Ione Bright was an American theatre actress active in Broadway and other theatre from 1908 to the early 1950s
Ione E. Bright was born on May 11, 1887, in Angels Camp, Calaveras County, California. She was the youngest child of Simon Edward Bright and Mary (Clark) Bright. Her three siblings were Agnes (born 1878), Claude (born 1885), and Bernard (born 1882). According to a later newspaper interview, she grew up “among the great trees right at the entrance of the Yosemite Valley”.
Her father passed away sometime between 1896 and 1900, and in 1900 she was living in Jerome, Arizona Territory with her mother, who was working as a chambermaid. In 1903 she was placed at the Convent of the Presentation, a convent and all-girls school, in San Francisco, California. After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire she was sent to act as a secretary for her brother-in-law, but “put the books in such condition that a new set was started”.
While attending school at the Convent of the Presentation in San Francisco, she was cast as Saint Joan in a school production of The Maid of Orleans by Friedrich Schiller.
Early career
After graduating from the Convent of the Presentation school Bright decided to pursue a stage career, in part because “it seemed to me the best paying profession that a woman could enter…because it pays better than book-keeping, stenography, selling ribbons, or delivering ice cream sodas to after-theater parties”. When asked how she knew she had the talent, her reply was “I didn’t; I just took a chance”.
Bright approached Nance O’Neil’s management at the Liberty Playhouse in Oakland, California for work and was cast as a “super” at $5 per week. She progressed to speaking roles and toured in various stock productions throughout California, living in San Francisco.During one such production she was spotted by the manager of Brewster’s Millions, who offered her a role in the production. In this role she toured Seattle and other Western cities.
A potential role with Henry W. Savage beckoned on the East Coast, so in April 1910 Ione Bright moved to New York.The role in the Broadway production of Sewell Collins’ Miss Patsy
At some point between April 1910 and April 1911, Bright entered a beauty contest and took first place, earning a cash prize of $1000 (approx. $27,600 in 2021). In April 1911, Bright was photographed by Rudolf Eickemeyer Jr. and her photograph entered in a national competition of over 3700 photographs of the most beautiful women in America. She was judged most beautiful and the photograph was awarded a gold medal by the American Photographers Association.
In 1912 Bright was cast in the Cohan production of Officer 666, participating in the New York production and then touring. The production played in Chicago, then toured the west coast of the United States in fall of 1912. The production went to Canada and through the midwestern and southern United States. The company was present in Dayton, Ohio for the Great Dayton Flood.
After Officer 666, she was cast in The Lady of the Slipper and A Pair of Sixes. Both plays toured following their New York runs. She was then in Julian Eltinge’s production of Cousin Lucy in 1915.
Foray into film
In early 1916 Ione Bright was contracted by Mirror Films Inc. to be in their film productions. Mirror soon experienced financial difficulties, resulting in legal actions and departures of actors and production crew. She may have been a cast member in the films The Marriage Bond and/or Turned Up (lost films) for Mirror. Bright also was in the 1917 comedy short Mixed Nuts, produced by Jaxon Film Productions as part of the Sparkle Comedies, and may have had small parts in or tested for Pathé productions.
Later career
In 1917-1918 Ione Bright was in the original production of Nothing But the Truth
During the summer of 1923, Bright was a member of the Wood Players, a stock company founded by Leonard Wood, Jr. She participated a half-dozen productions during the company’s residence in Lancaster, Pennsylvania at the Fulton Opera House.
In late 1925/early 1926, she was a cast member of the vaudeville farce Now What?, starring Wilfred Clarke.
In 1936, Ione Bright was cast as First Lady of Canterbury in the WPA Federal Theatre Project production of T.S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral at the Manhattan Theatre (now the Ed Sullivan Theatre) in New York. The play was an unexpected success, receiving good notices and playing to over 40,000 people in 38 performances. This was followed by a role in Help Yourself the same year and then a role the following year in the WPA production of A Hero Is Born.
Later years
Death
