{{short description|American actress}} {{Infobox person | name = May Naudain | image = MayNaudain1917.jpg | alt = Head and shoulders of a woman with short, dark hair, wearing a fur collar | caption = May Naudain (1917) | birth_name = Mary Arnaud Naudain | birth_date = {{birth date|1880|10|12}} | birth_place = Burlington, Iowa | death_date = {{death date and age|1923|02||1880|10|12}} | death_place = Jacksonville, Florida | other_names = May Naudain George (after marriage) | occupation = actress and singer | years_active = 1900–1920 | known_for = musical theatre and operetta }}
'''Mary Arnaud''' "'''May'''" '''Naudain''' (October 12, 1880 – February 1923) was an American musical theatre actress and singer.
== Early life == Naudain was born in 1880 (although some sources give it as 1872) <ref name="The Best Plays">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wrcQAAAAIAAJ&q=Naudain&pg=PA599| title=The Best Plays|last1=Mantle|first1=Burns|last2=Chapman|first2=John Arthur|last3=Sherwood|first3=Garrison P.|last4=Kronenberger| first4=Louis|date=1923|publisher=Dodd, Mead|pages=599}}</ref> in Burlington, Iowa,<ref name="Who-Sang-What">{{cite book |last1=Benjamin |first1=Ruth |title=Who Sang What on Broadway, 1866-1996 |date=November 2005 |publisher=McFarland & Co. |location=Jefferson, N.C. |isbn=978-0-7864-1506-9 |page=564 |url=https://archive.org/details/whosangwhatonbro0000benj_y0r6/page/564/mode/2up}}</ref> and raised in Omaha, Nebraska,<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_nQuAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA226| title=The Actors' Birthday Book: First -third Series. An Authoritative Insight Into the Lives of the Men and Women of the Stage Born Between January First and December Thirty-first|last=Briscoe|first=Johnson| publisher=Moffat, Yard| year=1907|pages=226}}</ref> the daughter of Thomas Nelson Naudain and Mary M. Calloway. Her father was a banker.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/31171106/may_naudain_1909| title=Young Actress Weds Rich New Yorker|date=May 19, 1909| work=El Paso Herald|access-date=May 2, 2019|page=5|via=Newspapers.com}}</ref>
== Career == Naudain appeared on Broadway in ''Babes in Toyland'' (1903–1904), ''It Happened in Nordland'' (1904–1905), ''Victor Herbert's Concert'' (1905),<ref>{{Cite news| url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/31171212/may_naudain_1906/|title=May Naudain, a Winsome Stage Beauty|date=October 8, 1906|work=The Evening Republican|access-date=May 2, 2019| page=3| via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> ''His Majesty'' (1906), ''The Little Cherub'' (1906–1907),<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Huneker|first=James|date=October 1906|title=The Drama of the Month| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DHvNAAAAMAAJ&q=%22May+Naudain%22&pg=PA119|journal=Metropolitan Magazine|volume=25|page=119}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|date=October 1906|title=The Players|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oZXNAAAAMAAJ&q=%22May+Naudain%22&pg=PA537| journal=Everybody's Magazine| volume=15|page=537}}</ref> ''The Girl Behind the Counter'' (1907–1908),<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OVdShkzkX74C&q=%22May+Naudain%22&pg=PA277|title=American Musical Theatre: A Chronicle|last1=Bordman|first1=Gerald| last2=Norton| first2=Richard| publisher=Oxford University Press| year=2010| isbn=9780199729708|pages=277, 360}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Kg4hJLFOie4C&q=%22May+Naudain%22&pg=PA254| title=Vernon and Irene Castle's Ragtime Revolution|last=Golden|first=Eve|date=2007-11-30|publisher=University Press of Kentucky| isbn=9780813172699| page=254}}</ref> ''The Girls of Gottenberg'' (1908),<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Thompson|first=Paul|date=November 1908|title=The Season's Notable Plays|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qeQVCgnkm8IC&q=%22May+Naudain%22&pg=PP273| journal=The Burr-McIntosh Monthly|volume=17|page=273}}</ref> and ''Katinka'' (1915–1916).