Adrian Booth was born in 1917 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She also acted under the name of Lorna Gray. Her films include “Daughter of Don Q” in 1946 and “Dakota”. She was long married to actor David Brian.
New York Times obituary in 2017.
Adrian Booth, a versatile film actress who also took pies to the face alongside the Three Stooges, died Sunday, April 30, 2017. She was 99.
Relatives of the actress announced Booth’s death in a post via social media.
Booth appeared in several Three Stooges short films including a memorable pie-throwing scene in “Three Sappy People.” She played Sherry, a spoiled wife. Other Stooges shorts included “You Nazty Spy!”, “Oily to Bed, Oily to Rise,” and “Rockin’ Thru the Rockies.”
She was born Virginia Pound July 26, 1917, in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
During the 1930s, when she became a contract player with Columbia Pictures, studio executives renamed her Lorna Gray. She played parts in “Flying G-Men” alongside Robert Paige, “Pest From the West” with Buster Keaton, and the above-mentioned Stooges film shorts.
Her films included “Red River Range,” a 1938 film starring John Wayne; “O, My Darling Clementine,” a 1943 film starring the country music singer Roy Acuff as a singing sheriff; and “Hold ‘Em Navy.” In the latter film, her birth name appeared in the credits.
Booth also played the lead character’s secretary, Gail Richards, in Republic Pictures’ 1944 “Captain America” film serials about the comic book superhero.
After leaving Columbia in 1945, she took a different stage name, Adrian Booth, and had retained the name ever since. She retired from her film career after marrying the actor David Brian in 1949; he preceded her in death in 1993.
In 2007, Booth told writer John Beifuss that she had a great time working for Republic Pictures in films such as “Along the Oregon Trail” and “Home on the Range.”
“They were so good to me,” Booth said. “Every time I started a picture, my boss would send me flowers.”
After appearing in the Three Stooges film shorts, she became good friends with the Stooge Larry Fine. She called Fine, who died in 1975, “a very sweet boy.”
For her work in Western films and TV series, Booth received the Golden Boot Award in 1998. She was a frequent film festival attendee even into her 90s.
Published by New York Times on May 1, 2017.
