Ruth Rossi (River City)

Infobox soap character
name = Ruth Rossi
portrayer = Morag Calder
series = River City
colour = #0000FF;
spouse = Marty Green
parents = Graham Mitchell (father)
Gina Buchanan (mother)
Franco Rossi (adoptive father)
siblings = Joanne Rossi (half-sister)
children = Eilidh Green (daughter)
grandparents = Malcolm Hamilton (grandfather)
Rose Hamilton (grandmother)
aunts/uncles = Eileen Donachie (aunt)
nieces/nephews = Franco Rossi Jr. (nephew)
Romeo Rossi (nephew)
cousins = Brian Henderson
Kirsty Henderson

Ruth Green (née Mitchell, previously Rossi) is a fictional character in the BBC Scotland soap, "River City" and is played by Morag Calder.

Background

Ruth is the oldest daughter of Gina Buchanan and half-sister of Joanne Rossi.

Her mother had fallen pregnant young by her boyfriend Graham Mitchell and as a result she gave birth to Ruth. Graham couldn't cope with the responsibilities of fatherhood and walked out on Gina and their daughter. However Gina later found romance with the Italian Franco Rossi and after they married he adopted Ruth as his own daughter. A couple of years later Gina gave birth to their daughter Joanne.

History

Ruth is often regarded as the more sensible, down to earth daughter of Gina. She works for the Sheildinch Medical Centre and had a series of disastrous relationships. After a pretty heavy-handed romance with PC Harry Black, which resulted in him walking out on her due to her frequent mood-swings, Ruth was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. Shocked by the diagnosis, Ruth travelled to Italy to be with her stepfather's family in order to come to terms with recent events.

Previous to this Ruth had been embroiled in a bitter custody battle for her nephew Franco after her sister Jo was arrested for murdering Marcus, the man who raped their mother Gina. Ruth's decision split the Rossi/Buchanan family and also led to Ruth pushing her mother down the stairs, resulting in Gina being in a coma.

Ruth later returned to Sheildinch from her trip in Italy desperate to make amends with her family. She announced that she was married, but many people believed this to be a fable conjured due to her mental illness. However, her husband Marty Green soon turned up and Ruth proved everyone that she was happy and ready for married life when they later had a wedding blessing.

However their marriage was far from plain-sailing. Marty was desperate to start a family, so Ruth came off her medication in order to conceive. After discovering that she was pregnant, Ruth suffered a miscarriage due to the shock and stress of learning of her husband's affair with Iona McIntyre. Ruth then later went back on her medication.

Marty and Ruth's marriage seemed to run smooth once more despite obvious hostility towards Marty from Ruth's family, in particular her grandfather Malcolm. However Ruth was soon left devastated when she contracted syphillis from Marty and then learned that he had been visiting prostitutes. She threw him out, only to discover days later that she had fallen pregnant by her husband a second time.

After learning to her relief that the baby had not contracted syphillis, she found a friend and confidante in Zoe Cullen. She was then shocked when Marty returned to Sheildinch, having heard of Ruth's pregnancy. In spite she told him that she'd had an abortion, leading to Marty confessing that Zoe was the prostitute that had gave them both syphillis. Hurt, Ruth then began wreaking out her revenge on Zoe, and also decided to raise her baby with her best friend Scott Wallace.

However Scott soon found romance with his boss Manu, which led to Ruth going to all lengths in order to break them up for fear of Scott leaving her and the baby on their own and starting a new life with Manu. When they realised what she was doing Scott confronted Ruth and moved in with Manu, resulting in Ruth having a spectacular revenge on both Scott and Zoe on 2 September 2008 when she sabotaged Scott and Manu's launch of the new Murdoch show homes and announced to a packed Tall Ship that Zoe was the prostitute who had slept with Marty and given both of them syphillis. This destroyed Zoe's relationships with both her boyfriend Rory and her sister Nicki, but Ruth's plan slightly backfired as she was still all on her own. After pushing everyone else that was close to her away, including throwing her sister Joanne and nephews Franco and Romeo out of her flat, Ruth went into premature labour on 23 September 2008 and gave birth to a daughter alone in her flat. She was found the next morning by Scott, Manu and Shirley Henderson.

After coming home from the hospital Ruth initially found it hard to cope with her daughter, refusing to breast-feed her and often leaving her in the care of Scott. Her symptoms were related to post-natal depression but after a conversation with the health visitor Ruth vowed to become more involved with her baby and even helped Scott in choosing the name Eilidh.

ee also

* River City

External links

* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/tv/rivercity/characters/ River City Cast]