- Ruth Clifford
Ruth Clifford (
17 February 1900 -30 November 1998 ) was an American actress of leading roles insilent films , whose career lasted from silent days into thetelevision era.A native of
Pawtucket, Rhode Island , she attended St. Mary's Seminary inNarragansett, Rhode Island , then, following her mother's death in 1911, came to Los Angeles as a teenager to live with her actress aunt. She got work as an extra and began her career at 15 at Universal, in fairly substantial roles. [The Independent (London), January 5, 1999] By her mid-twenties, she was playing leads and second leads, including the role ofAbraham Lincoln 's lost love,Ann Rutledge , in "Abraham Lincoln" (1924). But sound pictures found her roles diminishing, and throughout the next three decades she played smaller and smaller parts.She was a favorite of director
John Ford (they played bridge together), who used her in eight films, but rarely in substantial roles. She was also, for a time, the voice ofWalt Disney 'sMinnie Mouse . She lived long enough to find herself in demand for documentary interviews on the subject of early Hollywood.She was married to
Beverly Hills real-estate developer James Cornelius, [U.S. Census records for 1930, Beverly Hills, California, Sheet 14A] she survived that marriage by sixty years.Death
She died in 1998,aged 98. [The Independent (London), January 5, 1999]
elected filmography
* The Show of Shows (1929)
* The Face on the Bar-Room Floor (1923)
* The Invisible Ray (1920)
* Behind the Lines (1916)References
External links
*imdb name|id=0166681|name=Ruth Clifford
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