Ann Shoemaker

Ann Shoemaker, born Anne Dorothea Shoemaker on January 10, 1891, in Brooklyn, New York, was an American actress whose career spanned stage, film, and television. She died on September 18, 1978, having accumulated credits across more than five decades of professional work, including approximately 70 films and television movies produced between 1928 and 1976.

Shoemaker's Broadway career extended from 1926 to 1965 and encompassed a wide range of productions. Her earliest stage credits included The Great God Brown and The Noose, both in 1926, followed by We All Do and Speak Easy in 1927. She appeared in To-Night at 12 and The Novice and the Duke in the late 1920s, then continued through the 1930s with productions such as Button, Button, The Silent Witness in 1931, and Black Sheep in 1932. Her work in the 1940s included Proof Thro' the Night in 1942, The Rich Full Life in 1945, and Woman Bites Dog in 1946. The early 1950s brought Twilight Walk and Dream Girl, both in 1951, followed by The Living Room in 1954. Among her most prominent stage roles was her portrayal of Sara Roosevelt, the mother of Franklin D. Roosevelt, in Sunrise at Campobello in 1958. She reprised that role in the film adaptation of the same production. Her final Broadway credit was Half a Sixpence in 1965.

Shoemaker was married twice, both times to actors. Her first marriage was to Louis Leon Hall, with whom she had a daughter, Anne, who later became a song lyricist. Following her divorce from Hall, she married Henry Stephenson in 1922. That marriage lasted until Stephenson's death in 1956.