Background
Drake was born in New York City as Frances Morgan Dean to a wealthy family.
Drake was born in New York City as Frances Morgan Dean to a wealthy family.
She was educated at Havergal College in Canada and at age 14 "she was sent to school in England, under her grandmother"s wing." She was there when the stock market crashed in 1929.
Needing to make money for the first time in her life, Drake became a dancer and stage actress and found that film paid even better. In 1933, she explained: "I met an actor in London -- Gordon Wallace, who was in Eva Le Gallienne"s repoertory company for a while -- and he asked me to form a dance team with him. We danced, and a stage producer asked us to take parts in a play.
Then I was invited to make films in England." She returned to the United States in 1934, Offered a contract by Paramount, which changed her name to Frances Drake (after the studio initially wanted her new name to be Marianne Morel) to avoid confusion with the then-popular star Frances Dee.
She returned to America in 1934, where she was coached by opera singer and actress Marguerite Namara while continuing in film. She was often typecast in "damsel in distress" roles and appeared in proto-horror and proto-sci-fi films opposite stars like Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, and Peter Lorre.
One film reference book summed up Drake"s career as follows: "She played leads in many Hollywood productions of the "30s, often as the terrified heroine of horror and mystery tales." She has a star in the Motion Picture section of the Hollywood Walk of Fame, located at 6821 Hollywood Boulevard. Drake died in Irvine, California, and is interred in Section 8 Garden of Legends in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, Hollywood, California.