Ruth Dunning
{{Short description|Welsh actress (1909–1983)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Ruth Dunning
| image = Actress_Ruth_Dunning.jpg
| caption =
| birth_name = Mary Ruth Dunning
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1909|05|17|df=y}}
| birth_place = Prestatyn, North Wales, UK
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1983|02|27|1909|05|17|df=y}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/information.pl?cite=99DazA1Nb0Rzfz1AmNlYXA&scan=1|title=Index entry|accessdate=12 October 2022|work=FreeBMD|publisher=ONS}}
| death_place = London, England, UK
| spouse = Jack Allen
| occupation = Actress
}}
Ruth Dunning (17 May 1909 – 27 February 1983), born Mary Ruth Dunning, was a Welsh actress of stage, television, and film. Although her year of birth was long given as 1911, her birth was registered in Holywell in 1909.
Early life
Mary Ruth Dunning was born in Prestatyn, Denbighshire, in 1909.
Career
= Stage =
As a young actress, Dunning was a member of an amateur theatre company in Altrincham. In 1934, she took over a part from Wendy Hiller in Love on the Dole, at the Garrick Theatre in London.{{Cite book|last=Hopkins|first=Chris|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lNB0DwAAQBAJ&dq=Ruth+Dunning+actress&pg=PA222|title=Walter Greenwood's 'Love on the Dole': Novel, Play, Film|date=2018-11-01|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-1-78694-869-4|pages=222, note 96|language=en}} Other stage appearances for Dunning included Val Gielgud's Punch and Judy (1937),{{Cite news|last=Brown|first=Ivor|date=1937-10-24|title=Vaudeville: 'Punch and Judy'|pages=17|work=The Observer|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/52031804/vaudeville-punch-and-judyivor-brown/|access-date=2020-05-24|via=Newspapers.com}} A. A. Milne's Gentleman Unknown (1938),{{Cite news|last=Brown|first=Ivor|date=1938-11-20|title=St. James' 'Gentleman Unknown'|pages=15|work=The Observer|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/52033268/st-james-gentleman-unknownivor/|access-date=2020-05-24|via=Newspapers.com}} Ted Willis' The Eyes of Youth (1959),{{Cite news|date=1959-10-20|title=Well-engineered Sentimentality|pages=7|work=The Guardian|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/52031530/well-engineered-sentimentality/|access-date=2020-05-24|via=Newspapers.com}} and Willis' adaptation of Gorky's Mother (1961).{{Cite news|last=R.B.M.|date=1961-05-17|title='Mother'|pages=7|work=The Guardian|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/52032088/motherrbm/|access-date=2020-05-24|via=Newspapers.com}}
= Film and television =
Dunning found fame in the role of Gladys Grove in BBC Television's The Grove Family (1954–1957), also portraying that character in the 1955 film It's a Great Day.{{cite web|url=http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/518438/index.html|title=BFI Screenonline: Grove Family, The (1954-57)|website=www.screenonline.org.uk}} In 1956, she appeared in a television commercial for Persil laundry detergent, on the first night of Granada Television's broadcasts in the north of England.{{Cite book|last=Nixon|first=Sean|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3m-5DwAAQBAJ&dq=Ruth+Dunning+actress&pg=PT154|title=Hard sell: Advertising, affluence and transatlantic relations, c. 1951–69|date=2016-05-16|publisher=Manchester University Press|isbn=978-1-5261-1116-6|language=en}}{{Cite book|last=Dickason|first=Renée|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Fyy5aMpa468C&dq=Ruth+Dunning+actress&pg=PA39|title=British Television Advertising: Cultural Identity and Communication|date=2000|publisher=Indiana University Press|isbn=978-1-86020-571-2|pages=39|language=en}} In 1962 she was awarded the British Academy Television Award for Best Actress for her work on Armchair Theatre.[http://awards.bafta.org/award/1961/television/actress "Television: Actress in 1961"] BAFTA.
Other screen roles played by Dunning included Leonie in Intimate Relations (1953), Auntie B. in Urge to Kill (1960), Mrs. Mitchell in Hoffman (1970), Betty Atherton in The Sextet (1972), Agnes Henderson in The House in Nightmare Park (1973), Miss Minchin in A Little Princess (1973), Mildred Finch in An Unofficial Rose (1974–1975), Lesley Whittle's mother in The Black Panther (1977), and Mrs. Crabtree in Children of the Stones (1977).{{cite web|url=https://www.allmovie.com/artist/ruth-dunning-p128370|title=Ruth Dunning - Movies and Filmography|website=AllMovie}}
Personal life
Ruth Dunning was married to actor Jack Allen.{{Cite web|title=Obituary: Jack Allen|url=http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-jack-allen-1585281.html|date=1995-06-07|website=The Independent|language=en|access-date=24 May 2020}} She died in 1983, aged 73, in London.
The Ruth Dunning and Jack Allen Collection at the University of Bristol holds some of her papers, including contracts, scripts, and photographs.{{cite web|title=Ruth Dunning and Jack Allen Collection|url=http://www.calmview2.eu/BristolTheatreArchive/CalmView/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=BTC67|website=Bristol Theatre Archive}}
Partial filmography
- Save a Little Sunshine (1938) - Miss Dickson
- The Woman in the Hall (1947) - Shirley Dennison
- Intimate Relations (1953) - Leonie
- The Weak and the Wicked (1954) - Prison Matron
- Man of the Moment (1955) - Gladys Grove (uncredited)
- It's a Great Day (1955) - Gladys Grove
- Urge to Kill (1960) - Auntie B
- And Women Shall Weep (1960) - Mrs. Lumsden
- Dangerous Afternoon (1961) - Miss Letty Frost
- The Three Lives of Thomasina (1963) - Mother Stirling
- Undermind (1965) ( episode: "Waves of Sound") - Dr. Margaret Whittaker
- Hoffman (1970) - Mrs. Mitchell
- The House in Nightmare Park (1973) - Agnes Henderson
- The Black Panther (1977) - Lesley's Mother
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- {{IMDb name|0242959}}
{{British Academy Television Award for Best Actress 1960–1979}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dunning, Ruth}}
Category:Best Actress BAFTA Award (television) winners
Category:Welsh stage actresses
Category:Welsh television actresses