Amy Ricard

Amy Ricard (January 1, 1882 — August 17, 1937) was an American actress and suffragist.

Amy Ricard, from a 1908 publication.
Amy Ricard in The Torches, from a 1917 publication.

Early life

Amy Ricard was born in Boston, Massachusetts and raised in Denver, Colorado.[1] Her mother was Emma A. Ricard.[2] She studied acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.[3] She also trained as a soprano singer, with Horton Kennedy.[4]

Career

Ricard appeared in Broadway in The Pride of Jennico (1900), Janice Meredith (1900-1901), The Stubbornness of Geraldine by Clyde Fitch (1902),[5] Babes in Toyland by Victor Herbert (1903-1904),[6][7] The College Widow (1904-1905),[8] Mary and John (1905), Matilda (1906-1907), The Literary Sense (1908), The Reckoning (1908),[9] Girls by Clyde Fitch (1908 and 1909), The Torches (1917),[10] The Woman on the Index (1918), and Those Who Walk in Darkness (1919).[11] On the Boston stage, with her husband Lester Lonergan, she starred in An Idyl of Erin (1910).[12]

Dorothy Parker wrote of The Woman on the Index in Vanity Fair, saying "The thing was so well done. You know yourself that with a cast including Julia Dean, Amy Ricard, and Lester Lonergan, you can't really have such a terrible evening."[13]

Amy Ricard made her political views in favor of women's suffrage public, wearing a "Votes for Women" pin and speaking at suffrage events in New York City.[14]

Personal life

Amy Ricard's engagement to poet and editor Charles Hanson Towne was announced in 1908,[15][16] but she married Irish actor and playwright Lester Lonergan, as his third wife, in 1909. The couple owned a summer cottage on Indian Island in Maine, which was among the buildings removed by the Portland Water District in 1922 to return the island to an undeveloped state.[17] Ricard was widowed in 1931,[18] and she died in 1937, aged 55, in New York City.[19][20]

References
  1. Dixie Hines, Harry Prescott Hanaford, eds., Who's Who in Music and Drama (H. P. Hanaford 1914): 260.
  2. "The Record of Deaths" New York Dramatic Mirror (May 14, 1910): 12.
  3. Johnson Briscoe, The Actors' Birthday Book (Moffatt, Yard and Company 1908): 19.
  4. "Miss Amy Ricard" Buffalo Times (February 15, 1903): 2. via Newspapers.com
  5. "Mary Mannering's New Play" Munsey's Magazine (January 1903): 625-626.
  6. William A. Everett, Paul R. Laird, Historical Dictionary of the Broadway Musical (Rowman & Littlefield 2015): 29-30. ISBN 9781442256699
  7. "Amy Ricard Will Star in the New Opera by Victor Herbert" Pittsburgh Weekly Gazette (March 20, 1903): 14. via Newspapers.com
  8. "This Week's Plays" Washington Post (September 11, 1904): 5. via Newspapers.com
  9. "Schnitzler's Plays at Madison Square" New York Times (January 14, 1908): 7. via ProQuest
  10. "In the Spotlight" Theatre Magazine (December 1917): 348.
  11. Alexander Woollcott, "The Play" New York Times (August 15, 1919): 12. via ProQuest
  12. "Boston Theatres" Journal of Education (September 8, 1910): 223.
  13. Dorothy Parker & Kevin C. Fitzpatrick, Dorothy Parker: Complete Broadway, 1918-1923 (2014): 40. ISBN 9781491722657
  14. "Pretty Gotham Actress Becomes Suffragette" Oakland Tribune (May 7, 1908): 7. via Newspapers.com
  15. Untitled social item, Washington Post (February 23, 1908): 2. via Newspapers.com
  16. "Amy Ricard to Wed Charles H. Towne" New York Times (February 15, 1908): 7. via ProQuest
  17. "Indian Island summer cottage owned by actors Amy Ricard and Lester Lonergan, Standish, 1923", Portland Water District, Maine Memory Network.
  18. "Lester Lonergan Dies Suddenly" Daily News (August 15, 1931): 54. via Newspapers.com
  19. "Mrs. Amy Lonergan" Brooklyn Daily Eagle (August 18, 1937): 11. via Newspapers.com
  20. "Mrs. Lester Lonergan" New York Times (August 18, 1937): 19. via ProQuest
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