Ione Bright

Ione Bright (May 11, 1887 – August 17, 1976) was an American stage actress whose career in theatre spanned from 1908 into the early 1950s, with Broadway appearances concentrated between 1910 and 1937.

Bright was born Ione E. Bright in Angels Camp, Calaveras County, California, the youngest of four children of Simon Edward Bright and Mary (Clark) Bright. Her siblings were Agnes, Claude, and Bernard. She later described her childhood as spent among the great trees at the entrance of Yosemite Valley. Her father died sometime between 1896 and 1900, and by 1900 she was living with her mother in Jerome, Arizona Territory, where her mother worked as a chambermaid. In 1903 she was enrolled at the Convent of the Presentation, an all-girls school in San Francisco. While there she was cast as Saint Joan in a school production of Friedrich Schiller's The Maid of Orleans. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire interrupted her schooling, and she was subsequently sent to work as a secretary for her brother-in-law, a position she described as ending poorly when the books were left in such condition that a new set had to be started.

After completing her education at the Convent of the Presentation, Bright chose to pursue a stage career, reasoning in a later interview that it paid better than bookkeeping, stenography, or other work available to women. When asked whether she knew she had the talent, she replied that she did not and simply took a chance. She approached the management of Nance O'Neil at the Liberty Playhouse in Oakland, California, where she was hired as a supernumerary at five dollars per week. Her first credited role was as Zaquir, a young boy in Soraya's service, in The Sorceress in 1908 with O'Neil's company. She progressed to speaking parts and toured in stock productions throughout California. During one such production she was noticed by the manager of Brewster's Millions, who cast her as Margaret Grey in the touring company, which played Seattle and other western cities.

In April 1910, Bright relocated to New York in pursuit of a role with Henry W. Savage's organization. She was cast as Pansy Hoffman in the Broadway production of the farce Miss Patsy, a role that proved short-lived. She was subsequently engaged by the Cohan and Harris Company and appeared in productions including Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford in 1911. In 1912 she was cast as Helen Burton in the Cohan production of Officer 666, which played New York before touring Chicago, the west coast, Canada, and the midwestern and southern United States. The company was present in Dayton, Ohio during the Great Dayton Flood. Following Officer 666, Bright appeared in The Lady of the Slipper as the Fairy Godmother in the touring company and as Florence Cole in the touring production of A Pair of Sixes. In 1915 she appeared in Julian Eltinge's production of Cousin Lucy.

Between April 1910 and April 1911, Bright entered a beauty contest and won first place, receiving a cash prize of one thousand dollars. In April 1911 she was photographed by Rudolf Eickemeyer Jr. and her photograph was entered in a national competition of more than 3,700 images of American women. She was judged the most beautiful and the photograph received a gold medal from the American Photographers Association.

In early 1916 Bright was contracted by Mirror Films Inc., which soon encountered financial difficulties. She may have appeared in the lost films The Marriage Bond and Turned Up for that company. She also appeared in the 1917 comedy short Mixed Nuts, produced by Jaxon Film Productions as part of the Sparkle Comedies series, and may have had small parts in or tested for Pathé productions.

Bright returned to the stage and in 1917–1918 appeared in the original Broadway production of Nothing But the Truth as Ethel Clark, a run of 332 performances that was followed by a tour. In August 1920 she portrayed Fuensantica in Spanish Love, which ran for 312 performances on Broadway. In 1922–23 she took over the role of Mary in Suspended Sentence from actress Phyllis Alden in Wilmington, Delaware on December 25, 1922, and remained with the production through a brief tour ending in New York. During the summer of 1923 she was a member of the Wood Players, a stock company founded by Leonard Wood Jr. that was in residence at the Fulton Opera House in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where she appeared in approximately six productions including Seventeen, in which she played Lola Pratt, and Buddies, in which she played Julie. In late 1925 or early 1926 she was a cast member of the vaudeville farce Now What?, starring Wilfred Clarke.

In 1936 Bright was cast as First Lady of Canterbury in the WPA Federal Theatre Project production of T.S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral at the Manhattan Theatre, now known as the Ed Sullivan Theatre. The production was an unexpected success, drawing more than 40,000 people over 38 performances. That same year she appeared in Help Yourself, also a WPA Federal Theatre production. In 1937 she appeared in the WPA production of A Hero Is Born, playing the Armored Fairy among other roles.

In 1930 Bright was recorded as living in a boarding house on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. By 1940 she was sharing an apartment on West 55th Street in Manhattan with Wilfred Clarke. Sometime after 1957 she relocated to Whittier, California, where she died on August 17, 1976, at the age of 89.