<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.loc.gov/item/smor.19151223*/|title=Katinka| website=Library of Congress|access-date=2019-05-02}}</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=Gue-nMn5gMkC&dq=%22May+Naudain%22&pg=RA1-PA31 "Katinka at the Forty-Fourth Street Theatre"], ''Opera Magazine'' (February 1916), p. 31.</ref> She made a recording, in 1916, of the hit song "Rackety-Coo" from ''Katinka''.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/completeentertai00rust|url-access=registration|quote=May Naudain.|title=The Complete Entertainment Discography, from the Mid-1890s to 1942| last1=Rust| first1=Brian A. L.| last2=Debus|first2=Allen G.| publisher=Arlington House| year= 1973| isbn=9780870001505|page=[https://archive.org/details/completeentertai00rust/page/498 498]}}</ref> In 1917 she sang on the vaudeville circuit with Anatole Friedland.<ref>Wickes, E. M. [https://books.google.com/books?id=b2AwAQAAMAAJ&dq=%22May%20Naudain%22&pg=RA3-PA34 "'Putting Over' Popular Songs"], ''The American Magazine'' (April 1917), pp. 34–35.</ref> She toured o\in vaudeville in 1918.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/31171419/may_naudain_1918/|title=May Naudain is Shea Headliner|date=May 26, 1918| work=The Buffalo Times| access-date=May 2, 2019|page=42|via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> In 1919 she sang on Broadway with The Society of American Singers in a production of ''The Gondoliers''.<ref>{{Cite journal| last=H. F. P.| date=December 20, 1919| title=''Gondoliers'' Finely Given|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gNtFAQAAMAAJ&q=%22May+Naudain%22&pg=RA7-PA29| journal=Musical America|volume=31|page=29}}</ref>
One writer commented on Naudain's "genuine wholesomeness and refreshing unstaginess".<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Briscoe|first=Johnson|date=July 1914|title=The Cupboard of Happy Recollections| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qX8hAQAAMAAJ&q=%22May+Naudain%22&pg=PA177| journal=The Green Book Magazine| volume=12| page=177}}</ref> During World War I she gave benefit concerts and raised money for war bonds.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/31171371/may_naudain_1918/|title=Advertisement|date=May 25, 1918|work=The Buffalo Commercial|access-date=May 2, 2019|page=4|via=Newspapers.com}}</ref>
== Personal life == Naudain married banker Charles Henry "Harry" George in June, 1909.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Dwight |first1=Frederick |title=Vicennial Record, Yale University Class of 1894 |date=1915 |publisher=The Tuttle, Morehouse, & Taylor Co. |location=New Haven |page=108 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7UcFO0Hq8fYC&pg=PA108 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1909/06/16/archives/may-naudain-weds-banker-comic-opera-singer-the-bride-of-ch-george.html|title=May Naudain Weds Banker; Comic Opera Singer the Bride of C.H. George of New York| date=1909-06-16|work=The New York Times|access-date=2019-05-02| issn=0362-4331}}</ref><ref name=":0" /> She died from a heart ailment in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1923.<ref name=":1" />{{efn|Her date of death is variously given as February 3<ref name="Who-Sang-What"/> and February 8.<ref name="The Best Plays">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wrcQAAAAIAAJ&q=Naudain&pg=PA599| title=The Best Plays|last1=Mantle|first1=Burns|last2=Chapman|first2=John Arthur|last3=Sherwood|first3=Garrison P.|last4=Kronenberger| first4=Louis|date=1923|publisher=Dodd, Mead|pages=599}}</ref>}}
==Notes== {{notelist}}
== References == {{reflist}}
== External links == {{Commons category}} * {{IBDB name|id=54288}} *{{Find a Grave|id=96221476|name=Mary Naudain George}} * [https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47df-258d-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99 A photograph of May Naudain in costume], in the Billy Rose Theatre Division Photograph File, New York Public Library Digital Collections.
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Naudain, May}} Category:1880 births Category:1923 deaths Category:People from Burlington, Iowa Category:American musical theatre actresses Category:Actresses from Omaha, Nebraska Category:20th-century American people Category:20th-century American women