Her mother, Léonie Gilmour, attended Bryn Mawr College and studied at the Sorbonne in Paris, then moved to New York City in the early 1900s to try to establish herself as a writer.
In 1907, Léonie traveled to Japan at the behest of Yone Noguchi, the father of Ailes' older half-brother, Isamu, who had been born in 1904.
Young Ailes grew up in a Japanese style house that Léonie had constructed in Chigasaki, a seaside town near Yokohama.
Léonie was a great believer in progressive education and sent Ailes to the Ethical Culture Society elementary school, founded in 1876 by Felix Adler.
[3] After she graduated from high school in 1929, she went on to the Neighborhood Playhouse to study dance and performing arts as a scholarship student.
In 1932, when Radio City Music Hall opened, Gilmour performed at the debut with Graham's company.
Gilmour ruefully observed to Marion Horosko that Radio City Music Hall could succeed only when it became a movie theater with Rockettes.
Bill Matons was to later become General Hershy Bar, an anti-war street theater character and publisher.