Don Ameche

Returning to film work in his later years, Ameche enjoyed a fruitful revival of his career, beginning with his role as a villain in the comedy hit Trading Places (1983). He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Cocoon (1985) and the Volpi Cup for Best Actor for his performance in Things Change (1988).

Don Ameche studied at University of Wisconsin–Madison. The recorded working language is English. The field of work recorded is acting. Distinctions recorded are Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, Volpi Cup for Best Actor and star on Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Don Ameche was born as Dominic Felix Amici on May 31, 1908, in Kenosha, Wisconsin. His father, Felice Amici, was a bartender from Montemonaco, Ascoli Piceno, Marche, Italy. His mother, Barbara Etta Hertel, was of Scottish, Irish, and German ancestry. Ameche was the second oldest of eight children: sisters Elizabeth, Catherine, Mary and Anna, and brothers Louis, Umberto (Bert) and James (Jim Ameche), who was also 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.

Ameche had done well in college dramatics at the University of Wisconsin, and when a lead actor for a stock company production of Excess Baggage did not turn up, a friend persuaded him to stand in for the missing actor. He enjoyed the experience and got a juvenile lead in Jerry For Short in New York, followed by a tour in vaudeville with Texas Guinan until she dropped him from the act, dismissing him as "too stiff". Ameche then moved to Chicago, where "he began a radio career in 1930 on Empire Builders, a program broadcast from the Merchandise Mart. By 1932, Ameche had become the leading man on two other Chicago-based programs: the dramatic anthology First Nighter and Betty and Bob, the latter considered by many to be the forerunner of the soap-opera genre." Brought to Hollywood by 20th Century Fox producer Darryl Zanuck, Ameche played mostly romantic leads paired with many of the top female stars of the era. In 1939, he played a lead character in comedy film Midnight (1939). He also played the title character in The Story of Alexander Graham Bell (1939) which led to the use of the word "ameche" as juvenile slang for a telephone. As noted by Mike Kilen in the Iowa City Gazette (December 8, 1993), "The film prompted a generation to call people to the telephone with the phrase: 'You're wanted on the Ameche.'" Such an identity between Ameche and the telephone was forged, that in the 1940 film Go West, Groucho Marx proclaims, "Telephone? This is 1870, Don Ameche hasn't invented the telephone yet." Ameche was Alice Faye's leading man in Hollywood Cavalcade (1939), then played another real-life figure, Stephen Foster, in Swanee River (1939). He did a third biopic, Lillian Russell (1940), with Faye, and was top billed in a war film, Four Sons (1940). He also starred in two popular musicals, Down Argentine Way (1940), which helped make stars of Betty Grable and Carmen Miranda, and Moon Over Miami (1941), also with Grable. In 1940, he was voted the 21st-most-popular star in Hollywood. Ameche did Heaven Can Wait (1943), Happy Land (1943), Wing and a Prayer (1944) and Greenwich Village (1944). In 1944, he reportedly earned $247,677 for 1943 ($4,495,498 in 2024 dollars), making him the second-highest earner at 20th Century Fox after Spyros Skouras. Following his appearances as announcer and sketch participant on The Chase and Sanborn Hour, Ameche achieved memorable success during the late 1940s playing opposite Frances Langford in The Bickersons, the Philip Rapp radio comedy series about a combative married couple. It began on NBC in 1946, moving to CBS the following year. He also had his own program, The Old Gold Don Ameche Show, on NBC Red in the early 1940s. In 1950 Ameche became the star of Holiday Hotel, on ABC-TV. Over the years he released many singles and albums, two albums charted, both with Frances Langford. The Bickersons, in 1962, (No. 76 on Billboard Top LPs), and The Bickersons Fight Back, released later that year, (No. 109 on Billboard Top LPs). Ameche appeared regularly in films until 1970, as he shifted to television and the stage. He returned to films after thirteen years with Trading Places (1983), where he was cast when director John Landis had someone in mind from the 1930s and 1940s who had not played many villainous roles and came upon Ameche (after Ray Milland was passed over due to not being able to pass the insurance physical). Ameche took on the role after Landis tracked him down in Santa Monica, California, initially unable to reach him through the Screen Actors Guild, who said that his royalty payments were going to his son in Arizona. This started a comeback where Ameche would appear more regularly in films, including Cocoon (1985, which earned him an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor), Harry and the Hendersons (1987), Coming to America (1988) and Cocoon: The Return (1988). He earned good reviews for the David Mamet and Shel Silverstein-penned Things Change (1988); The New York Times said that he showed "the kind of great comic aplomb that wins actors awards for other than sentimental reasons." His later credits included an episode of The Golden Girls (1990), the films Oscar (1991), Folks! (1992), and the voice of Shadow in Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey (1993). His final appearance was in the film Corrina, Corrina (1994), which was released posthumously.

From 1946 to 1949, together with other Los Angeles entertainment figures including Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, Ameche owned the Los Angeles Dons of the All-America Football Conference, a rival to the National Football League. He was instrumental in forming and leading the ownership group the year before play began and initially served as team president. Ameche was married to Honore Prendergast from 1932 until her death in 1986. They were separated from each other at the time of her death and Ameche did not attend her funeral according to her 1986 obituary. They had six children: two daughters, Connie and Bonnie, and four sons, Lonnie, Dominic, Thomas and Ronald, who owned a restaurant called "Ameche's Pumpernickel" in Coralville, Iowa. Ameche's younger brother, Jim, died in 1983 at the age of 67. Ameche was Roman Catholic and a Republican who supported the campaign of Thomas Dewey in the 1944 United States presidential election. On December 6, 1993, Ameche died at his son Richard Ameche's house in Scottsdale, Arizona, of prostate cancer at age 85. He was cremated and his ashes are buried at Resurrection Catholic Cemetery in Asbury, Iowa.

Screen Snapshots: Stars at the Tropical Ice Gardens (1939) Weekend in Hollywood (1947) Screen Snapshots: Hollywood Night at 21 Club (1952)

Hazel Flagg (1954) Silk Stockings (1955) Holiday for Lovers (1957) Goldilocks (1958) 13 Daughters (1961) How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1966) Henry, Sweet Henry (1967) The Moon Is Blue (1972) No, No, Nanette (1972) Never Get Smart with an Angel (1977) Mame (1978) Life with Father (1979) How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1981) Our Town (1989) (replacement for Spalding Gray)