M. Clay Adams was an American film director, producer and scriptwriter.

He graduated in University of Notre Dame (1932). He is related to the cinema and television industry for more than thirty-five years. He worked since 1935 to 1939 in Fox Film Studio and 20th Century Fox (Hollywood) as assistant of executive producer Sol N. Wurtzel. During this period, he also worked as scriptwriter, and scrpit and movie editor. Between 1939 and 1940, he worked for the RKO as manager of the West Coast office of Pathe Bews (Hollywood), where he produced, wrote and directed "Picture People", a short film that was emited between the "double functions" of the cinemas. He participated on the Second World War as an officer of the Navy Reserve of the USA, where he was set to the cinema division, producing, writing and directing several movies for the Army and the Navy of the USA, such as "My Japan" and "How to be a civilian".

Since 1946, he produced, wrote and directed movies with numerous big corporations. He joined the RKO Pathé Inc. (New York) again until 1950, where he carried out, along with more movies, "Strategic Attack", a documentary for the Strategic Air Command of the United States Air Force, that shows the effects of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Adams worked between 1950 and 1952 for the NBC (New York) producing "Victory at the Sea", a documentary about the role of the Navy of the USA, which won several awards. He joined the CBS Television (New York) as executive in charge of the production of various television success like "The Phill silvers show" (1955-1957). He founded his own company in 1961, Clayco Films Inc., and he was in charge of the production of some series like "Banner", "The defenders" and "The doctors and the nurses" for the CBS, as well as a series of special movies for Alan King, Ed Sullivan and Jackie Gleason, such as "The bell telephone hour" and "The hall mark theatre". He and Ed Sullivan directed the shooting of The Beatles at Shea Stadium (1966), the first documentary of a live rock concert.

He was a member of the Motion Picture Pioneers Association. He was married with Mary Louise Devlin of Elizabeth and had a son, Michael C. Adams, Jr.