Ruby Ray (actress)

Ray was born in Buenos Aires to a Scottish father, James Watson Nicol, and an English mother, Blanche Caunter.{{cite web|last=Howat|first=Jeremy| url=http://www.argbrit.org/Uruguay/ScotsCh_ROU.htm| title=República Oriental del Uruguay and Entre Rios, Argentina. Scots Church Baptisms celebrated in Uruguay and Entre Rios, Argentina, 1866–1883|website=British Settlers in Argentina and Uruguay – studies in 19th and 20th century emigration|access-date=6 October 2022}} Her paternal grandfather was the figure and genre painter Erskine Nicol, and her maternal grandfather was the writer and clergyman John Hobart Caunter. Her parents married at Morro Velho, Brazil;The National Archives of the UK; Kew, Surrey, England; General Register Office: Miscellaneous Foreign Returns; Class: RG 32; Piece: 2{{cite news| title=Married| newspaper=Pall Mall Gazette|date=14 May 1879|page=3|quote=Nicol-Caunter-At Morro Velho, Brazil, James W., son of Mr. Erskine Nicol, A.R.A., London, to Blanche, daughter of the late Rev. J. Hobart Caunter, B.D., Prittlewell, Essex, April 5}} her older brother Erskine was also born in Buenos Aires. Her father, a planter who ran the estancia La Aroma southeast of Buenos Aires, drowned at Altamirano just over two months after her birth. The family relocated to England, where they lived in Kensington, London.Ancestry.com. England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858–1995The National Archives of the UK (TNA); Kew, Surrey, England; Census Returns of England and Wales, 1891; Class: RG12; Piece: 46; Folio: 147; Page: 60; GSU roll: 6095156 Ray was often ill as a child and also experienced bouts of illness in adulthood.{{cite magazine|date=12 September 1901|title=Miss Ruby Ray 'At Home'|magazine=Table Talk|location=Melbourne|pages=17–19|url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/146597328/17653009}} As a young woman, she enjoyed painting, needlework and punting on the Thames, and was fond of animals of all kinds.{{cite magazine|date=19 September 1901|title=Miss Ruby Ray|magazine=Punch| location=Melbourne|page=344| url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/175389191}}

File:Miss Millie Legarde, Miss Ruby Ray and Miss Belknap in "Three Little Maids" at the Apollo - The Sketch, 23 July 1902.jpg at the Apollo, 1902]]

Ray first appeared in London at the age of sixteen in late 1897,{{cite news|title=The Lyric, Ealing|date=4 September 1897|newspaper=The Era|page=10}} initially as a chorus dancer, and moved on quickly to solo dancing, singing and eventually acting. She studied dancing with John D'Auban.{{cite news|title=One of the Three Little Maids|date=14 August 1903|newspaper=Dundee Courier|page=7}} She adopted the stage name Ruby Ray to keep her real name out of the press, as her Scottish paternal family regarded the theatre "with a holy horror" and objected to her choosing the stage for a profession. Her ambition was to work up from musical comedy and pantomime to high comedy. She secured the dramatic role of Lucius in Herbert Beerbohm Tree's revival of Julius Caesar (1900). After the run of this drama she was engaged by George Edwardes, the father of Edwardian musical comedy. An early favourite part of hers was Iris, initially played by Letty Lind, in Edwardes' Gaiety Comedy A Greek Slave.

