Amy Ricard (January 1, 1882 — August 17, 1937) was an American actress and suffragist.
Early life Amy Ricard was born in Boston, Massachusetts and raised in Denver, Colorado.Dixie Hines, Harry Prescott Hanaford, eds., Who's Who in Music and Drama (H. P. Hanaford 1914): 260. Her mother was Emma A. Ricard."The Record of Deaths" New York Dramatic Mirror (May 14, 1910): 12. She studied acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.Johnson Briscoe, The Actors' Birthday Book (Moffatt, Yard and Company 1908): 19. She also trained as a soprano singer, with Horton Kennedy."Miss Amy Ricard" Buffalo Times (February 15, 1903): 2. via Newspapers.com
Career
Ricard appeared in Broadway in The Pride of Jennico (1900), Janice Meredith (1900–1901), The Stubbornness of Geraldine by Clyde Fitch (1902),"Mary Mannering's New Play" Munsey's Magazine (January 1903): 625–626. Babes in Toyland by Victor Herbert (1903–1904),William A. Everett, Paul R. Laird, Historical Dictionary of the Broadway Musical (Rowman & Littlefield 2015): 29–30. "Amy Ricard Will Star in the New Opera by Victor Herbert" Pittsburgh Gazette (March 20, 1903): 14. via Newspapers.com The College Widow (1904–1905),"This Week's Plays" Washington Post (September 11, 1904): 5. via Newspapers.com Mary and John (1905), Matilda (1906–1907), The Literary Sense (1908), The Reckoning (1908),"Schnitzler's Plays at Madison Square" New York Times (January 14, 1908): 7. Girls by Clyde Fitch (1908 and 1909), The Torches (1917),"In the Spotlight" Theatre Magazine (December 1917): 348. The Woman on the Index (1918), and Those Who Walk in Darkness (1919).Alexander Woollcott, "The Play" New York Times (August 15, 1919): 12. On the Boston stage, with her husband Lester Lonergan, she starred in An Idyl of Erin (1910)."Boston Theatres" Journal of Education (September 8, 1910): 223.
Dorothy Parker wrote of The Woman on the Index in Vanity Fair, saying "The thing was so well done. You know yourself that with a cast including Julia Dean, Amy Ricard, and Lester Lonergan, you can't really have such a terrible evening."Dorothy Parker & Kevin C. Fitzpatrick, Dorothy Parker: Complete Broadway, 1918–1923 (2014): 40.
Amy Ricard made her political views in favor of women's suffrage public, wearing a "Votes for Women" pin and speaking at suffrage events in New York City."Pretty Gotham Actress Becomes Suffragette" Oakland Tribune (May 7, 1908): 7. via Newspapers.com
Personal life Amy Ricard's engagement to poet and editor Charles Hanson Towne was announced in 1908,Untitled social item, Washington Post (February 23, 1908): 2. via Newspapers.com"Amy Ricard to Wed Charles H. Towne" New York Times (February 15, 1908): 7. but she married Irish actor and playwright Lester Lonergan, as his third wife, in 1909. The couple owned a summer cottage on Indian Island in Maine, which was among the buildings removed by the Portland Water District in 1922 to return the island to an undeveloped state."Indian Island summer cottage owned by actors Amy Ricard and Lester Lonergan, Standish, 1923", Portland Water District, Maine Memory Network. Ricard was widowed in 1931,"Lester Lonergan Dies Suddenly" Daily News (August 15, 1931): 54. via Newspapers.com and she died in 1937, aged 55, in New York City."Mrs. Amy Lonergan" Brooklyn Daily Eagle (August 18, 1937): 11. via Newspapers.com"Mrs. Lester Lonergan" New York Times (August 18, 1937): 19.
References
External links
A photo of Laura Nelson Hall, Ruth Maycliffe, and Amy Ricard in Girls, from the American Vaudeville Museum Archive, Special Collections, University of Arizona Libraries.