Biography
Leon Ames (born Harry Leon Wycoff, also credited early as Leon Waycoff) was an American film and television actor. He made his screen debut in the early 1930s and appeared in more than 150 films and television productions over a career spanning more than fifty years.
Ames is best known for playing father figures, including Alonzo Smith in Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), Father March in Little Women (1949), Rufus Daggett in The Absent-Minded Professor (1961) and its sequel, and Barney Alvorg in Peggy Sue Got Married (1986). Other notable roles include Kyle Sackett in The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), Frank Knox in Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970), and The Chaplain in Battleground (1949). He also appeared in The Andy Griffith Show and other television series.
One of the nineteen founding members of the Screen Actors Guild in 1933, Ames served as its president from 1957 to 1958. He received the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 1980.
