Don Ameche

Known for ActingBorn 1908-05-31Died 1993-12-06Kenosha, Wisconsin, USA

Don Ameche (born Dominic Felix Amici; May 31, 1908 – December 6, 1993) was an American actor and radio entertainer whose career spanned over six decades. Known for his charming, dapper presence and signature mustache, Ameche became one of 20th Century Fox's premier leading men throughout the 1930s and 1940s. Born in Kenosha, Wisconsin, to an Italian immigrant father and a mother of European descent, he adapted his family's surname from "Amici" to "Ameche" to preserve its original Italian pronunciation in the United States. He began his entertainment career in vaudeville and radio, where he achieved nationwide fame as the host of popular broadcasts like The Chase and Sanborn Hour. He transitioned to film in 1935, starring in a string of successful musical comedies and dramas, most notably Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938), The Story of Alexander Graham Bell (1939), and Ernst Lubitsch’s classic comedy Heaven Can Wait (1943). As film roles slowed in the 1950s, Ameche worked extensively in live theatre and television. His screen career experienced a celebrated renaissance in the 1980s, beginning with his role as the scheming commodities broker Mortimer Duke in Trading Places (1983). Two years later, he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of a revitalized retiree in Ron Howard’s Cocoon (1985). In his final years, Ameche introduced himself to a new generation of filmgoers providing the warm, patriarchal voice of Shadow the Golden Retriever in Disney's Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey (1993), before completing his final screen appearance in Corrina, Corrina (1994). Ameche was married to Honore Prendergast from 1932 until her death in 1986; the couple had six children. Ameche died of prostate cancer in Scottsdale, Arizona, in 1993 at the age of 85.Read more

Movies & web series

A Masterpiece of Murder

Fifty Roads to Town

Oddball Hall

Coke Time with Eddie Fisher

Land of Liberty

Sins of Man

Our Shining Moment

Columbo

Hidden Hollywood: Treasures from the 20th Century Fox Film Vaults

The Golden Girls

Quincy, M.E.

Ellery Queen

The Kennedy Center Honors

The Greatest Show on Earth

The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

Tonight Starring Jack Paar

Trading Places

Slightly French

DuPont Show of the Month

Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey

Girl Trouble

McCloud

So Goes My Love

The Chinese Typewriter

Midnight

Coming to America

Good Heavens

Gateway

The Magnificent Dope

Alias Smith and Jones

Corrina, Corrina

Josette

Happy Land

What's My Line?

Cocoon

The Merv Griffin Show

Four Sons

Swanee River

One in a Million

Cocoon: The Return

Heaven Can Wait

Oscar

A Fever in the Blood

The Ed Sullivan Show

Shadow Over Elveron

Alexander's Ragtime Band

Wing and a Prayer

That's My Man