Gail Kane

Gail Kane, born Abigail Kane on July 10, 1885, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was an American actress whose career encompassed both the Broadway stage and the silent film era. She died on February 17, 1966, in Augusta, Maine, at the age of 80. Standing 5'7" and weighing 142 pounds, with dark brown hair and eyes, Kane forewent further education after attending a private school in Newburgh, New York, choosing instead to pursue acting and dedicating herself to the study of pantomime.

Kane's stage career extended from 1910 to 1925 on Broadway, during which she took on a range of dramatic and comedic roles. In January 1914 she performed at the Lyceum Theatre in Heap Game Watch, and that same spring she appeared in Seven Keys to Baldpate, staged at the Gaiety Theatre in London in May 1914, a comedy brought to the stage by George M. Cohan. That fall she was paired with George Nash in The Miracle Man, produced on Broadway at the Astor Theatre. In April 1915 she appeared in The Hyphen Knickerbocker. Kane starred in The Model and also took on the role of Mme. de Brionne in a production of the play written by French dramatist Victorien Sardou, Divorcons, presented at the New York Playhouse, in which Howard Estabrook played Adhemar de Gratignan.

In July 1920 Kane returned to the stage at the Broadhurst Theatre, appearing alongside Earle Fox in the comedy Come Seven, an adaptation by Octavus Roy Cohen of stories he had contributed to The Saturday Evening Post. The production was the first featuring an entirely caucasian cast in blackface. Lawful Larceny, a comedy adapted from the writing of Samuel Shipman, followed in 1922 at the Republic Theater, built by Oscar Hammerstein in 1900 on 42nd Street. Kane appeared in that production alongside Margaret Lawrence, Ida Waterman, and Lowell Sherman. In August 1923, The Breaking Point, based on a work by Mary Roberts Rinehart and centered on a plot involving amnesia with settings moving between New York and Wyoming, was staged at the Klaw Theatre on West 45th Street. Kane was among the principal actors, joined by Regina Wallace, Reginald Barlow, and McKay Morris.

Kane's final Broadway credits came in 1925. She played Ellen Halpin in the comedy Loggerheads at the Cherry Lane Theatre, and in November of that year the Booth Theatre produced Paid, written by Sam Forrest, in which Kane portrayed Mrs. John Ramsey. The production ran for twenty-one performances. The following year, in February 1927, Kane was among forty-one people arrested following a performance of The Captive at the Empire Theater on Broadway. Authorities charged that the production violated Section 1140A of the New York City Criminal Code for its depiction of homosexuality, despite the play having been acquitted of immorality by a citizen's play jury shortly before. The Captive was in its fifth month of production at the time of the raid. Two other productions were targeted the same night: Sex at Daly's 63rd Street Theater and The Virgin Man at the Princess Theater. Actors taken to Night Court included Basil Rathbone, Helen Menken, Ann Trevor, Winifred Fraser, John Miltern, and Arthur Lewis, as well as Mae West, the star of Sex. Kane comforted Menken as she exited the theater, agitated by the cameras and onlookers gathered outside.

Kane's film career began in 1913 with Arizona, in which she played Bonita Canby, the unfaithful wife of a U.S. Cavalry officer, in the third lead. The following year she co-starred in the film adaptation of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, playing Ona Lukoszaite opposite George Nash as Jurgis Rudkus. In 1915 she starred in Via Wireless, adapted from a play by Winchell Smith and Paul Armstrong, in which she appeared as Frances Durant. Kane was employed by the Mutual Film Corporation of Santa Barbara, California for The Upper Crust in 1917, a comedy produced by Mutual-American in which she played Molly O'Toole, a young Irish woman who impersonates a wealthy dowager. That same year she took on the dual role of two women in The Scarlet Oath, and appeared as Jeannette Browning in the five-reel comedy A Game of Wits. Also in 1917, Kane joined an effort organized by William A. Brady, President of the National Association of the Motion Picture Industry, and D.W. Griffith to use film as an informational tool regarding United States involvement in World War I. Brady had been appointed by President Woodrow Wilson to mobilize the motion-picture industry, and Kane was assigned to the Food Commission. She filed a suit against Mutual in 1918 seeking $33,500 for alleged breach of contract. In addition to Mutual, Kane was associated with Metro Pictures, Pathé, and World. Her later films included Love's Law (1918), The Daredevil (1918), Someone Must Pay (1919), Romeo's Dad (1919), Empty Arms (1920), Idle Hands (1921), The White Sister (1923), and Convoy (1927).

Kane's husband, Henry Iden Ottman, was born in New York City in 1880, the son of William Ottman and Christine Iden. Ottman relocated to Augusta, Maine in 1921 and died there in January 1939. The couple had a son, William Kane Ottman. By 1917 Kane had assembled a collection of scarab beetles regarded as one of the finest in America. The most valuable piece, a Scarabaeus sacer, was believed to have been removed from the tomb of an Egyptian princess of the 2nd Ptolemaic dynasty, and archaeologists considered it one of a number issued to illustrate the doctrine of the resurrection. Her first scarab was a gift from Howard Estabrook, who had purchased it in India while on tour.