Lorna Gray – DID from the 1940s. Special Tribute

Special Tribute to Lorna Gray.

If you are a bondage fan, of course you are familiar with or have seen pictures of the late, great beautiful Lorna Gray. Real name Virginia Pound. She passed away in April, 2017. She was 99 years old.

A FB friend sent me several videos from the serials Lorna appeared in the the 1940s. She was the Stefani Powers of the 1940s and got the full treatment in every serial in virtually every chapter.

As I sometimes do, this morning I researched Lorna Gray, found out her real name and of particular interest to me was her birth place —- Grand Rapids, MI and I thought WOW! Maybe her soul is in me and her ghost joined me when she passed away at age 99.

Not sure if Lorna really enjoyed bondage or just played the role of a damsel and she played it well. Anyway, given that she was born in the city I live in, I decided to give her this special tribute.

BTW, Lorna also played the villainness on occassion as can be seen in the 2nd picture where she helped tie and gag the pretty Helen Talbot.

Enjoy….

Lorna Gray as the villianess.

Lorna Gray was aka Adrian Booth

Lorna passed on in 2017. This is how she looked just before she was called home

Adrian Booth was born Virginia Pound in 1917, 1918, 1921 or 1924 (depending on the source) in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The attractive Ms. Booth can be found by her fans plying her profession across the wide gamut of Saturday afternoon favorites from the serial cliffhangers (where she played good and bad girls) … to the B westerns (invariably cast as the heroine) … to being a foil in a two reel comedy short. On occasion, she might even be cast in a supporting role in an A level production.

As Lorna Gray, she began her 50+ film career in a supporting role in 1938 in Columbia’s ADVENTURE IN SAHARA. And within a year, Booth received a quick education in the perils and realities of being a contract player when cast as a ditsy society gal in The Three Stooges’ THREE SAPPY PEOPLE. The actress gave it her all as a live target for airborne cream puffs and by submitting to a layer cake being deposited on her pretty head at the short’s conclusion.

Booth made her Western debut in a 1938 Republic oater, RED RIVER RANGE, a Three Mesquiteers feature starring John Wayne. Booth played Jane Mason in support of the Mesquiteers’ encounter with a cattle rustling operation tied in with an illicit slaughterhouse.

Booth made two cliffhangers at Columbia. 1939’s FLYING G-MEN featured her as the heroine opposite lead, Robert Paige. One year later, Booth portrayed Ann Butler in the better remembered and respected Western cliffhanger, DEADWOOD DICK (opposite star Don Douglas), in another ‘good girl’ role in this serial about a cowpoke who assumes a masked alter ego as he crusades for justice.

Best recalled by her fans however, is her screen portrayals at Republic Pictures, which included the following serial work:

• as evil Vultura in PERILS OF NYOKA (1942).
• as Dick Purcell’s plucky aide Gail Richards in CAPTAIN AMERICA (1944).
• in FEDERAL OPERATOR 99 (1945), she played hard-as-nails Rita Parker teaming with brains heavy George J. Lewis as adversaries of Cary Grant ‘sound alike’ Marten Lamont and All-American girl (and western heroine) Helen Talbot.
• lastly, Booth ‘went straight’ in her final chapterplay, DAUGHTER OF DON Q (1946) where SHE was the lead (heiress Dolores Quintero) and beneficiary of able support by Kirk Alyn (of later Superman serial fame).

Appearances in major motion pictures included an unbilled role in Frank Capra’s MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON as well as a credited supporting part (as Lt. Toni Dacolli), one of the heroic Army nurses serving on Battan and Corregidor, in Paramount’s memorable SO PROUDLY WE HAIL (1943).

During the latter stage of her career (1946 through 1951), Booth spent more than half her screen time cast in various and sundry Republic westerns – she played opposite Monte Hale in eight of his short-lived series, as well as several of the later, and higher budgeted, Rod Cameron and Bill Elliott oaters.

Though she had worked at Republic since around 1941 on a picture commitment basis, she ultimately was offered, and signed, a Term Players Contract at the studio. That contract, which ran from February 19, 1945 through June 23, 1951, gave Ms. Booth a steady paycheck and some job security, but it also allowed Republic to use her often and in a variety of films. At or around the time of this contract signing, Lorna Gray changed her screen name to Adrian Booth.

One of Booth’s better roles in the Hale series was as Gloria McCoy in 1946’s OUT CALIFORNIA WAY, a story concerned with a fading screen cowboy’s envy of a newcomer and a kid hoping to get his trained horse into the movies. In the role of Molly Bannister, Booth helped Rod Cameron in BRIMSTONE (1949), a cattle-rustling yarn. Her second western with Cameron, OH SUSANNA (1951), was a story about a feud between Cameron and co-lead William Bakewell. Her appearances with Elliott included THE GALLANT LEGION (1948), THE LAST BANDIT (1949) and THE SAVAGE HORDE (1950).

She and David Brian married in 1949 and Adrian retired in the early 1950s. Brian was an actor and star of radio, television, and films including early TV’s ‘Mr. District Attorney’ program. He passed away in 1993. Shortly after his death, Ms. Booth discovered a variety of poetry written by her husband, and that material resides in the ‘David Brian and Adrian Booth Brian Collection’ at Boston University.

You may want to visit the Golden Boot award webpage on the Old Corral. Adrian Booth Brian was presented with a Golden Boot at the 1998 awards ceremony.

99 year old Adrian Booth Brian passed away on April 30, 2017. Death notices have her birth info as July 26, 1917, in Grand Rapids, Michigan.