Iris Adrian
Iris Adrian Hostetter was an American stage and film actress.
Life and career
Adrian was an only child, born in Los Angeles, California, to Florence and Adrian Earl Hostetter, who wed in 1909 in Los Angeles. She was raised by her single mother in Los Angeles. She was a graduate of Hollywood High School.
Adrian won a beauty pageant, worked with the Ziegfeld Follies, and performed with Fred Waring before she entered films at the end of the silent era in Chasing Husbands and appeared as an extra or chorus girl in early sound films like Paramount on Parade.
During the 1930s she specialised in playing hard-boiled gals, glamorous gold-diggers, and gangsters' "molls". She played supporting roles in numerous features. She played "Gee-Gee Graham" in Lady of Burlesque. In the Jerry Lewis comedy, The Errand Boy, she played a glamorous movie star "Anastasia Anastasia", whose on-set birthday party is wrecked by Lewis's shenanigans. She appeared on several radio programs, including the Abbott and Costello Show.
She acted regularly, albeit without achieving star status, and by the end of the 1960s had appeared in more than one hundred films. In her later years she appeared in several Walt Disney films, including That Darn Cat!, The Love Bug, The Shaggy D.A., Freaky Friday, and No Deposit, No Return. Disney director Robert Stevenson considered Adrian his "good-luck charm". In these and other movies, she was typically cast as sharp-tongued or wise cracking waitresses, landladies, and other blue collar neighborhood types. On television, she was a member of the cast of the unsuccessful situation comedy The Ted Knight Show in the spring of 1978. She also played numerous guest roles in television series such as Get Smart, Green Acres, Petticoat Junction, The Munsters, The Love Boat, The Lucy Show, The Beverly Hillbillies, and The Jack Benny Program.
Personal life
Adrian was married to Charles Over from 1935 to 1936; the marriage ended in divorce. Her second marriage, to George Jay, also ended in divorce. On September 24, 1949, she married Dan Schoonmaker, a camera manufacturer, in Las Vegas. They separated two months later and were divorced on September 14, 1950, in Ciudad Juárez. Her fourth and final marriage was to football player Ray Murphy, and lasted more than 30 years until his death in 1983.
Adrian had no children.
Death
Adrian died in Los Angeles, as a result of a fall in her home sustained during the 1994 Northridge earthquake eight months earlier. Her ashes are within the Columbarium of Radiant Dawn at the Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles.
Filmography
Features
The Vagabond King as Extra Lord Byron of Broadway as Lady In The Audience Paramount on Parade as Chorus Girl Let's Go Native as Chorine Midnight Daddies as Model Rumba as Goldie AllenStolen Harmony as Sunny VerneThe Gay Deception as Gettel's Wife Murder at Glen Athol Grand Exit as Diane, First Secretary A Message to Garcia as Muriel RandelOne Rainy Afternoon as Cashier Stage Struck as Ms. LaRue Lady Luck as RitaOur Relations as AliceMr. Cinderella as Lil, Maizie's FriendGold Diggers of 1937 as Verna ...One Third of a Nation... as MyrtleBack Door to Heaven as Sugar, Burlesque DancerMeet the Wildcat as Jail Cell BlondeGo West as Mary Lou Meet the Chump as Switchboard Operator Horror Island as Arleen GradyThe Lady from Cheyenne as Chorus Girl Road to Zanzibar as French SoubretteToo Many Blondes as Hortense KentWild Geese Calling as MazieSing Another Chorus as Francine La VerneHard Guy as