Kathryn Adams Doty
Born
Kathryn Elizabeth Hohn

(1920-07-15)July 15, 1920
New Ulm, Minnesota, U.S.
DiedOctober 14, 2016(2016-10-14) (aged 96)
Mankato, Minnesota, U.S.[1][2]
Occupations
  • Actress
  • novelist
  • psychologist
Years active1939–1946 (acting career)
Spouses
  • ​
    ​
    (m. 1941; div. 1974)​
  • Fred Doty
    ​
    ​
    (m. 1976; died 2011)​
Children3

Kathryn Elizabeth Doty (née Hohn; July 15, 1920 – October 14, 2016), also known by her stage name Kathryn Adams or as Kathryn Adams Doty, was an American actress, novelist and psychologist.

Early years

The daughter of a Methodist minister, Dr. Chris G. Hohn,[3] Doty was born in New Ulm, Minnesota. When she was six,[4] the family moved to Warrenton, Missouri,[3] where her father was chaplain and executive secretary at an orphans' home.[4] After she developed lung problems, she spent two years at a camp in Minnesota. As early as age 13, she took her father's place in the pulpit when he was sick. In a 1939 newspaper article, she recalled: "It was quite a radical thing, in that small town, for a little girl to conduct the church services and preach the sermon, but the congregation understood and were very kind to me."[4]

Doty was a student at Hamline University in Saint Paul, Minnesota, (where she sang in the a cappella choir)[4] and worked as a catalog clerk at the headquarters of Montgomery Ward[5] when an opportunity for an acting career arose. She competed in 1939 in the national finals of the Jesse L. Lasky radio contest Gateway to Hollywood, received a contract,[4] and remained in California to begin a film career under the name of Kathryn Adams.

Film

Doty debuted on film in Fifth Avenue Girl (1939).[4] One of her more notable roles was as Mrs. Brown, the young mother in Alfred Hitchcock's Saboteur (1942).[6] She co-starred in Sky Raiders (1941), a film serial from Universal Pictures, and had the leading lady role in three Western films in which Johnny Mack Brown starred.[7]

Personal life

She married fellow actor Hugh Beaumont in an Easter wedding on April 13, 1941, at Hollywood Congregational Church.[8] They had three children. After divorcing Beaumont in 1974, she married Fred Doty, and relocated to her native Minnesota. Fred Doty died on January 8, 2011, aged 96.

She earned a master's degree in educational psychology and had a career as a psychologist, working at the Footlight's Child Guidance Clinic at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center and later in Minnesota after she moved back to her home state.[7]

Writing

While in her 80s, Adams Doty wrote two novels for young adult readers: A Long Year of Silence (2004) and Wild Orphan (2006), both set in New Ulm, Minnesota, during World War I. She was a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award and winner of the 2005 Midwest Book Award. A third book, Becoming the Mother of Me (2009), described her life growing up as a minister's daughter, her trip to Hollywood and her first marriage.

Writing as Kathryn Doty, she published short stories in Pocket, The Friend and various children's magazines.[7]

Death

Adams died on October 14, 2016, aged 96, in an assisted living facility in Mankato, Minnesota.[9][10]

Partial filmography

References

  1. ↑ Gelt, Jessica (October 22, 2016). "Kathryn Adams Doty, actress in Hitchcock's 'Saboteur,' dies at 96". Los Angeles Times.
  2. ↑ Barnes, Mike (October 22, 2016). "Kathryn Adams, Actress in 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' and Hitchcock's 'Saboteur,' Dies at 96". The Hollywood Reporter. ISSN 0018-3660.
  3. 1 2 "Former Warrenton Girl in Movies". St. Clair Chronicle. Missouri, St. Clair. November 23, 1939. p. 1. Retrieved October 29, 2016 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Clark, W.K. (September 17, 1939). "Prepared for Screen Stardom in the Pulpit!". The Salt Lake Tribune. Utah, Salt Lake City. p. 77. Retrieved October 29, 2016 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  5. ↑ Othman, Frederick C. (April 15, 1940). "Hollywood Day By Day". The Danville Morning News. Pennsylvania, Danville. United Press. p. 2. Retrieved October 29, 2016 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  6. ↑ Fitzgerald, Mike. "Kathryn Adams Interview". Western Clippings. Retrieved October 23, 2016.
  7. 1 2 3 Fitzgerald, Michael G.; Magers, Boyd (2006). Ladies of the Western: Interviews with Fifty-One More Actresses from the Silent Era to the Television Westerns of the 1950s and 1960s. McFarland. pp. 9–13. ISBN 9780786426560. Retrieved October 30, 2016.
  8. ↑ "News Briefs". The Daily Reporter. Indiana, Greenfield. International News Service. April 14, 1941. p. 4. Retrieved October 29, 2016 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  9. ↑ Gelt, Jessica (October 22, 2016). "Kathryn Adams Doty, actress in Hitchcock's 'Saboteur,' dies at 96". Los Angeles Times.
  10. ↑ Barnes, Mike (October 22, 2016). "Kathryn Adams, Actress in 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' and Hitchcock's 'Saboteur,' Dies at 96". The Hollywood Reporter. ISSN 0018-3660.
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