Besides being the youngest performer in the USO, she was also the youngest magician
to be admitted to the S.A.M., having started in magic at age 5. The earliest mention I could find of her was in a November 1938 issue of Genii. She was eleven at the time, and an exceptional student already having advanced to the eighth grade. She also had just received a scholarship to study music under the well-known concert master, Bruno Eisner.

She was known for dove productions, an original linking ring routine, and for her skill with sleight of hand. Most of all, she was considered an expert with coins, having been personally trained by the famed sleight of hand master Jean Hugard.

From the June 1970 Linking Ring: “Of all the coin artists I have seen, there is one who stands out, not only in my memory, but who is recalled time and time again by older experienced magicians as a superb coin manipulator, and one of the best they ever saw. This was a young lady who did coin productions while wearing short sleeves, the real Miser’s Dream, produced eight coins between her fingers like they were billiard balls, and walked off stage producing fans of dollar bills, enough to fill her coin pail. This young lady was Ruth Dore. If you think I am biased you might check with Milbourne Christopher or a few hundred other fine magicians in the I.B.M and S.A.M., organizations to which she belonged.”

The above was written by her proud magician father Theo Dore, who loudly applauded the fact that she far exceeded his own career in magic. He appears to have been expressing the consensus on her skills as a magician. She played the finest night clubs and hotel rooms in the U.S., Canada, Europe and South America.

That early music training proved invaluable. While she loved magic, the call of music proved even stronger. She married the well-known composer Louis Ballard and was a recognized interpreter of Spanish Music. She performed concerts as a classical pianist in Europe and the U.S.