Goldie DuvallNew York Town as Toots O'Day Swing It Soldier as Dena MaxwelltonI Killed That Man as Verne DrakeRoxie Hart as 'Two-Gun' Gertie BaxterRings on Her Fingers as PeggyTo the Shores of Tripoli as Okay's Girlfriend Juke Box Jenny as Jinx CoreyFingers at the Window as Babe Stanton Broadway as MaisieMoonlight Masquerade as Contestant Orchestra Wives as Wisecracking Blonde in Bus Station Highways by Night as Blonde ChorineThunder Birds McGuerins From Brooklyn (Two Mugs From Brooklyn) The Crystal Ball as Mrs. Angela Martin Calaboose as Gert, aka Ma, Sluggy's MollHe's My Guy as Chorus Girl Ladies' Day as Kitty McClouenTaxi, Mister as Diner WaitressLady of Burlesque as Gee Gee GrahamAction in the North Atlantic as Jenny O'Hara Hers to Hold as ArleneSubmarine Base as DorothySpotlight Scandals as BerniceHis Butler's Sister as Sunshine TwinCareer Girl as Glenda BentonMillion Dollar Kid as Mazie DunbarShake Hands with Murder as Patsy BrentOnce Upon a Time as Theatregoer The Singing Sheriff as LeftySwing Hostess as Marge O'DayI'm from Arkansas as DorisThe Woman in the Window as Streetwalker Bluebeard as Mimi RobertAlaska as KittyIt's a Pleasure as WilmaBoston Blackie's Rendezvous as MarthaSteppin' in Society as ShirleyRoad to Alcatraz as Louise RogersThe Stork Club as GwenThe Bamboo Blonde as Montana JonesVacation in Reno as Bunny WellsCross My Heart as Miss BaggartFall Guy as Mrs. Ed SindellPhilo Vance Returns as Maggie McCarthy Blendon, aka Choo-choo DivineLove and Learn as New Danceland Hostess The Trouble with Women as Rita La MayThe Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap Smart Woman as Newspaper Columnist Out of the Storm as GingerThe Paleface as PepperMiss Mink of 1949 as Mrs. McKelveyMy Dream Is Yours as Peggy Sky Dragon as Wanda LaFernFlamingo Road as Blanche - Inmate of Women's Prison The Lovable Cheat as Madame MercadetMighty Joe Young as Gloria Trail of the Yukon as PaulaWoman On Pier 13 as Club Waitress Tough Assignment as GloriaAlways Leave Them Laughing as Julie AdamsBodyhold as Aggie There's a Girl in My Heart as Lulu TroyBlondie's Hero as MaeJoe Palooka in Humphrey Takes a Chance as Miss TuttleSideshow as NellieOnce a Thief as PearlHi-Jacked as AggieHunt the Man Down as Marie Stop That Cab as LucyThe Scarf as Floozy Varieties on Parade as HerselfG.I. Jane as Lt. AdrianMy Favorite Spy as LolaThe Big Trees Carson City as Saloon Girl in Fight Crime Wave as Hastings' Girlfriend Take the High Ground! as Mrs. Butterfly Highway Dragnet as SallyThe Fast and the Furious as Wilma Belding, WaitressThe Helen Morgan Story as Louise Jensen - Secretary Carnival Rock as CeliaThe Buccaneer as Capt. Brown's Frowsy WenchBlue Hawaii as Enid GarveyThe Errand Boy as Anastasia Anastasia, ActressFate Is the Hunter as Woman That Darn Cat! as LandladyThe Odd Couple as WaitressThe Love Bug as CarhopThe Barefoot Executive as Woman ShopperScandalous John as MavisThe Apple Dumpling Gang as Poker PollyNo Deposit, No Return as HousewifeGus as Fan's WifeThe Shaggy D.A. as ManageressFreaky Friday as Bus PassengerHerbie Goes Bananas as Loud American Wife
Short subjects
Chasing Husbands Whirls and Girls as 4th Girl The Freshman's Goat 20 min.. Don't Give Up College Cuties 19 min. as IrisMan to Man How to Clean House 18 min. as Isabella, The MaidFoy Meets Girl 17 min. Heebie Gee-Gees as Wally's WifeSo You Want To Know Your Relatives 10 min. as Bubbles LaVonne So You Want to Be Pretty 10 min. as Mabel - Nurse
Selected Television Appearances
Alfred Hitchcock Presents as Macey