Mary Seitz Adams, a prominent Los Angeles...

Mary Seitz Adams, a prominent Los Angeles philanthropist who was the daughter of director George B. Seitz and widow of actor and businessman Peter Adams, died Monday at her home in Beverly Hills, according to her family. She was 86 and died of heart failure.

Adams was a longtime supporter of Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, where she recently became the initial member of the hospital’s new First Families Legacy Program, which is helping to fund construction of a new hospital.

She was a patron of the California Art Club, which was founded in 1909 by plein-air painters such as Carl Oscar Borg and William Wendt. Her son, Peter Adams, an artist, has been president of the club since 1993.

In the 1940s, her father directed many of the Andy Hardy movies that starred Mickey Rooney. Seitz also directed “The Vanishing American,” a notable film about Native Americans -- set in Utah’s Monument Valley -- and “Kit Carson,” which starred Jon Hall. Earlier, working in silent movies, Seitz was important in the development of the serial genre as screenwriter of the famous suspense series “The Perils of Pauline.”

Adams’ husband appeared in ABC-TV’s “Zorro” series as Capitan Arturo Toledano, among other acting roles.

He also was a partner in a real estate firm.

Besides her son, Adams is survived by two daughters, Aileen Adams, who was Gov. Gray Davis’ consumer affairs secretary and President Clinton’s appointee to direct the Justice Department’s Office of Victims of Crime; and Mary Adams O’Connell, who is on the Childrens Hospital board and chairs the hospital’s Healthy Children-Healthy City initiative; and four grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. Feb. 14 at Beverly Hills Presbyterian Church, where Adams served as an elder. The family asks that donations in lieu of flowers be made to Childrens Hospital or the California Art Club.