She became interested in seeing Australia because "all England was talking of the Australians and their pluck in South Africa." She travelled to Australia in 1900 as leading lady of the Hawtrey Comedy Company, which was managed by William F. Hawtrey, the brother of actor-manager Charles Hawtrey. On her travels she was chaperoned by her mother, "a lady as pleasant and bright as her daughter", from whom she was inseparable, according to one interviewer. Mrs Nicol, however, took precautions not to be overbearing and left all business decisions to her daughter. After touring Australia, Ray went to New York, where she played in several successes.{{cite news|title=Grace Palotta Has a Hankering for Australia and its Stage|date=17 April 1927|newspaper=The Sunday Times|page=3}}

Her roles included Minnie Templar in A Message from Mars (1900),{{cite web|url=https://theatreheritage.org.au/on-stage-magazine/1st-read/itemlist/tag/Palace%20Theatre%20Sydney|title=Little Wunder: The story of the Palace Theatre, Sydney (Part 6)|author=Elisabeth Kumm|website=Theatre Heritage Australia Inc}} Lady Marjory Crichton and Ada Branscombe in Three Little Maids (1902){{cite magazine|date=13 August 1902|title=Miss Ruby Ray in "Three Little Maids" at the Apollo|magazine=The Tatler|page=29}} – both comedies that met with great success in Australia,{{cite news|title=Theatrical and Musical Notes|author=Pasquin|date=6 March 1901|page=54|newspaper=Otago Witness|url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/OW19010306.2.224?items_per_page=10&page=2&phrase=2&query=miss+ruby+ray&snippet=true}} Daisy Armitage in Tom, Dick and Harry (1901),{{cite web|url=https://theatreheritage.org.au/on-stage-magazine/stage-by-stage/item/741-little-wunder-the-story-of-the-palace-theatre-sydney-part-3|title=Little Wunder: The story of the Palace Theatre, Sydney (Part 3)|author=Elisabeth Kumm|website=Theatre Heritage Australia Inc}}{{cite news|title=Theatrical and Musical Notes|author=Pasquin|date=16 July 1902|page=68|newspaper=Otago Witness|url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/OW19020716.2.194?items_per_page=10&page=2&phrase=2&query=miss+ruby+ray&snippet=true}} Mrs Gillibrand in In the Soup (1901), Lady Violet in A Pantomime Rehearsal, the Duchess of St. Jermyns in The Catch of the Season (1904), Lady Rosaline in The Belle of Mayfair (1906),{{cite news|date=23 December 1906|title=Vaudeville Theatre|newspaper=The Referee|page=3}} Jill in Little Bo-Peep (1908){{cite news|date=26 February 1908|title=Theatre Royal|newspaper=Peterborough Express|page=8}} and Rosie Jocelyn in Saucy Sally. Other plays in which she appeared include A Highland Legacy (1901),{{cite news|title=Sydney Gossip|author=Cigarette|date=10 April 1901|page=61|newspaper=Otago Witness|url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/OW19010410.2.292?items_per_page=10&phrase=2&query=miss+ruby+ray&snippet=true}} The School Girl (1903){{cite news|date=13 July 1903|title=Prince of Wales' Theatre|newspaper=Daily Telegraph & Courier|page=8}}{{cite news|date=16 September 1908|title=Music|newspaper=Toronto Saturday Night|page=17}} and Divorcons (1907).{{cite news|title=Sydney Gossip|date=11 September 1907|page=69|newspaper=Otago Witness|url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/OW19070911.2.223.3?items_per_page=10&page=3&phrase=2&query=miss+ruby+ray&snippet=true}} Among the plays in which she appeared in America were in the Charles Frohman production of The Dairymaids, composed by Paul A. Rubens (1907), in New York, in which she was Lady Brudenell, and Three Twins (1908) in New York and Detroit, in which she played the leading part of Molly Somers.{{cite news|date=9 August 1908|title=Dramatic Gossip|newspaper=The Referee|page=3}}{{cite news|date=16 September 1908|title=The Stage|newspaper=The Detroit Times|page=3}} She played Mrs. Newlywed in The Newlyweds and Their Baby in Toronto in 1908 and on Broadway the next year.{{cite news|date=16 September 1908|title=Music|newspaper=Toronto Saturday Night|page=17}}

