Empire and Majestic. His first film as 'Leon Ames' was the Shirley Temple vehicle, Stowaway (1932). For the next few years he served yet another apprenticeship, playing a variety of stalwart characters and the occasional bad guy in such cheerful potboilers as the anemic Murder in Greenwich Village (1937), the amusing M. Moto dans les bas-fonds (1938) and the eminently forgettable Secrets of a Nurse (1938). There were also occasional highlights: he popped up in Ernst Lubitsch's last film at Paramount, La huitième femme de Barbe-bleue (1938), with Gary Cooper and Myrna Loy, and even starred as the leading man of Bureau du chiffre secret (1938) and La patrouille de Panama (1939), albeit at Grand National.Leon's career improved dramatically after playing Judy Garland's father Alonzo (along with Mary Astor as the matriarch of the family) in MGM's classic, Le chant du Missouri (1944), directed by Vincente Minnelli. For the first time, Leon's acting abilities were well employed, especially his ability to deliver dryly humorous one-liners. Signed to a contract at MGM, Leon was now cast in pivotal character roles in more important A-grade output, usually as put-upon, loving fathers: Ainsi sont les femmes (1948), Les quatre filles du Dr March (1949), (where he again teamed up with Mary Astor), La maîtresse de papa (1953), to name but a few. For something completely different, he also played district attorney Kyle Sackett in the film noir, Le facteur sonne toujours deux fois (1946) and, against type, portrayed Paul Newman's thoroughly unpleasant father in Du haut de la terrasse (1960).Leon continued in films well until his twilight years and was last seen as Kathleen Turner's grandfather in Peggy Sue s'est mariée (1986). On television, he had a popular run starring in Life with Father (1953) and Le père de la mariée (1961) (played by Spencer Tracy on the big screen) as well as playing Wilbur Post's neighbor Gordon Kirkwood in Monsieur Ed, le cheval qui parle (1961).Leon had another claim to fame in being one of 19 actors, who -- after a clandestine meeting in June 1933 -- established the Screen Actor's Guild. For thirty years (commencing in 1945) he held a senior executive position as recording secretary and served as national president of the organization between 1957 and 1979. He also served on the board of governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The dapper actor and avid unionist died at a Laguna Beach nursing home at the ripe old age of 91 on October 12 1993.