Acquanetta: The B-Rated Venezuelan Volcano
By Felice Prager
Film buffs with knowledge of B-Movies of old might recognize the name
Acquanetta. Phoenix locals who have lived in Arizona for more than a few
decades might remember her from local TV commercials and a short-lived
stint on late-night TV.
For most, she was an unknown with a few bright
moments of fame only known to trivia experts and locals who want to
remember the past.
Acquanetta was born Burnu Acquanetta in Cheyenne, Wyoming on July 17,
1921, to an Arapaho Indian mother and a French-English-Cherokee Indian
father.
In Arapaho, burnu meant “burning fire” and acquanetta meant
“deep water’; burning fire deep water definitely described the beauty
Acquanetta became. When asked, Acquanetta claimed British royalty as her
heritage.
The truth is that Acquanetta was given up for adoption and raised as
Mildred Davenport in Norristown, Pennsylvania. After graduating from
high school, her exotic beauty brought her to New York to become a model
with the Harry Connover Agency.
As her career took off, she used part of
her original name and, with the aid of New York columnists, fabricated a
south-of-the-border biography and heritage.
In 1942, she landed a contract at Universal Pictures, where she played a
succession of jungle girls and exotic beauties in forgettable films. She
was nicknamed “The Venezuelan Volcano by publicists. She is perhaps best
remembered for her role in Tarzan and the Leopard Woman (1946) where she
was the leader of the jungle cat cult.
Other films included Arabian Nights (1942), Captive Wild Woman (1943),
and The Sword of Monte Cristo (1951). She also appeared in the Inner
Sanctum Mystery Dead Man’s Eyes (1944) with Lon Chaney, Jr. Later, she
was featured in Lost Continent, and Grizzly Adams - The Legend
Continues.
In Captive Wild Woman, Universal Pictures attempted to create a female
monster movie franchise with Acquanetta as an ape woman. They had great
hopes for this series of films. In this movie and in Jungle Woman
(1944), its sequel, she was cast as Paula Dupree.
Both movies were part
of a package released to local TV stations in the late 1950s.
According to Hans J. Wollstein of the All Movie Guide - “Like her
distant relative, the Panther Woman of The Island of Dr. Moreau, Paula
Dupree was part animal, part human but with a tendency to turn back into
the former under stress.
Unfortunately, the transformation scenes were
rather ill advised, Acquanetta appearing to change from Caucasian girl
to African-American to gorilla, a sequence, according to many critics,
that conjured up the ridiculous racial theories of the Nazi regime.
Even more ill advised was an incredibly stupid sequel, Jungle Woman
(1944), but Acquanetta was spared the third and final Ape Woman
potboiler, The Jungle Captive (1945), having left Universal under
somewhat mysterious circumstances. She was replaced by 18-year-old
starlet
Vicky Lane.
She abandoned her film career after her marriage to a Los Angeles
businessman, Jack Ross. They settled in Mesa, Arizona where Ross opened
a successful car dealership. She frequently appeared in TV
advertisements for her husband’s successful Lincoln-Mercury car
dealership.
She also hosted a local television show called Acqua’s Corner that
accompanied Friday late-night movies.
Once removed from her Hollywood past, Acquanetta, who at one time
hobnobbed with the likes of Ronald Reagan, Orson Wells, and Frank
Sinatra, used her celebrity and charming personality to support and
raise funds for a number of local cultural groups and charities. Among
these were Mesa Lutheran Hospital, the Heard Museum, the Phoenix Indian
School, the Phoenix Symphony, and the Stagebrush Theatre, of which she
was one of the founders.
Acquanetta and Jack Ross also founded Combined Charities Inc., a
foundation that allowed smaller charities to use the interest from its
consolidated donations. She was often seen in her trademark long black
braids and beautiful silver & turquoise jewelry at fundraisers.
The
couple eventually divorced in the 1980s, and among the property
Acquanetta gained in the settlement was the Casa Grande ruins, an
ancient Hohokam temple. She eventually sold the site to city of Mesa,
after obtaining promises that it planned to preserve the site as a
museum.
In 1974, Acquanetta published a book of poetry called The Audible
Silence. She and Ross had four children.
On August 16, 2004, at age 83, Acquanetta died after a lengthy battle
with Alzheimer’s disease. At her funeral service, her sons decided that
her scenes from movies would be an appropriate backdrop along with movie
posters and a full-length portrait of their mother in a low-cut peasant
dress.
In the background was music from these films. Then with Louis
Armstrong’s “Beautiful World” as background, a slide production of
Acquanetta with a baby in her arms and other photos of her with her
husband were shown.
They also showed clips of the private side of Acquanetta, including a
clip of her doing a dance beside a giant fish tank Each son read from
the book of poetry Acquanetta authored in the 1970s, The Audible
Silence. A local broadcaster and friends also spoke. Songs were sung and
a Native American blessing was red.
At the end of the service, Acquanetta’s casket was rolled out of the sanctuary past a six-foot wide
floral arrangement that spelled out the word “happiness” – a word
Acquanetta was known to use frequently during her colorful life.
more articles by
Felice
Prager
