Ruth Clifford(1900-1998)
- Actress
- Soundtrack
American actress, originally of leading roles, whose career lasted from
silent days into the television era. A native of Rhode Island, she
attended St. Mary's Seminary in Narragansett, 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. By her
mid-twenties, she was playing leads and second leads, including the
role of Abraham Lincoln's lost love, Ann Rutledge, in
The Dramatic Life of 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 John Ford(they played bridge
together), who used her in thirteen films, but rarely in substantial
roles. She was also, for a time, the voice of
Walt Disney's "Minnie Mouse." She lived long
enough to find herself in demand for documentary interviews on the
subject of early Hollywood. Married for a time to Beverly Hills
real-estate developer James Cornelius, she survived that marriage by
more than sixty years. She died in 1998, two and one-half months before
her 99th birthday.