Ray called acting "the only thing I have an ounce of talent for".{{cite magazine|date=12 September 1901|title=Miss Ruby Ray|magazine=The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News| pages=cover| url=https://sites.create-cdn.net/siteimages/33/3/1/333114/19/3/3/19333617/1257x1844.jpeg}} Once, she played for six weeks with an injured toe: "It was not so bad while I was dancing, but when I walked I felt excruciating pains." Another time, a limelight burst near her, and her clothes were burned into holes, but she escaped without injury. In 1903–04 she was ill for seven months.{{cite magazine|date=22 June 1904|title=Musical Mems|magazine=The Tatler|page=27}} After her marriage in 1909, she retired from acting. In 1917, however, she made a reappearance on a concert platform in Ceylon for patriotic purposes.{{cite magazine|date=20 September 1917|title=Society|magazine=Punch|page=26}}

One interviewer noted that in private, Ray had "a specially winning manner" and appeared "to make friends with all who meet her." Another commented that she had a "girlish, unassuming manner, and a pair of beautiful soft brown eyes", as well as being "Tall and willowy, of slender, girlish proportions, graceful, undulating movements, and gentle, courteous manners". He noted that "Miss Ray's bright manner and personal attractions" might "have something to do with her rapid advancement. It is also well known that she is a beautiful dancer; has a sweet, singing voice, and a certain taking archness in using it." In 1901, The Otago Witness called her "undoubtedly the best lead that has visited Australia for many years", while The Bendigo Independent in that year wrote that she had "already made her name in London and America. She is described as a charming and graceful young actress, gifted with great histrionic abilities, and is credited by the English and American critics as being one of the best artistes of the day."{{cite news|date=17 August 1901|title=Hawtrey Comedy Company|newspaper=The Bendigo Independent|page=5}}

In 1906, Ray, who was living in Marylebone, and Frederic de Courcy Helbert from Slough, applied for a marriage license.London and Surrey, England, Marriage Bonds and Allegations, 1597–1921 It appears, however, that the marriage never took place. In 1909, she married the Ceylonese merchant William Edward Mitchell whose father, Sir William Wilson Mitchell, had introduced the cotton industry into Ceylon.{{cite news|title=Marriages|date=12 July 1909|newspaper=Homeward Mail from India, China and the East|quote=Mr. William Edward Mitchell, of Colombo, eldest son of Sir William and Lady Mitchell, and Blanche Arnold Hameen (Ruby Ray), only daughter of Mrs. James Watson Nicol, London.}}{{cite book|author=Sir Bernard Burke, Ashworth Peter Burke|title=A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Peerage and Baronetage, the Privy Council, Knightage and Companionage|year=1910|publisher=Harrison|pages=2256}} Their daughter, Hameen Mary Caunter, was born in 1911The National Archives; Kew, Surrey, England; BT27 Board of Trade: Commercial and Statistical Department and Successors: Outwards Passenger Lists; Reference Number: Series BT27-141866 and their son, William Hamish, in 1919.Ancestry.com. UK, Outward Passenger Lists, 1890–1960. The family lived in Ceylon into the 1920s, when they moved to Montreux, Switzerland, to have their children educated. They subsequently went to live in Jersey. Evacuated from Jersey during the Second World War, Ray and her husband returned there after the war.{{cite web|url=https://catalogue.jerseyheritage.org/collection-search/?si_elastic_detail=archive_110269101|title=Applicants with surnames beginning with the letters M and N – Blanche Arnold Hameen Mitchell|website=Jersey Heritage}} William died at their home, Broadlands, in Grouville in 1952,{{cite web|url=https://catalogue.jerseyheritage.org/collection-search/?si_elastic_detail=archive_110155629|title=Will and Testament of William Edward Mitchell, of Broadlands, Grouville. Dated 23 September 1937}} and Ray died after 1973.

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Category:English stage actresses

Category:English musical theatre actresses

Category:19th-century English actresses

Category:20th-century English actresses

Category:Actresses from London

Category:1881 births

Category:British expatriates in Argentina

Category:British expatriates in Sri Lanka

Category:Year of death uncertain