Ruth Emily Gillmore (26 October 1899 - 12 February 1976) was an English-born American stage actress.

Early years

Gillmore was the daughter of

Frank Gillmore Frank Parker Gillmore (May 14, 1867 – March 29, 1943) was an American playwright and a stage and early film actor. He was a founder and former President of Actor's Equity. He was born in New York City to John Parker Gillmore and his actre ...

, former president of Actors' Equity, and actress Laura MacGillivray and the sister of actress

Margalo Gillmore Margaret Lorraine "Margalo" Gillmore (31 May 1897 – 30 June 1986) was an English-born American actress who had a long career as a stage actress on Broadway. She also appeared in films and TV series, mostly in the 1950s and early 1960s. Family ...

. Her great-aunt was the

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

actor-manager An actor-manager is a leading actor who sets up their own permanent theatrical company and manages the business, sometimes taking over a theatre to perform select plays in which they usually star. It is a method of theatrical production used co ...

Sarah Thorne Sarah Thorne (10 May 1836 – 27 February 1899) was a British actress and actor-manager, actress-manager of the 19th century who managed the Theatre Royal at Margate for many years. She ran a school for acting there which is widely regarded as ...

, and her great-uncles were the actors

Thomas Thorne Thomas Thorne (1841–1918) was an English actor and theatre manager. Thomas Thorne was one of the founding managers of London's Vaudeville Theatre, along with David James and Henry James Montague, and performed leading roles in many of the p ...

and George Thorne. She was a fourth-generation actor on her father's side,

Career

Gillmore's first professional appearance was as an unborn child in

Maurice Maeterlinck Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck (29 August 1862 – 6 May 1949), also known as Count (or Comte) Maeterlinck from 1932, was a Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist who was Flemish but wrote in French. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in ...

's ''The Betrothal'' in New York City in 1918. Her later theatrical appearances included Edie Upton in ''The Robbery'' (1921), Jeanne in ''The Nest'' (1922), ''The '49ers'' (1922), '' No Sirree!'' (1922), Gail Carlton in ''No More Frontiers'' (1931), and Mrs Howard in ''

The Farmer Takes a Wife ''The Farmer Takes a Wife'' is a 1934 play by Frank B. Elser and Marc Connelly based on the 1929 novel '' Rome Haul'' by Walter D. Edmonds. It was well-received upon its opening night on Broadway on October 30, 1934, at the 46th Street Theatre ...

'' (1934-5). She married

theatre producer A theatrical producer is a person who oversees all aspects of mounting a theatre production. The producer is responsible for the overall financial and managerial functions of a production or venue, raises or provides financial backing, and hires ...

Max Sonino in Florence in Italy. They met when he produced the 1931 play ''No More Frontiers'', in which she had appeared. Together they translated the Italian plays ''Finding Oneself'' (1933) by

Luigi Pirandello Luigi Pirandello (; 28 June 1867 – 10 December 1936) was an Italian dramatist, novelist, poet, and short story writer whose greatest contributions were his plays. He was awarded the 1934 Nobel Prize in Literature for "his almost magical power ...

,Catalog of copyright entries, Part 1
By

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical c ...

'' and

Giovacchino Forzano Giovacchino Forzano (; 19 November 1884 – 28 October 1970) was an Italian playwright, librettist, stage and film director. A resourceful writer, he authored numerous popular plays and produced opera librettos for most of the major Italian comp ...

's ''Gutlibi'' and ''The Bells of San Lucio''. Their daughter was Mildred Sonino. Gillmore taught speech and drama at the Buckley School.

Personal life and death

With her sister

she was a member of the

Algonquin Round Table The Algonquin Round Table was a group of New York City writers, critics, actors, and wits. Gathering initially as part of a practical joke, members of "The Vicious Circle", as they dubbed themselves, met for lunch each day at the Algonquin Hotel ...

. Gillmore died in

Nantucket, Massachusetts Nantucket () is an island about south from Cape Cod. Together with the small islands of Tuckernuck and Muskeget, it constitutes the Town and County of Nantucket, a combined county/town government that is part of the U.S. state of Massachuse ...

, on February 12, 1976, aged 76.

References

1899 births 1976 deaths Actresses from London American stage actresses British emigrants to the United States Actresses from New York City 20th-century American actresses Algonquin Round Table 20th-century English women 20th-century English people {{US-theat-actor-stub