Biography

Frances Drake

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Frances Drake was born on October 22, 1912 in New York City, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for Mad Love (1935), The Preview Murder Mystery (1936) and The Invisible Ray (1936). She was married to David Brown and Lt. Cecil John Arthur Howard. She died on January 18, 2000 in Irvine, California, USA.

Dark-haired American-born actress who went to finishing school in Arundel, England. After dancing in London nightclubs, she spent her apprenticeship on stage (e.g., "The Little Earthquake" in 1933, as a cockney maid) and in minor British films. She made her Hollywood debut in Bolero (1934) and was thereafter typecast as damsels in distress, opposite horror stars Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, and Peter Lorre. Paramount changed her name to Frances Drake because her birth name, Frances Dean, was too similar to that of one of their stars, Frances Dee.
Married into the English aristocracy.
Drake asked for her release from her three-year Paramount contract in 1936, six weeks early. Studio boss William LeBaron granted her request and even continued to pay her for that time. Unfortunately, she was very unhappy at her new studio Fox, and her agent Charles K. Feldman, arranged to have her contract bought by Columbia.
Started out as a nightclub dancer in London.
Drake was neighbors with director Fritz Lang in Beverly Hills and was very upset when he passed away in 1976.

[In a 1986 interview] Charles Laughton was very interesting to watch. Before he went into a scene, he'd go through these gyrations, and huff and puff... I don't know what it did for him, but he was quite amusing to watch! He was often very effective, wasn't he? Marvelous!
[In a 1986 interview about Brian Donlevy] ... a very strange man. He never talked to anybody.
[In a 1986 interview] Claudette Colbert was delightful to me in It's a Wonderful World (1939); she was my favorite actress to work with. James Stewart went to sleep on the set between takes, but what a terrific actor he is!
[In 1986 on Jack Oakie]... a delightfully funny man... I would become helpless with laughter!
[In a 1986 interview] One day I told Bela Lugosi that his daughter had come to call for him, and he said, 'She is my wife'. I wanted to sink through the floor for being so tactless! It might have hurt him, but I wouldn't have done that for the world because he was such a charming man, very soft and very congenial... Lugosi, Frank Lawton and I all had birthdays on that set in October.

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