Trivia of Don Ameche

 Trivia of Don Ameche (31 May 1908 - 6 December 1993)

*His father, Felice Amici, was a bartender from Marche, Italy. His mother, Barbara Etta Hertel, was of Scottish, Irish, and German ancestry.He studied 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.

*Don Ameche got his first chance to work in a film in 1935, appearing as a prisoner in the film ‘Clive of India,’ and later that year had another appearance in the film ‘Dante's Inferno (1935)’. However, in both these films, he was not credited and had to wait for another year to get an official debut in the film industry. He appeared as ‘Karl Freyman / Mario Signarelli’ in the film ‘Sins of Man’ (1936).

*He worked with Tyrone Power in Ladies in Love (1936), In Old Chicago (1938), Love Is News (1937) and Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938) and with his son Tyrone Power Jr. in Cocoon (1985) and Cocoon: The Return (1988).

*He and his brother Jim Ameche portrayed Alexander Graham Bell in different movie. Don in The Story of Alexander Graham Bell (1939) and Jim in The Story of Mankind (1957). After the film The Story of Alexander Graham Bell was released, the telephone was commonly called the "Ameche," a slang term referring to actor Don Ameche who played the telephone's inventor.

*Co-starring with Loretta Young in six movies : Clive of India (1935) , Ladies in Love (1936), Ramona (1936), Love is News (1937) , Love Under Fire (1937),The Story of Alexander Graham Bell (1939).

*In a 1983 interview, "A Conversation with Don Ameche", he said Heaven Can Wait (1943) opposite Gene Tierney was the favorite of all the films he worked on.Though in the beginning, the director Ernst Lubitsch was most disappointed when 20th Century Fox boss Darryl F. Zanuck insisted on casting Don Ameche for commercial reasons. Lubitsch later recanted his opposition to Ameche, won over by the actor's dedication and professionalism.

*Ameche had not acted in a film for 13 years when he was cast in Trading Places (1983) along Dan Aykroyd, Eddie Murphy, Ralph Bellamy, and Jamie Lee Curtis. He play role as greedy Mortimer Duke.After filming, he frequently apologized to co-star Eddie Murphy for the racist statements that his character made in the film.