Ruth Shepley

Ruth Shepley (May 29, 1892 – October 16, 1951) was an American stage actress born in Providence, Rhode Island, who maintained an active Broadway career from 1908 to 1936. Educated in Paris, she stood at medium height with blonde hair. She was a close friend of both Helen Hayes and Douglas Fairbanks Sr.

Shepley's acting career began in 1908 at the Bijou Theatre, where she made her stage debut in All For A Girl. She returned to the same venue for a succession of productions over the following years, including A Gentleman of Leisure (1911), The Brute (1912), The Fatted Calf (1912), Nearly Married (1913), and It Pays to Advertise (1914), a comedy that became one of her early notable credits. A number of these early engagements came under the management of David Belasco and George M. Cohan.

Her most prominent stage role came in 1915 when she played Grace Tyler in The Boomerang at the Belasco Theatre. In 1921 she appeared at the Cort Theatre in Her Salary Man, and the following year she made her London debut in Lawful Larceny. Her Broadway credits also included Dear Old Darling, Three and One, The Squealer, New York, and Cape Smoke. In 1939, Shepley appeared alongside Helen Hayes in Ladies and Gentlemen, a production staged in Santa Barbara, California, which marked her final work as an actress.

During World War I, Shepley served as a captain in the American Women's Voluntary Services. During World War II, she participated in an eight-month USO tour of the Pacific Rim in a production of Dear Ruth.

Shepley married Gordon Sarre in 1920; the marriage ended in 1932. That same year she married Dr. Beverly C. Smith, a New York surgeon, who survived her. She maintained residences at 28 East 73rd Street in New York City and in Greenwich, Connecticut. She died on October 16, 1951.