Ramsay Ames - from Hollywood to Benalmádena

The American actress of the golden age of Hollywood, Ramsey Ames, always highlighted in her interviews that her mother was Spanish, from Seville, although this fact does not match her official origins.

"She reflects the fiery temperament of her Latin ancestors," said a photo caption in the Los Angeles Times in August 1944 about the then RKO Pictures actress.

What is clear is that Rita Rebecca Phillips Ames, born in New York on 30 March 1924 according to her birth certificate, knew Spanish, loved Spain and maybe she really did have Andalusian blood in her veins because it was to the villa 'La Mancha', built in Benalmádena Pueblo, that she retired from the silver screen for good.

She was not even 20 years old when, as a dancer and singer in Miami, she was discovered by Hollywood. She appeared in supporting roles in four films in 1943, the most important being Arthur Lubin's adventure classic Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. The following year she made six films, specialising in B-movie horror films made by Universal, for which she is still idolised by fans of the genre. In the classic Return of the Mummy, Ames became the sexy reincarnation of an ancient Egyptian queen.

However, it was World War II that really made her famous. She became a pin-up girl for the US Army magazines, read by American servicemen deployed from North Africa to Guadalcanal.

Erskine Johnson recounted in a 1944 column that, one day, some army recruits at Fort Ord (California) came across a stunning picture of Ames on the bulletin board with the message: "We don't know who this wonderful girl is, but it doesn't really matter. The Hollywood studio that sent the photo forgot to caption it. We'll add it. It's just WOW."

Apparently, Ames got wind of it and sent headquarters a new photo with the following poem:

A Hollywood gal abhors anonymity as much as Mae West hates nightgowns of dimity / So enclosed you will find a new pose, I'm wearing sequins / you could post this one, it's from a new angle / and this time allow me, when mentioning names / I always sign mine, with love, Ramsay Ames."

However, by the 1970s, a quiet, anonymous life on the Costa del Sol no longer seemed such a bad idea. Her chosen spot was in Rancho Domingo, the exclusive residential development built by Simón Beriro together with architect Robert Mosher, a disciple of Frank L. Wright.

"The terrain of Benalmádena, a golden hillside with touches of marble and the green of the wind-sculpted olive trees, is rugged, with a special beauty," is how Michael Bots described Ames' home 'La Mancha' for the magazine House Beautiful in 1972.

Ames and her husband Dale Wasserman, world-renowned for writing the 1965 Don Quixote-inspired musical Man of La Mancha, hence the villa's name, lived in "a cool, breeze-swept oasis" that, as Bots discovered, "expresses their love affair with Spain and their Californian predilection for the outdoor life."

Ramsay Ames could be seen outdoors in May 1944, in a curious report in Life magazine, preceded by a hundred pages dedicated to war news (the landing of allied troops at Anzio, the reunion with their families of a group of pilots and an infographic on how to survive a B17 bomber crash).

The magazine devoted a dozen photos to a picnic on a Malibu beach with the "pretty Hollywood girls" Martha O'Driscoll and Ramsay Ames with actors Peter Coe and Bill O'Connors.

These were years of fame and alleged romances aired in the gossip columns. There was a rumoured rivalry with Katharine Hepburn over Turhan Bey, her co-star in Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. She was also linked to Mickey Rooney.

She was seen arm-in-arm with swing legend Artie Shaw, as Tom Nolan notes in his biography of the musician: "Hedda Hopper was quick to tell the world on August 7: 'It's not a blonde that interests Artie Shaw, it's a beautiful brunette.' Three days later, Hopper had her name: Ramsay Ames."

However, 11 more films in the 1940s, including the western Beauty and the Bandit in which she starred with Gilbert Roland, served to make her realise that her acting career was not going to take off in Hollywood. A call from the Castellana Hilton Hotel in Madrid changed her life.

In February 1954 Ames landed in Madrid's Barajas Airport to sing in the ballroom of the newly opened Castellana Hilton. She arrived almost at the same time as Ava Gardner, who also stayed at the same hotel, in suite 716. The two had had lovers in common from their past (Mickey Rooney and Artie Shaw were Gardner's ex-husbands), they also shared a passion for bullfighting (Ramsay says in an interview upon arriving in Spain that her idol is Manolete, another of Gardner's ex-lovers). Ramsay Ames says that she called Ava one night to invite her to a flamenco party at 11pm, reported the American newspaper The Sentinel in 1956, "I'll get out of bed, have my coffee," said Ava, "and go."

Years later, in Benalmádena, Ramsay Ames could enjoy a rose garden just by looking out of the window of the room where she worked, translating her husband's plays into Spanish. Among them was 'Operación Shakespeare', which was broadcast on Spanish TV channel Estudio 1 in 1973.

