  Gladys Riddle Martin 14 September 1933 - 30 June 1968  A Red Cross mercy mission into strife-ridden Africa has taken the life of a gifted actress who was raised in Denison, Texas and Benton Harbor, Michigan. Mrs. Gladys Riddle Martin 32, of New York City was killed in a plane crash in Biafra (Nigeria) on June 30, 1968. Also killed was her husband, the pilot, Captain August Martin, and two other representatives of the International Red Cross. Captain Martin is credited as being the first African-American airline pilot. Mrs. Martin was the daughter of the Dr. Roscoe C. Riddle and Marie Riddle Payne. Gladys Riddle Martin graduated from Benton Harbor High School in 1949 where she was an honor student and dramatic star. She went to Wellesey College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, where she received a BA degree in 1953. At the all-girls college she was a leader in scholastics, dramatics and dance. She attended the University of Michigan where she received a master's degree in speech. She worked in off-Broadway theater and television in New York City. She performed in the long running off-Broadway production of Genet's "The Blacks", "The Trojan Woman", as well as "Henry V" for Shakespeare in the Park with actor Robert Hooks where she played the Queen of France. She was a pioneering African-American actress in television playing the recurring role of a nurse "Angie" on the CBS daytime soap opera "Search For Tomorrow". She married pilot August J. Martin on May 5, 1967 in Tokyo, Japan. Gladys had recently become a supervisor coordinating the Job Corps activities in New York. Magnolia Cemetery Susan Hawkins © 2024 If you find any of Grayson County TXGenWeb links inoperable, please send me a message. |