Paul Gilmore

Paul Gilmore (July 14, 1873 – December 29, 1962) was an American stage actor whose career spanned from the late nineteenth century through the mid-twentieth century. Born Paul Howard Gilmore in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he appeared on Broadway between 1928 and 1934, with credits including the plays Hotbed and A Successful Calamity. Beyond Broadway, he accumulated decades of work in touring productions, silent films, and theater management.

Gilmore's father, a successful publisher, owned Milwaukee's Grand Opera House, and it was there that Gilmore first performed in amateur productions as a teenager. His parents had intended him to study law, but in 1891 theatrical producer Jacob Litt witnessed one of his performances and offered him a role in a traveling production called The Ensign. Gilmore accepted, initially planning to return home after a few weeks, but instead remained with Litt's company and performed in productions that included Uncle Tom's Cabin and In Old Kentucky. By 1896 he had moved on from Litt's Players and began working with producer Charles Frohman in plays such as The Wife, Americans Abroad, and Sweet Lavender. His physical appearance — clean-cut features, brown eyes, and dark wavy hair — brought him frequent romantic leading roles, and his reputation for fine dress earned him the description of the youngest, best-dressed leading man on the American stage.

Alongside his theatrical work, Gilmore was an early participant in American motion pictures. Beginning in 1897, he performed short character studies for the American Mutuoscope Company and completed a number of brief films for Thomas Edison's company, among them The Pillow Fight, The Vanishing Lady, The Miser, Herman the Great, and Caught in the Act. He later starred or held major roles in at least nine feature films between 1915 and 1920, including Rosemary, The Penitentes, The Shrine of Happiness, The Mad Woman, and The Isle of Destiny. By 1920 he had accumulated more than $225,000 in cash and tangible assets, including forty acres of land on Anna Maria Island in Florida, where he planned to establish a film production colony he called Paul Gilmore's Oriental Film City. He and his fourth wife, Pickett Gilmore, were principal officers in the venture. In the spring of 1920, Gilmore and Albert Plummer of Character Pictures filmed the South Seas adventure The Isle of Destiny on the island, with Gilmore financing the transport by boat of cars, horses, and approximately two hundred actors. The film performed well upon its New York premiere, but subsequent real estate speculation wiped out Gilmore's assets, ending his plans for further island productions.

Gilmore's personal life included multiple marriages and significant loss. On June 17, 1897, he married Regina Cooper, daughter of Dubuque wagon maker A. A. Cooper. On September 9, 1899, Regina Cooper Gilmore gave birth to twins but died of heart failure two days later. Gilmore allowed his father-in-law to assume custody of the children, who were raised under the Cooper surname. His son, Paul Gilmore Cooper, died in 1916 after falling from a train. His daughter, Regina, later moved to New York, adopted the stage name Virginia, and worked alongside her father for the remainder of his professional life. Gilmore married Mary A. Goodwin in 1901 and divorced her in January 1909. That November he married actress Ethel Elizabeth Cauley while on tour in Staunton, Virginia.

Gilmore's career was nearly cut short by a serious accident in December 1899, three months after his wife's death. During a production of The Musketeers in Phoenix, Arizona, on December 16, 1899, live rounds had been accidentally loaded into a stage pistol, and Gilmore and two other actors were shot. Gilmore sustained six wounds, the most serious of which were to his legs. Doctors initially doubted he would survive and later questioned whether he could return to the stage. A bullet was removed from his knee in March 1900, and by October of that year he was again performing, appearing in Under the Red Robe. A fellow actor, Lewis Monroe, died of lockjaw a month after the accident from a bullet wound to the hand.

Following his financial losses in Florida, Gilmore returned to New York City and settled in Greenwich Village, where he converted a space above a tobacco warehouse into the Paul Gilmore Cherry Lane Theatre. He owned and managed the venue for many years, and during that period the theater provided work to performers who would later become prominent, among them Robert Walker Sr., Jennifer Jones, and Carl Reiner. Gilmore and his daughter Virginia both performed in many of the theater's productions.

In 1948, Gilmore and his daughter relocated to Duluth, Minnesota, where they constructed a forty-by-eighty-foot Quonset hut along Lake Superior and established the Gilmore Comedy Theatre. The theater opened on July 14, 1949, with a production of This Thing Called Love. Gilmore operated the venue until 1955, when age and declining health led him to sell it. He and Virginia subsequently retired to Dubuque, Iowa, residing at 418 Raymond Place. Gilmore died on December 29, 1962, while wintering in Palm Springs, Florida, at the age of eighty-nine. He is buried in Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Key West, Iowa.