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 actr ...

, 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. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

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 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 Britain's fir ...

, 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 (actor, born 1839), David James and Henry James Montague, and performe ...

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/Comte Maeterlinck from 1932, was a Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist who was Flemish but wrote in French. He was awarded the 1911 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'' (1934–35). She married theatrical producer Max Sonino in Florence, Italy, in 1926. He produced the play ''No More Frontiers'' (1931), in which she appeared. Together they translated the Italian plays ''Finding Oneself'' (1933) by

Luigi Pirandello Luigi Pirandello (; ; 28 June 1867 – 10 December 1936) was an Italians, 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 bold and ...

,Catalog of copyright entries, Part 1
By

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

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

'' 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 in the state of Massachusetts in the United States, about south of the Cape Cod peninsula. Together with the small islands of Tuckernuck Island, Tuckernuck and Muskeget Island, Muskeget, it constitutes the Town and Co ...

, 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 actresses {{US-theat-actor-stub