Aimée Dalmores (February 11, 1890 - January 22, 1920), née Aimée Cerruti, was an Italian-born American actress in musical theatre and silent films.
Early life
Aimée Dalmores was born in Salerno, with the surname Cerruti, "of Neapolitan parentage."[1] She immigrated to the United States with her family at the age of five. She returned to Europe to study art in Paris.[2][3]
In 1920, Cerruti's parents lived at 309 East 144th Street in the Bronx.[4] James J. Cerruti, also at that address, was a stenographer and typist with the New York Department of Public Charities in 1916 and 1917.[5] James J. Cerruti was her brother; he had a career in the Army Signal Corps and later became an artist; he recalled his Italian immigrant parents and their home in the Bronx, and his sister "who ran away to be an actress".[6]
Career
Broadway appearances by Dalmores included roles in Dancing Around (1914-1915),[7]Josephine (1918),[8] and The Master (1918). Other stage credits included Taking Chances (1915),[2]The Unchastened Woman (1916),[9][10]Peace and Quiet (1916),[11][12]Anna Cora Mowatt's short play Fashion (1917),[13] and Fifth Avenue (1917). She was in the cast of The French Episode (1917), directed by Ben Ali Haggin, part of a pageant presented on Long Island, to benefit the American Red Cross during World War I.[14][15][16] In 1918 she was the leading lady of the Robins Stock company in Toronto,[17] where she starred in Broken Threads.[18] Her film roles were in silent pictures from 1917, Scandal, starring Constance Talmadge,[19]The On-the-Square Girl, written by Ouida Bergère,[20] and Madame Fifi.[21]
Dalmores considered beautiful costumes a "curse" in her profession, because they distracted audiences from her performance. "If I can only reach the point where the audience will say 'Doesn't she act well?" instead of 'Isn't her dress pretty?" I shall feel that I have accomplished something," she told a newspaper in 1918.[22]
^"New York is Waiting Impatiently Until Autumn to See Three New Plays; But One of These Four Actresses Will Be Faithful to New York This Summer" Vogue (July 15, 1916): 54. via ProQuest