Gertrude Shipman

Shipman was born on August 20, 1879, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Elizabeth J. Brooks Shipman and Robert W. Shipman.[3][lower-alpha 1] Her father was a farmer, an operator of an installment house, and an investor in a theatrical business.[5] She had a brother named L. B. Shipman.[6] She graduated from Berkeley Lyceum,[5] which was a small playhouse in New York City until 1916.[7]

She married Lawrence B. McGill on November 18, 1899, in Maysville, Kentucky[8] at the Central Presbyterian Church.[2] They were both employed by the Kingston Dramatic Company and they were in the town for a production at the opera house.[2][lower-alpha 2] Her father, who had a financial interest in the company, attended the wedding.[2] After her marriage, she went by the names Gertrude Alice McGill and Gertrude Shipman McGill.[3][9]

Lawrence McGill was a director, writer and actor from Courtland, Mississippi.[10][11] It was his second marriage.[2] Shipman and McGill had a son, born August 18, 1904. They lived in Waldo, Florida.[11][lower-alpha 3]

Shipman played the lead role of The Senator’s Daughter in Fort Wayne, Indiana in May 1899 for the Keystone Dramatic Company,[12] which provided quality plays and entertainment at reasonable prices.[13] She made a "favorable impression" and the performers left the audience "highly entertained".[12] She was described as "A clever leading lady" and one of the favorite members of the company that year.[14]

Shipman and McGill played a "dandy repertoire of plays" in opera houses across Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey starting by November 1899.[15][16][17][18][19] Shipman primarily performed with her husband, such as the naval drama The Signal of Liberty,[20][21][22] the five-act Escape the Law,[23][24][18][16][17] From Sire to Son,[25][26] and Heart of the Mountains.[27][28] The Signal of Liberty was described as a powerful play, "filled with dramatic scenes and the comedy which comes in naturally."[26] She performed the roles of mother and daughter in From Sire to Son.[29] She performed in the five-act play, The Woman from Martinque.[21][13]

A year after their marriage, Shipman and McGill returned to the Washington Opera House of Maysville and performed in A Soldier of the Empire by Howard Hall.[30] For her work with Keystone Dramatic Company, she has been described as: ".. not the mechanical and stagy heroine so often seen in repertoire companies, but a creature of flesh and blood, and her earnest and conscientious work last night was pleasing and artistic."[31] Shipman was described as “the star of the company and deserves to be at its head. She is an earnest, painstaking actress, has excellent contact with her emotions.[19]

In 1901, she and Lawrence B. McGill copyrighted The Marriage Contract, a play.[32] She had her own company Gertrude McGill & Company,[33] when she performed in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 1906.[34] The same year, Shipman, McGill, and a supporting company performed Raffles at the opening of the vaudeville season.[35]

She starred in the 1912 film Camille, an adaptation of Alexandre Dumas novel, with Irving Cummings,[36] directed by Jay Hunt. A reviewer described her performance as superb.[37]

Gertrude McGill & Company performed Oh, You Steve, in Bridgewater, New Jersey, and Portland, Oregon, in 1911.[38][39] The Club Woman was produced in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1913.[40] She appeared in a John Patrick Mulgrew play in Chicago in 1919.[41] Inside Outside Inn, a comedy, was performed by the company at the Sandusky Theater in 1920.[33]

McGill died on February 22, 1928, and Shipman died on February 14, 1960. They are buried at the Laurel Grove Cemetery in Waldo, Florida.[11]

• Camille (1912 film)
• Checkers (1913 film)
• Arizona (1913 film) as Estrella Bonham
• The Price He Paid (1914)[42] as Lucie