Ruth Gordon

Home > People > Literature and the Arts > Theater: Biographies

Gordon [Jones], Ruth (1896–1985), actress and playwright. Born in Wollaston, Massachusetts, she was determined to become an actress after watching Hazel Dawn in The Pink Lady. To this end she studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts before making her stage debut as Nibs opposite Maude Adams in a 1915 revival of Peter Pan. One of her first important assignments was as Lola Pratt in Seventeen (1918), after which she played Cora Wheeler in the road company of Clarence (1920). Subsequent important roles included Bobby in Saturday's Children (1927); the guileless Serena Blandish (1929); the tragic Mattie Silver in Ethan Frome (1936); Mrs. Pinchwife in a revival of The Country Wife (1936); Nora in A Doll's House (1937); Natasha in The Three Sisters (1942); writer Paula Wharton in her own comedy, Over 21 (1944); and Dolly Levi in The Matchmaker (1955). Brooks Atkinson, writing of the tiny, gravel‐voiced actress's performance as Dolly, suggested she gave “her most extravagant performance—sweeping wide, growling, leering, cutting through her scenes with sharp gestures.” Gordon also wrote a successful, semiautobiographical play about a stagestruck young girl, Years Ago (1946). Her last New York appearances were as the actress Zina in Dreyfus in Rehearsal (1974) and the title role in Mrs. Warren's Profession (1976). One of the last old‐school performers to demand footlights whenever she appeared, she was married to the promising young actor Gregory Kelly and, after his death, to playwright Garson Kanin. Autobiography: Myself Among Others, 1971.

Ruth Gordon 1896-1985, American actress and playwright, b. Wollaston, Mass. From her debut as Nibs in Peter Pan (1915), Gordon's career encompassed broad stage and film experience. Among the plays she wrote are Over Twenty-One, Years Ago, and The Leading Lady. She and her husband, the playwright and director Garson Kanin, collaborated on many successful screenplays, including A Double Life (1948), Adam's Rib (1949), and Pat and Mike (1952). Gordon won an Academy Award for her performance in Rosemary's Baby (1968). In 1971, she starred in the black comedy classic Harold and Maude. In 1974 she appeared in the play Dreyfus in Rehearsal.

Bibliography: See her autobiography, Myself Among Others (1971).