Pamela Blake (August 6, 1915 – October 6, 2009) was an American film actress who acted in almost 50 films. She is known primarily for her roles in western films and serials.

Early years

Blake was born in

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

as Adele Pearce, and performed under that name until 1942. Following her mother's death when Blake was 3 years old, she went to live with an uncle and aunt, William Bojorques and Gertrude Biddle-Bojorques in Petaluma, California. Her secondary education came at schools in Petaluma and San Francisco. She went to Hollywood at age 17 after she won a beauty contest.

Film

Blake's film career lasted for a little over 15 years, with her starring mostly in

B-movies A B movie or B film is a low-budget commercial motion picture. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified films intended for distribution as the less-publicized bottom half of a double featur ...

. Her first film role was uncredited, playing a bit part in the 1934 film ''Eight Girls on a Boat''. However, in 1938 she starred in the

western Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US * Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that i ...

The Utah Trail ''The Utah Trail'' is a 1938 American Western film directed by Albert Herman. It was Tex Ritter's final film for Grand National Films. Despite the song and title, the film takes place on the Arizona/Mexico border and not Utah. The film is base ...

'' alongside

Tex Ritter Woodward Maurice Ritter (January 12, 1905 – January 2, 1974) was a pioneer of American country music, a popular singer and actor from the mid-1930s into the 1960s, and the patriarch of the Ritter acting family (son John, grandsons Jason an ...

. ("It was terrible!" she said in later years. "I never saw it and never wanted to.") She also starred opposite John Wayne in the 1939 film '' Wyoming Outlaw''. This helped her to secure several other western acting roles, many times as the lead

heroine A hero (feminine: heroine) is a real person or a main fictional character who, in the face of danger, combats adversity through feats of ingenuity, courage, or strength. Like other formerly gender-specific terms (like ''actor''), ''hero ...

. In 1939 she starred in five films, one of which was a

crime drama Crime films, in the broadest sense, is a film genre inspired by and analogous to the crime fiction literary genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and its detection. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine ...

, one a mystery, and one a western. In total she had roles in some 54 films, as well as a number of starring roles in certain

television series A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, or cable, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed ...

. In 1946 she starred in ''

Chick Carter, Detective ''Chick Carter, Detective'' is a 1946 Columbia film serial. Columbia could not afford the rights to produce a Nick Carter serial so they made ''Chick Carter, Detective'' about his son instead. This was based on the radio series ''Chick Carter, Bo ...

''. Toward the end of her career, she mostly played parts in western genre films and television episodes, such as ''

The Range Rider ''The Range Rider'' is an American Western television series A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, or cable, excluding breaki ...

''. ''Waco'' (1952) was Blake's last feature film, and her last role was in the 1954 television pilot, ''The Adventures of the Texas Kid: Border Ambush'', which was later released as a film.

Personal life and death

In 1935, Blake was injured in an automobile wreck that might have ended her career. A newspaper article in ''The Petaluma Argus-Courier'' in 1940 described her as having emerged from the wrecked car "with a neck badly torn and both eyes and cheeks badly mutilated." Plastic surgery helped her to return to acting. Blake married three times. In 1936, she eloped to Yuma, Arizona, with actor Malcolm "Bud" Taggert. They divorced in 1940. Her second marriage, in 1943, was to actor,

television producer A television producer is a person who oversees one or more aspects of video production on a television program. Some producers take more of an executive role, in that they conceive new programs and pitch them to the television networks, but upon a ...

and

writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, pla ...

Mike Stokey Mike Stokey (September 14, 1918 – September 7, 2003) was an American game show host and producer, best known for ''Pantomime Quiz'' and its later incarnation ''Stump the Stars''. He also produced early TV specials, including ''A Christmas Caro ...

; it ended in divorce in 1948. They had one son, Mike Stokey II, and a daughter, Barbara. Their son served as a

1st Marine Division The 1st Marine Division (1st MARDIV) is a Marine division of the United States Marine Corps headquartered at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California. It is the ground combat element of the I Marine Expeditionary Force (I MEF). It is the ...

combat correspondent during the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

, and who then began working in the film industry as a military

technical advisor In film production, a technical advisor is someone who advises the director on the convincing portrayal of a subject. The advisor's expertise adds realism both to the acting and to the setting of a movie. Nipo T. Strongheart was a noted technica ...

, having worked with, among others,

Steven Spielberg Steven Allan Spielberg (; born December 18, 1946) is an American director, writer, and producer. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, he is the most commercially successful director of all time. Spi ...

and Tom Hanks. In 1953, Blake moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, to retire and raise her two children. She married John Canavan, an Air Force master sergeant, in 1983. Blake died of natural causes in a

Las Vegas, Nevada Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vega ...

care facility in 2009, at age 94.

Filmography

References

External links

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B-movie heroines, Pamela Blake
{{DEFAULTSORT:Blake, Pamela 1915 births 2009 deaths American film actresses Actresses from Oakland, California 20th-century American actresses Burials at Southern Nevada Veterans Memorial Cemetery 21st-century American women