Antoinette Perry was an American actress and stage director.
Background
She was born on June 27, 1888 in Denver, Colorado, United States, the only child of William Russell Perry, an attorney, and Minnie Betsy (Hall) Perry; she was named Mary Antoinette. Her maternal grandfather, Charles L. Hall, a native of Sherman, New York, had come to Colorado by wagon train during the Pike's Peak gold rush of 1859; he was a member of the territorial legislature and, later, the state senate and amassed a fortune from mining and investments in gas utilities. Her grandmother Mary Melissa (Hill) Hall initiated the teaching of Christian Science in Colorado in 1886.
Education
During holidays from high school studies at Miss Wolcott's School in Denver, Antoinette gained introduction to the professional stage by traveling with an aunt, the actress Mildred Hall, and the latter's actor husband, George Wessells, on cross-country tours.
Career
She made her acting debut as Dorothy, supporting William Morris, in Mrs. Temple's Telegram at Powers' Theatre, Chicago, on June 26, 1905, and was first seen in New York as Mrs. Frank Fuller in the same play at the Madison Square Theatre later that season. She subsequently supported Hilda Spong in Lady Jim (1906) and David Warfield in The Music Master (1906-1907, 1908 - 1909) and A Grand Army Man (1907 - 1908).
Following her marriage to Frank Wheatcroft Frueauff, Antoinette Perry retired from the stage for over fourteen years. Frueauff's junior partnership in Henry L. Doherty and Company (he was also vice-president of Cities Service Company and a director of 141 corporations) called the couple eastward to reside in Manhattan, where Mrs. Frueauff became a prominent patron of the arts and was an active promoter of World War I liberty bond campaigns.
In January 1924, eighteen months after Frank Frueauff's death, Antoinette Perry returned to the New York stage as Rachel Arrowsmith, supporting Walter Huston, in Zona Gale's Mr. Pitt. She afterward played Lil Corey in Minick (1924); Ma Huckle in The Dunce Boy (1925); Belinda Treherne in the Stagers' updated revival of Engaged (1925); Judy Ross in Caught (1925), Sophia Weir in The Masque of Venice (1926); Margaret in the long-running reincarnation drama The Ladder (1926 - 1927); and Clytemnestra, supporting Margaret Anglin, in Sophocles' Electra (1927).
Perry is best remembered for her gifted and versatile stage direction. She worked in association with Brock Pemberton, the producer-director of Mr. Pitt, The Masque of Venice, and The Ladder. Their cordial collaboration began with Ransom Rideout's miscegenation drama Goin' Home (of which Pemberton was producer and codirector), premiered at the Hudson Theatre, New York, August 23, 1928. Their first joint success was Preston Sturges' "saucy little comedy of youth and speakeasies, " Strictly Dishonorable, which opened September 18, 1929, scored a New York run of 557 performances, and dispatched several touring companies.
As chairman of the American Theatre Council's Committee of the Apprentice Theatre (1937 - 1939) and president of Actors Equity's Experimental Theatre (1941), she auditioned and advanced many young performing-arts aspirants, including Montgomery Clift, Hugh Marlowe, and David Wayne.
She died of a heart attack at her home, 510 Park Avenue, New York.
Achievements
Membership
She was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Dramatists Guild, the League of New York Theatres, the Society of Mayflower Descendants.
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
Alan Downer characterized the actress as "a small, fair woman with a patrician profile, her gentle, feminine manner complemented by a beautiful speaking voice and spiced by a wicked sense of humor".
Pemberton recalled Perry as "an individualist who met life head on, who dramatized life, who gave of a great and generous nature".
Connections
On November 30, 1909 she married to Frank Wheatcroft Frueauff, president of the Denver Gas and Electric Company. The marriage produced three daughters: Margaret Hall, Virginia Day (who died in infancy), and Elaine Storrs. Both surviving daughters early followed stage careers, Margaret Perry making her debut at the age of sixteen in the ingenue lead of Strictly Dishonorable and Elaine Perry gaining eminence for her production of Anastasia (1954 - 1955).