Ruth Gillmore

Who was Ruth Gillmore?

Ruth Emily Gillmore was an English-born American stage actress.

Gillmore was the daughter of Frank Gillmore, former president of Actors' Equity, and the actress Laura MacGillivray, and the sister of actress Margalo Gillmore. Her great-aunt was the British actor-manager Sarah Thorne, and her great-uncles were the actors Thomas Thorne and George Thorne.

A fourth-generation actor on her father's side, Gillmore's first professional appearance was as an unborn child in Maurice Maeterlinck's The Betrothal in New York in 1918. Her later theatrical appearances included Edie Upton in The Robbery, Jeanne in The Nest, The '49ers, No Sirree!, Gail Carlton in No More Frontiers, and Mrs Howard in The Farmer Takes a Wife.

She married theatre producer 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 by Luigi Pirandello, and Giovacchino Forzano's Gutlibi and The Bells of San Lucio. Their daughter was Mildred Sonino.