The daughter of old Washington and diplomatic society in the nation’s capital, and granddaughter of Ricardo Joaquín Alfaro, Panama’s 7th president, Nancy Ames (born Nancy Hamilton Alfaro) graduated from The Holton-Arms School before going to Bennett College and finishing her last two years as one of Mrs. Harwood Kammerer’s chosen 12 American girls to live and study in Europe. Her performing career included the Broadway stage, television, recordings, supper clubs and concerts. Her “on camera” television years included starring for two years on NBC TV’s THAT WAS THE WEEK THAT WAS as the program’s singing and acting signature, the TW3 Girl. That exposure led from the mid-60s through the late 70s to twelve years as a guest headliner on ED SULLIVAN, THE HOLLYWOOD PALACE and a gamut of star-hosted variety shows ranging from THE ANDY WILLIAMS SHOW to THE SMOTHERS BROTHERS COMEDY HOUR (for whom Nancy co-wrote the theme song with Mason Williams). After moving to Houston, she starred in her own variety/talk show, THE NANCY AMES SHOW, from 1975 through 1979 on KPRC Channel 2.
It was after doing that local program in Houston that Nancy saw the need for a special events company that could plan, manage, produce and direct turn-key events like those companies that had produced corporate events for companies like IBM, Kodak and others for which she was the concert headliner. Thus, with her husband and musical director, Danny Ward, was born Ward & Ames Special Events, now recognized as one of the nation’s premier event planning companies. Ward & Ames produced five Presidential Inaugural events during the Reagan/Bush, Bush/Quayle, Clinton/Gore and Bush/Cheney Inaugurations. While much of the company’s forte is producing live events, especially fundraisers for various philanthropic organizations, many of their projects include live, televised elements.
A prime example of that is an event for which Nancy was both creative director and one of the producers. To help raise funds that would go directly to people affected by the devastation of Tropical Storm Allison, the company co-produced a short feature entitled THE NIGHT THE RAINS CAME, which was used to secure corporate funding to finance the production costs of a live telethon, ONE HOUSTON UNITED, organized by Ward & Ames under the auspices of the United Way of the Texas Gulf Coast. The feature was also used to promote the broadcast, which was simulcast on every television station in the Houston market, and was included as the opening segment of the broadcast, to provide background context for the viewers. The telethon was staged at Houston’s Minute Maid Park stadium and was hosted by Houston natives Clint Black and his wife Lisa Hartmann Black. It featured performances by a slate of well-known country music performers and incorporated a huge phone bank manned by Houston city leaders and its most notable citizens who took donor calls. The telethon raised $3.5 million and its producers were awarded a national Emmy® Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for the feature THE NIGHT THE RAINS CAME.
Most of the event projects Nancy works on raise funds for philanthropic causes. To date, she has been the strategic creative force behind events that have raised hundreds of millions of dollars benefiting a wide range of organizations: The MD Anderson Cancer Center; Memorial Hermann; Houston Methodist; Texas Childrens Hospital and Cancer Center; Hurricane Katrina Relief; Super Bowl 38 Kick-off benefitting the City of Houston; The Barbara Bush Houston Literacy Foundation; Ronald MacDonald House; DePelchin Children’s Center; The George Bush Presidential Library at Texas A&M; The Lone Star Flight Museum; and many others.
*Photo by Francesco Scavullo