Mortimer, Lillian

(d. 1946)

   The actress-playwright was active in theatre by 1895. She wrote and produced her own material during her early career in melodrama and her later career as a head-liner in vaudeville. The outstanding work in her long roster of plays is the 1905 melodrama No Mother to Guide Her, which she toured for a decade on the popular-price melodrama circuit, performing the comic soubrette role of Bunco. During the 1920s, she wrote full-length comedy dramas, often spoofing ethnic types but always reaffirming strong moral values.