She also wrote her own scripts for television and practised on her Spanish guitar while sitting on a swivel chair bought in an antique shop in Malaga.

She was always accompanied by her faithful German shepherd. "I had a special relationship with her. When I was there, the dog was always just around the corner, as if keeping watch," says Dr Lorenzo Valderrama, who practised medicine in Arroyo de la Miel for over 50 years.

"Would you believe it, one day it actually bit me."

Valderrama remembers Ames, who was in her fifties at the time, as a very normal person.

"She was simply a patient. I would go to the house, treat her for whatever, and that was it," says the doctor, who remembers always speaking to her in English, "because I've spoken English since I was little and my wife is English".

He also witnessed her desire to learn. "One day she told me she wanted to study medicine. I made her realise that it was crazy, that medicine is a long, difficult study path and that you have to do it in a university. She insisted so much, so much, so much, that in the end I told her, well, if you want, every time you come here I'll charge you as if it were a visit."

So, for a while, the doctor would teach Ames, "using a book to explain the basic principles of anatomy to her."

In Benalmádena, Ames enjoyed a more relaxed schedule. "The Wassermans usually lunch on the shaded terrace off the dining room (gazpacho is a house speciality) or in the sun at a table by the pool." For Bots, according to the House Beautiful article, "the exterior reflects the architecture of Andalusian farmhouses" and inside "a Moorish romanticism prevails".

The gardens were designed by the famous anarchist horticulturist Edward Hyams, while the art collection includes a sculpture by Leon Saulter and a painting by Nelson C. White.

Ames lived her entire life surrounded by art and artists. From the Castellana Hilton she was in charge of reporting for Variety magazine about the endless list of international actors who passed through Barajas to film or just explore Spain.

Lawrence Olivier, Rod Steiger, Bette Davis, Anthony Franciosa, Vittorio De Sica, but also Spain's Lola Flores, Carmen Sevilla, Sara Montiel and Alberto Closas appeared in her writings.

In 1957 Ames took part in the United Artists' blockbuster Alexander the Great and began presenting the programme 'Cita en el Estudio' on the newly-created Spanish TV service, where she interviewed international celebrities alongside Jesús Álvarez.

"My home is now Spain," she said in an interview with Pueblo newspaper.

"Ramsay Ames finds her Shangri-La in Spain," was the headline in an American newspaper. She also began a fruitful career in radio, with programmes such as 'El Puente de los Triunfos' with Vicente Marco, or 'Aquí Norteamérica'.

"I have found my true vocation behind the microphones," she stated in another interview for Pueblo, "in daily contact with the public".

Then, in 1962, she filmed in Malaga the international production The Running Man by Carol Reed, her penultimate film.

Was it then that she fell in love with the Costa del Sol? In 1964 she attended John Wayne's farewell party at Niccas's, director Nicholas Ray's restaurant in Madrid. The guests included everyone from Otto Skorzeny, the Austrian SS colonel who rescued Mussolini in Operation Greif in World War II, to Claudia Cardinale, the Duke's co-star in Circus World, which was being filmed at that time in Madrid's El Retiro park.

"I remember her as tall, very beautiful, very nice, and my father was a close friend of hers, as was my mother," says Irenka Gyenes, daughter of photographer Juan Gyenes.

Ames visited Gyenes' studio at least seven times between 1954 and 1961. The negatives from these sessions are in the safekeeping of the Spanish National Library. According to Irenka, Ames was a regular at the Gyenes home, even when she married Wasserman in 1966.

This relationship deepened because the Gyenes had a holiday home in Montemar, Torremolinos. So, when the Wassermans moved to Benalmádena, the visits continued.

"Ramsay came to my house a lot, and we often went to hers."

Still, going to Benalmádena Pueblo back then was not like it is now. "I saw it as the back of beyond there," recalls Irenka, "although the views were incredible".

Bots wrote of these views: "Below, like a distant mirage, the Costa del Sol and the blue water seem to float into infinity."

Yet nothing is infinite. The Wassermans returned to the United States and divorced in 1980. Ramsay settled in California, from where she answered fan mail.

Of her showbusiness career, she said in a book of interviews with former B-movie actresses: "It is a part of my life that I have left behind and rarely reflect on, as there are far more important things to do now. However, it feels good to know that my best efforts have been recognised and continue to be enjoyed by so many people for so many years."

Ames died of lung cancer on 30 March 1998 in Santa Monica, 35 years after her last film, the Spanish Una Tal Dulcinea.