Mona Bruns

Bruns debuted as an actress when she was 15 years old. She was the sister of actress Julia Bruns.{{cite news |title=The Rise of Mona Bruns |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/106909965/mona-bruns/ |access-date=August 4, 2022 |work=The Washington Herald |date=March 30, 1919 |location=District of Columbia, Washington |page=17|via = Newspapers.com}}

Bruns debuted in The Innocent Sinner, after which she acted for a year in stock theater. That was followed by a year in Capt. Kidd, Jr. She went on to act at the Greenwich Village Theater. In 1922 she began acting with the Bonstelle company in Buffalo, New York.{{cite news |title=Bonstelle company has new leading man |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/106911141/buffalo-evening-news/ |access-date=August 4, 2022 |work=Buffalo Evening News |date=April 29, 1922 |page=5|via = Newspapers.com}} She joined the Montclair Theatre Guild's company in October 1930.{{cite news |title=She Likes to Be Blonde -- and Petite |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/106911695/mona-bruns/ |access-date=August 4, 2022 |work=The Montclair Times |date=October 8, 1930 |page=5|via = Newspapers.com}}

She appeared on Broadway with her husband, Frank M. Thomas. She appeared in the 1934 Broadway play Wednesday's Child as Miss Chapman{{cite web |title=Mona Bruns |url=https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-cast-staff/mona-bruns-33468#Credits |website=Internet Broadway Database |publisher=The Broadway League |accessdate=June 30, 2020 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20200630234905/https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-cast-staff/mona-bruns-33468 |archivedate=June 30, 2020}} with her son, Frankie Thomas, playing "Bobby Phillips". He recreated this role in the 1934 film, Wednesday's Child, necessitating their move to Los Angeles in the 1930s, where she and her husband acted in several films also. For eight years, she played "Aunt Emily" in The Brighter Day.{{cite book |last1=Holbrook |first1=Hal |title=Harold: The Boy Who Became Mark Twain |date=2011 |publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux |isbn=978-1-4299-6901-7 |page=448 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rsOaI0e0sOMC&dq=%22Mona+Bruns%22&pg=PA448 |accessdate=June 30, 2020 |language=en}} After the show ended, she was asked to create the role of Emily Hastings on NBC's Another World. She appeared on many popular television shows of the 1950s/60s.

Bruns and her husband, Frank M. Thomas,{{cite news |title=New Shepherd Elected by the Lambs |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1961/11/04/archives/new-shepherd-elected-by-the-lambs.html |access-date=August 4, 2022 |work=The New York Times |date=November 4, 1961 |page=14|url-access=subscription }} were the parents of actor Frankie Thomas.{{cite news| url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/frankie-thomas-478400.html | work=The Independent | location=London | title=Frankie Thomas | date=2006-05-16 | access-date=2010-05-02}}

She died in Los Angeles{{Citation needed |date=January 2025}} on June 13, 2000, at the age of 100, and is interred next to her husband, who also died at 100, at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Hollywood, California.{{cite book |last1=Wilson |first1=Scott |title=Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons, 3d ed. |date=August 22, 2016 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-0-7864-7992-4 |page=742 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7-DgDAAAQBAJ&dq=%22Mona+Bruns%22+actress&pg=PA742 |access-date=August 4, 2022 |language=en}}

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Category:1899 births

Category:2000 deaths

Category:American soap opera actresses

Category:American women centenarians

Category:Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills)

Category:20th-century American actresses

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