Owen, Barnett.

Ruth Draper was a stage performer who found her greatest success delivering monologues of her own devising.

Born in New York City in 1884, Draper began her career writing sketches about people she knew or observed and performing them at parties, until composer Ignace Jan Paderewski encouraged her to take her talent to the stage. Her only appearance in a full-length play was as the maid in A LADY'S NAME at New York's Maxine Elliott Theatre in May 1916. The following year she made her debut as a monologist. The most successful sketch in her first performance was THE ACTRESS, which was the only piece she wrote herself. This gave her the encouragement to write and perform her own sketches, which she did to worldwide acclaim, on stage and on numerous records, until her final performance December 26, 1956. Ruth Draper died four days later at the age of 72.