Stella Adams

Adams was born in Sherman, Texas.

Although Adams appeared in only 12 feature films,{{cite web | url=http://www.afi.com/members/catalog/SearchResult.aspx?s=&Type=PN&Tbl=&CatID=DATABIN_CAST&ID=142222&searchedFor=Stella_Adams_&SortType=ASC&SortCol=RELEASE_YEAR | publisher=American Film Institute | title=Stella Adams | accessdate=December 24, 2014}} she acted in almost 150 shorts during the silent era, mostly in starring or featured roles. Her first acting credit was one of those feature films, 1909's In the Sultan's Power,A 1934 newspaper article gives the film's name as Power of the Sultan.{{cite news|last1=Coons|first1=Robbin|title=Sights and Sounds|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/12655196/stella_adams/|work=Abilene Reporter-News|date=June 1, 1934|location=Texas, Abilene|page=6|via = Newspapers.com|accessdate = July 26, 2017}} {{Open access}} in which she had a starring role. The film was remarkable because it was the first film shot entirely on the west coast of the United States.{{cite web | url=http://www.afi.com/members/catalog/DetailView.aspx?s=&Movie=36409 | publisher=American Film Institute | title=In the Sultan's Power | accessdate=December 24, 2014}} At this point in the film industry, most films were still shot in New Jersey and New York.

Adams joined the Nestor Film Company in 1912 and moved to California when the company relocated there. Her early work was in comedies, but she also started working in Westerns. She left Nestor with director Al Christie when he began his own studio.{{cite book|last1=Lowe|first1=Denise|title=An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Women in Early American Films: 1895-1930|date=2014|publisher=Routledge|isbn=9781317718963|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=68e2AgAAQBAJ&q=%22Stella+Adams%22+Nestor&pg=PA1830|accessdate=July 26, 2017|language=en}}

In 1917, an article in the trade publication Billboard reported that Adams left California "to join her husband in Chicago, and will next year return to the elegitimate stage."

Twenty years passed before Adams made another feature film, when she appeared in a featured role in the silent/sound film, Me, Gangster, directed by Raoul Walsh.{{cite web | url=http://www.afi.com/members/catalog/DetailView.aspx?s=&Movie=10703 | publisher=American Film Institute | title=Me, Gangster | accessdate=December 24, 2014}} Over the next eight years, Adams made another ten films, although in smaller and smaller roles, retiring in 1936.

Adams was married to press agent James Whittendale.{{cite magazine|title=Press-Advance Agents|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XaoiAQAAMAAJ&q=%22Stella+Adams%22+actress&pg=RA3-PA25|accessdate=July 26, 2017|magazine=Billboard|date=April 28, 1917|page=25}}

Adams died in Woodland Hills, California, on September 17, 1961, and was interred in Calvary Cemetery in Los Angeles.{{Find a Grave | 93120321 | Stella A Adams | work=Motion picture actress | author=James Greenfield | date=July 5, 2012 | accessdate=December 24, 2014}}

(Per AFI database)

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• In the Sultan's Power (1909)
• Could You Blame Her (1914)
• When Bess Got in Wrong (1914) as Stella
• His Nobs the Duke (1915)
• Wanted: A Leading Lady (1915)
• Where the Heather Blooms (1915)
• Love and a Savage (1915)
• Mingling Spirits (1916)
• Me, Gangster (1928)
• Sister to Judas (1932)
• Temptation's Workshop (1932)
• The Vampire Bat (1933)
• Bachelor Mother (1933)
• Sing Sinner Sing (1933)
• The Whirlwind (1933)
• Whom the Gods Destroy (1934)
• The Tonto Kid (1935)
• The King Steps Out (1936)
• Theodora Goes Wild (1936)

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Category:1883 births

Category:1961 deaths

Category:People from Sherman, Texas

Category:Actresses from Texas

Category:American silent film actresses

Category:American film actresses

Category:20th-century American actresses

Category:Burials at Calvary Cemetery (Los Angeles)

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