Actress, Dramatist. A monologuist, she largely originated the one person show. Born to wealth and high social position, she was the child of a respected medical professor and granddaughter of Charles Dana, one of Lincoln's cabinet secretaries. Draper showed an early talent for impersonation, able to mimic a Jewish tailor who served her family. She gradually began appearing at charity events and in the homes of ladies of like social stature, though it was understood that an acting career was not 'proper' for one of her station. While still considering herself an amateur she gradually began accepting pay, started touring around 1910, and first performed for the British Royal Family in 1913. (For Royal appearances she was always paid in jewelry, never with money). For a few years she was part of her brother's London literary salon where she associated with such elite figures as Henry James, George Bernard Shaw, and John Singer Sargent, then during World War I she toured extensively raising large sums for the Red Cross; returning to London after the war she was to date the start of her 'professional' career from a much acclaimed January 29, 1920, performance at Aeolian Hall. For the remainder of her life she was to enthrall audiences with her ability to portray, without scenery or, save a shawl, props, women comic and tragic of all ages, nationalities, and societal stations, numbering among her most popular show titles "The Italian Lesson", "Three Women and Dr. Clifford", "Doctors and Diets", and "A Church in Italy". A curious mix of generosity and personal economy, Draper never forgot her social position and never married, though it was an open secret among high society that she would have liked to find a suitable match; during the late 1920s she carried on a not-so-clandestine clandestine romance with Italian poet and partisan Lauro De Bosis (1901-1931), though in the end the young man was ordered killed by Mussolini for his activities. By the 1950s it was understood by her fans that her performances would someday be lost and so she was persuaded to record nine of her best liked pieces for RCA between 1954 and 1956. Never retiring, she died of a heart attack in her sleep a few hours after appearing on Broadway. The RCA recordings have been remastered and are available on CD.