{{Short description|American actress, dramatist and noted diseuse (1884–1956)}} {{Use mdy dates|date=December 2021}} {{Infobox person |image = John-singer-sargent-portrait-of-ruth-draper.jpg |caption = Portrait of Ruth Draper by John Singer Sargent, 1913 |imagesize= |birth_date={{Birth date|1884|12|2}} |birth_place= New York City, US |death_date={{Death date and age|1956|12|30|1884|12|2}} |death_place= New York City, US |occupation=Stage actress | years_active =1916–1956<ref name=varobit/> }}
'''Ruth Draper''' (December 2, 1884{{spaced ndash}}December 30, 1956) was an American actress, dramatist and noted diseuse<ref>Sir John Gielgud: A Life in Letters By John Gielgud – 2005 pg. 516</ref> who specialized in character-driven monologues and monodrama. Her best-known pieces include ''The Italian Lesson'', ''Three Women and Mr. Clifford'', ''Doctors and Diets'', and ''A Church in Italy''.
== Early life and family ==
Ruth Draper was born in New York City, the youngest child of Dr. William Henry and Ruth (née Dana) Draper. Her father, who was born in Brattleboro, Vermont,<ref>US Passport Application – December 2, 1884</ref><ref>The Atlanta Constitution April 27, 1901</ref> had the affluence to support a large family with the help of several servants.<ref name="ReferenceA">US Census records 1860, 1870, 1880, 1900</ref> Ruth Draper's mother, the daughter of Charles Anderson Dana, editor and publisher of ''The New York Sun'', married Dr. Draper in 1878 some years after the death of his first wife, Lucy.<ref name="ReferenceA" /><ref>The Bridgeport Post, December 31, 1956, pg. 16</ref> Her nephew, Paul Draper, was a noted dancer and actor.<ref name=varobit/> Draper's second cousin was the society architect Paul Phipps, father of the British performer Joyce Grenfell. Her nephew Raimund Sanders Draper was a WWII pilot.<ref name="Letters">{{Cite book| publisher = SIU Press| isbn = 978-0-8093-2188-9| last = Draper| first = Ruth |author2=Dorothy Warren|author2-link=Dorothy Warren| title = The letters of Ruth Draper: self-portrait of an actress, 1920–1956| date = November 3, 1999 }}</ref><ref name="BFP">{{cite web|title=The Spitfire: Britain's Flying past |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0153yb6 |work=BBC |date=September 22, 2011 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110925064421/http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0153yb6/The_Spitfire_Britains_Flying_Past |archive-date=September 25, 2011 }}</ref>
Draper came out as a debutante in 1902, and was active in the Junior League of the City of New York.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://thejuniorleagueinternational.org/ |title=The Association of Junior League International |access-date=November 6, 2025 }}</ref>
== Career ==
Ruth Draper's inspiration to become an actress came from the Polish pianist Ignacy Jan Paderewski, a friend of her family.<ref name="ReferenceB">The Ottawa Citizen December 31, 1956</ref> She made her Broadway debut in the 1916 play ''A Lady's Name'' by Cyril Harcourt,<ref>IBDb.com</ref> and by 1921 was becoming well known as monologist, or more specifically a {{lang|fr|diseuse}}, appearing in monodramas.
Draper dominated the field of professional solo performance during the second quarter of the twentieth century, performing with great success throughout the United States and Europe. Draper's one-person shows differed in kind from the majority of the early lyceum and Chautauqua solo performers who preceded her, in that she portrayed original characters in her monologues/monodramas rather than drawing on selections from published literature.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Cast of One|url=https://archive.org/details/castofoneonepers00gent|url-access=registration|last=Gentile|first=John S.|publisher=University of Illinois Press|year=1989|location=Urbana and Chicago|pages=[https://archive.org/details/castofoneonepers00gent/page/104 104]–105|isbn=978-0-252-01584-7 }}</ref>
With a chair, shawl, and occasional table as her only props, Draper entertained audiences worldwide{{where|date=January 2024}} in a half dozen languages for nearly forty years.<ref name="ReferenceB" /> Her best-known pieces include ''The Italian Lesson'', ''Three Women and Mr. Clifford'', ''Doctors and Diets'', and ''A Church in Italy''. thumb|Ruth Draper as a Dalmatian Peasant by John Singer Sargent
Such theatre luminaries as Bernard Shaw, Thornton Wilder, John Gielgud, Katharine Hepburn, Maurice Chevalier, Laurence Olivier, and Uta Hagen were among those impressed by Draper's artistry and talent, as were the authors Henry James, Henry Adams, Edith Wharton, and Agatha Christie. Draper inspired characters in two of Christie's works: Carlotta Adams in the 1933 novel ''Lord Edgware Dies''<ref name=auto/> and Aspasia Glen in the short story "The Dead Harlequin".{{citation needed|date=January 2024}} Christie wrote: "I thought how clever she was and how good her impersonations were; the wonderful way she could transform herself from a nagging wife to a peasant girl kneeling in a cathedral."<ref name=auto>{{cite book | last=Christie |first=Agatha | title =An Autobiography| page=437 | publisher =Collins|date= 1977 |isbn=0-00-216012-9}}</ref>
