Legacy.com
Adrian Booth, a versatile film actress who also took pies to the face alongside the Three Stooges, died Sunday, April 30, 2017. She was 99.
Relatives of the actress announced Booth's death in a post via social media.
Gray appeared in several Three Stooges short films including a memorable pie-throwing scene in "Three Sappy People." She played Sherry, a spoiled wife. Other Stooges shorts included "You Nazty Spy!", "Oily to Bed, Oily to Rise," and "Rockin' Thru the Rockies."
She was born Virginia Pound July 26, 1917, in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
During the 1930s, when she became a contract player with Columbia Pictures, studio executives renamed her Lorna Gray. She played parts in "Flying G-Men" alongside Robert Paige, "Pest From the West" with Buster Keaton, and the above-mentioned Stooges film shorts.
Her films included "Red River Range," a 1938 film starring John Wayne; "O, My Darling Clementine," a 1943 film starring the country music singer Roy Acuff as a singing sheriff; and "Hold 'Em Navy." In the latter film, her birth name appeared in the credits.
After leaving Columbia in 1945, she took a different stage name, Adrian Booth, and had retained the name ever since. She retired from her film career after marrying the actor David Brian in 1949; he preceded her in death in 1993.
In 2007, Booth told writer John Beifuss that she had a great time working for Republic Pictures in films such as "Along the Oregon Trail" and "Home on the Range."
"They were so good to me," Booth said. "Every time I started a picture, my boss would send me flowers."
After appearing in the Three Stooges film shorts, she became good friends with the Stooge Larry Fine. She called Fine, who died in 1975, "a very sweet boy."
For her work in Western films and TV series, Booth received the Golden Boot Award in 1998. She was a frequent film festival attendee even into her 90s.
BOOTH, Adrian / GRAY, Lorna (Virginia Pound)
Born: 1/13/1925, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.
Died: 4/25/2017, Sherman Oaks, California, U.S.A.
Adrian Booth / Lorna Gray’s westerns – actress:
Red River Range – 1938 (Jane Mason)
Best of the West – 1939 (Conchita)
The Stranger from Texas – 1939 (Jean Browning)
Bullets for Restless – 1940 (Ann Houston)
Deadwood Dick – 1940 (Anne Butler)
Rindin ‘ Down the Canyon – 1942 (Barbara Joyce)
Dakota – 1945 (entertainer)
Home on the Range – 1946 (Bonnie Garth)
Man from Rainbow Valley – 1946 (Kay North)
Out California Way – 1946 (Gloria McCoy)
Along the Oregon Trail – 1947 (Sally Dunn)
Last Frontier Uprising – 1947 (Mary Lou Gardner0
Under Colorado Skies – 1947 (Julia Collins)
California Firebrand – 1948 (Joyce Mason)
The Gallant Legion – 1948 (Connie Faulkner)
The Plunderers – 1948 (Julie Ann McCabe)
Brimstone – 1949 (Molly Bannister)
The Last Bandit – 1949 (Kate Foley/Kate Simpson)
Rock Island Trail – 1950 (Aleeta)
The Savage Horde – 1950 (Livvy Waton)
Oh Susanna – 1951 (Lia Wilson)