Adele Longmire

Adele Longmire (June 27, 1918 – January 15, 2008) was an American stage, film, and television actress whose Broadway career spanned from 1938 to 1943. Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, Longmire began performing in small roles at St. Joseph's Academy convent school before going on to work as a stenographer while pursuing acting with Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carré, a Little Theatre organization in New Orleans.

Her work with the Vieux Carré theater drew the attention of casting representatives for Gone with the Wind, who were scouting Little Theatre groups and college drama departments as an alternative to open auditions. Longmire was described as making casting personnel think of Scarlett O'Hara more than any other amateur actress they encountered, and in February 1937 Selznick International Pictures announced that she and three other young Southern women had been invited to take screen tests. Talent scout Kay Brown, who referred to Longmire as the "Creole Girl," led efforts to sign her. In April 1937, director George Cukor stopped in New Orleans during a cross-country train trip specifically to interview Longmire. Though he concluded she was not right for the role of Scarlett, he recognized what he described as intensity and real acting talent in her and encouraged producer David O. Selznick to sign her. Brown pursued arrangements for a screen test in Los Angeles or New York, with all expenses to be covered for Longmire and her mother, but Longmire's parents declined, objecting primarily to the long-term nature of the proposed contract. Longmire herself was more drawn to stage work than film, a preference she maintained even after Warner Bros. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer expressed interest in her.

Longmire subsequently moved to New York, where she initially found work as a theater usherette while seeking acting roles. A tryout with the American Theater Council in February 1937 led to interviews with two producers, though neither of those projected productions reached Broadway. In April 1938 she appeared as a neighbor in Eye on the Sparrow at the Plymouth Theatre in Boston. That summer she performed in Ruy Blas at the Central City Play Festival in Colorado, where director Elmer Rice saw her perform and left word for her to contact him in New York. Rice later introduced her to playwright Robert E. Sherwood, and together they cast her as Ann Rutledge in Abe Lincoln in Illinois, which marked her Broadway debut in 1938. She went on to portray Dolly in Two on an Island (1940), Deirdre Drake in Old Acquaintance (1940), Mary in Nine Girls (1943), and Kitty in Outrageous Fortune (1943).

In 1941 Longmire signed a long-term contract with Warner Bros., with the studio intending for her to reprise her stage role in the film adaptation of Old Acquaintance. Her screen credits included Bullet Scars (1942), People Will Talk (1951), in which she played Mabel, Battle Circus (1952), where she appeared as Lieutenant Jane, and The Turning Point (1952), in which she played Carmelina. Beyond her Broadway and film work, Longmire also appeared on television programs including I Love Lucy, The Lone Ranger, Cavalcade of America, and Robert Montgomery Presents.

During World War II, Longmire performed for the United Service Organizations. In 1945 she appeared in a trailer film titled Meet A Girl Who's Been There, produced to support fundraising for the Community, USO, and War Fund, and made personal appearances at theaters in connection with the film. That same year, on September 24, 1945, her play Forever Is Now opened at the Hudson Theatre on Broadway. The comedy, which she wrote, centered on a USO troupe operating behind Italian lines during the war. Her stage work continued beyond Broadway, including a starring role in Dream Girl in summer theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in August 1948. Later in her career, Longmire worked as a literary agent.

Longmire was married to actor Arthur Franz, with whom she had two children, Melissa Merrill and Gina Martenson. The couple divorced in 1957, and Longmire did not remarry. She died on January 15, 2008, in Taos, New Mexico, at the age of 89.