Diana Bourbon (born Ruth Hunt; August 28, 1900 – March 19, 1978) was an American actress, journalist, producer, director, and writer. She wrote for The New York Times from 1923 to 1927.
Diana Bourbon | |
|---|---|
 Diana Bourbon in theatrical costume, from a 1921 publication | |
| Born | Ruth Hunt August 28, 1900 New York City |
| Died | March 19, 1978 Los Angeles, California |
| Other names | Diana Hunt, Diana Hillson (after marriage) |
| Occupation(s) | Writer, actress, producer |
Early life
Diana Bourbon was born Ruth Hunt in New York City, the daughter of John Wesley Hunt and Mary Ellen Hunt. Her father was a newspaper editor. She studied ballet, and was educated in Paris, and at Oxford University.[1] As a young woman in World War I, she drove an ambulance and worked in a canteen.[2][3]
Career
Bourbon began her career as a stage actress,[4] and appeared in one Broadway show, in the original cast of John Galsworthy's Loyalties (1922–1923).[5][6] She also starred in Edith Millbank's Tancred in London in 1923.[7] Later in life, she returned to the stage in Los Angeles, in Music in the Distance (1960).[8]
Bourbon wrote articles for The New York Times from 1922 to 1927, usually on cultural topics while she was based in London and Paris,[9][10][11][12] such as a 1924 interview with Emma Goldman in exile,[13] a 1924 interview with Amelita Galli-Curci about feminism,[14] and a 1926 interview with H. G. Wells, in which he speculates on the century ahead.[15] She also wrote for Cosmopolitan,[16] and Harper's Bazaar.[17]
Bourbon was a writer, producer, and director in radio,[1][18] including Burns and Allen's Hollywood Hotel,[18] the game show Double or Nothing (1940–1954),[19] the drama anthology The Campbell Playhouse (1940),[20][21] the comedy The Judy Canova Show (1943–1944), Club Fifteen (1947–1953), and the soap operas Brenda Curtis (1939–1940) and Life Begins (1940).[22][23] She also acted on radio, in The Vanishing Lady (1957).[24]
For the screen, she co-wrote Born That Way (1936), and co-wrote the stories adapted as Atlantic Adventure (1935) and Roaming Lady (1936). She had three television acting credits, for roles in episodes of Thriller (1961), The Fugitive (1963), and Mission: Impossible (1968).
Personal life
Bourbon married English writer and editor K. Norman Hillson in 1928; they later divorced. She died in 1978, aged 77 years, in Los Angeles.[25]
References
External links
- Diana Bourbon at IMDb
- Diana Bourbon at the Internet Broadway Database
- A portrait of Diana Bourbon by photographer E. O. Hoppe
- A photograph of Diana Bourbon directing the cast of Life Begins (1940) for CBS Radio; at Getty Images
- A telegraph sent by Diana Bourbon to H. G. Wells in 1935, from the Charlie Chaplin Archive