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 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 around 20 years, with her starring mostly in B-movies. 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 The Utah Trail alongside Tex Ritter. ("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 major break came when she was cast as the second female lead in This Gun for Hire (1942).
In 1939 she starred in five films, one of which was a crime drama, 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. In 1946 she starred in Chick Carter, Detective. Toward the end of her career, she mostly played parts in Western genre films and television episodes, such as The Range Rider.
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 and writer Mike Stokey; 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 combat correspondent during the Vietnam War, and who then began working in the film industry as a military technical advisor, having worked with, among others, Steven Spielberg 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 care facility in 2009, at age 94.
Filmography Year Title Role Notes1934 Eight Girls in a Boat School Girl Uncredited1934 Autumn Crocus Lenchen 1936 One in a Million Dancer Uncredited1937 Stage Door Actress Uncredited1938 Island in the Sky Hatcheck Girl Uncredited1938 The Utah Trail Sally Jeffers 1939 Sorority House Merle Scott 1939 Wyoming Outlaw Irene Parker 1939 Girl from Rio Annette Templeton 1939 Full Confession Laura Mahoney 1939 Three Sons Mamie Donaldson 1940 Married and in Love Minor Role (scenes deleted)1940 Millionaire Playboy Eleanor 1940 Pop Always Pays Edna Brewster 1940 One Crowded Night Ruth 1940 Men Against the Sky Nurse Uncredited1940 Too Many Girls Coed Uncredited1941 Mr. & Mrs. Smith Lily 1941 No Greater Sin Betty James later Betty Thorne 1942 This Gun for Hire Annie 1942 Maisie Gets Her Man Elsie 1942 The Omaha Trail Julie Santley 1942 Dr. Gillespie's New Assistant Jimmy James Uncredited1943 Kid Dynamite Ivy McGinnis 1943 Slightly Dangerous Mitzi 1943 Swing Shift Maisie Billie 1943 The Unknown Guest Julie 1943 Swing Fever Lois 1945 Three's a Crowd Diane Whipple 1945 Why Girls Leave Home Diana Leslie 1945 Captain Tugboat Annie Marion Graves 1946 Live Wires Mary Mahoney 1946 Partners in Time Elizabeth Meadows 1946 Mysterious Intruder Elora Lund 1946 The Runaround Coffee Shop Waitress Uncredited1946 Chick Carter, Detective Ellen Dale Serial1946 The Mysterious Mr. M Shirley Clinton 1946 Rolling Home Pamela Crawford 1947 The Sea Hound Ann Whitney Serial 1947 The Hat Box Mystery Susan Hart 1948 Stage Struck Janet Winters 1948 Son of God's Country Cathy Thornton 1948 Highway 13 Doris Lacy 1949 Ghost of Zorro Rita White 1949 Sky Liner Carol, TWA Stewardess 1950 Joe Palooka Meets Humphrey Anne Howe Palooka 1950 The Daltons' Women Joan Talbot 1950 Federal Man Mrs. Judith Palmer 1950 Gunfire Cynthy 1950 Border Rangers Ellen Reed 1951 Danger Zone Vicki Jason (2nd episode)1952 Waco Kathy Clark 1954 Adventures of the Texas Kid: Border Ambush Betty Johnson
References
External links
B-movie heroines, Pamela Blake