In 1951 King George VI awarded Draper honorary membership in the Order of the British Empire with the rank of Commander (CBE). On April 29, 1953, she had lunch with C. S. Lewis the day after he saw her performance at the New Theatre in Oxford. Nearly a quarter century earlier she gave a performance at Windsor Castle after an invitation from King George V and Queen Mary.<ref>{{cite news | url= https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1951/12/19/82122436.html| work=New York Times | date=December 19, 1951 | access-date = January 27, 2024 | title =High Honor Awarded Ruth Draper by King}}</ref>
Draper had many relationships in Italy, in large part through her connection with Lauro De Bosis, a young Italian poet and writer who died in 1931 after a daring flight over Rome during which he threw thousands of leaflets denouncing Benito Mussolini and the National Fascist Party.{{citation needed|date=January 2024}}
== Death ==
Ruth Draper died on December 30, 1956, of an apparent heart attack,<ref>The New York Times December 31, 1956, pg. 13</ref> just hours after giving a performance on Broadway at the Playhouse Theatre, the first frame of a scheduled four-week run.<ref name=varobit>{{cite magazine|magazine=Variety|title=Ruth Draper Dies; Greatest Diseuse|page=|date=January 2, 1957}}</ref> Draper's family had a summer home in Islesboro, Maine, which she purchased from her family and where she spent increasing amounts of time in her later years.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.workingwaterfront.com/articles/How-Brilliant-She-Was--Islesboros-Ruth-Draper-had-an-Uncanny-Ability-to-Impersonate-People/10198/printer-friendly/|title=Ruth Draper}}</ref> A short biography of Draper is among several collected by the Anglo-Italian writer Iris Origo in her 1984 book, ''A Need to Testify''.
== Awards and honors == In 2019, the "Complete Recorded Monologues, Ruth Draper (1954–1956)" was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".<ref>{{cite news |last=Andrews |first=Travis M. |date=March 20, 2019 |title=Jay-Z, a speech by Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and 'Schoolhouse Rock!' among recordings deemed classics by Library of Congress |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/jay-z-a-speech-by-sen-robert-f-kennedy-and-schoolhouse-rock-among-recordings-deemed-classics-by-library-of-congress/2019/03/19/f7eb08ea-4a58-11e9-9663-00ac73f49662_story.html?|newspaper=The Washington Post|access-date=March 25, 2019}}</ref>
== References == {{Reflist}}
== Further reading == *Young, Jordan R. (1989). ''Acting Solo: The Art of One-Person Shows''. Beverly Hills: Past Times Publishing Co. {{ISBN|978-0-940410-85-5}} *Catron, Louis E. (2000). ''The Power of One: The Solo Play for Playwrights, Actors, and Directors''. Portsmouth, N.H: Heinemann. *Origo, Iris (1984). ''A Need to Testify: Portraits of Lauro de Bosis, Ruth Draper, Gaetano Salvemini, Ignazio Silone and an essay on Biography'', Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. {{ISBN|978-0-7195-4022-6}} *Gentile, John S. (1989). ''Cast of One: One-Person Shows from the Chautauqua Platform to the Broadway Stage.'' University of Illinois Press.
== External links == {{Commons category|Ruth Draper}} *{{IBDB name}} *{{IMDb name|1812608}} *[http://www.drapermonologues.com/biography.html Biography from drapermonologues.com] *[http://www.drapermonologues.com/legacy.html Legacy from drapermonologues.com] *[http://archives.nypl.org/the/21262 Barnett Owen papers regarding Ruth Draper, 1905–1956], held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts *{{NYPL Digital Gallery keyword|Ruth Draper}} *[https://archive.org/stream/artofruthdraperh000960mbp/artofruthdraperh000960mbp_djvu.txt Morton Dauwen Zabel]: ''The Art of Ruth Draper. Her Dramas and Characters.'' With a Memoir. Doubleday, Garden City 1960, at archive.org * [https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ruth-Draper 2 photographs], Encyclopædia Britannica
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Draper, Ruth}} Category:1884 births Category:1956 deaths Category:American stage actresses Category:Honorary commanders of the Order of the British Empire Category:People from Brattleboro, Vermont Category:Actresses from New York City Category:Actresses from Vermont Category:Writers from New York City Category:Writers from Vermont Category:20th-century American actresses Category:20th-century American dramatists and playwrights Category:People from Islesboro, Maine Category:Members of the Junior League