Ruth Roman Collection

Ruth Roman
(1924 – 1999)

Hollywood under the Studio System faced a bit of a conundrum when it came to casting starlets in major motion pictures. On paper, they were looking for fresh-faced, wholesome girls who would fit into roles in family pictures. Most studio executives recognized that the family demographic was their most important audience, and they hoped to attract Mom, Pop, and all the kiddies into their neighborhood movie palace on a regular basis.

At the same time, Hollywood wanted to promote sexy girls because, well, it is hard to imagine going broke by putting sexy girls on the screen. The real trick for the starlets trying to make a living was to decide whether they should be perceived as a sex kitten or the girl next door.

The two types were not mutually exclusive, of course, and it was not uncommon for a girl to set herself up for one and then play the other. When Ruth Roman heard about Stanley Kramer's Champion (1949), she knew she was perfect for the part as the floozy who ruins the life of the boxer played by Kirk Douglas. Ruth wiggled into her tightest black dress and sashayed into the producer's office, but Kramer took one look at her and said, "Actually, I thought of you for the other girl", meaning Kirk Douglas's loyal and long-suffering wife. At that point, a job was a job, and Ruth was more than willing to play wholesome if it meant she could eat.

Ruth Roman, born 1922, was the youngest of three daughters born to Lithuanian-Jewish immigrant carnival owners in Revere, Massachusetts. When Ruth's father died when she was eight, her mother sold the carnival and moved the girls to a tenement district in Boston where she worked a series of waitress and cleaning woman jobs. Ruth attended Girl's High School for two years but left to seek an acting career. She went to New York with dreams of making it on the "Great White Way", but wound up modeling for photos to be used in the pages of detective magazines. She worked as a nightclub cigarette and hat check girl before moving back to Boston. There she worked during the day as a theater usherette while performing in the evenings with the New England Repertory Company. When she had amassed the princely sum of $200, she bought a one-way ticket to Hollywood.

Ruth made the rounds of agents and producers and finally landed a bit part as a WAVE in Stage Door Canteen (1943). More uncredited and bit parts followed (mostly ending up on the cutting room floor) while she was living in a boarding house with some other aspiring starlets who optimistically called the place "the House of the Seven Garbos". She did win the title role in the Universal serial The Jungle Queen (1945), and after getting her break in Champion she played a murderess in the RKO thriller The Window (1949). Over the years, she would play the lead in a number of (mostly A-list) Westerns, but her most memorable role was in Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train (1951).

Ruth would marry four times, and had a son, Richard, born in 1952, with second husband, Mortimer Hall. In 1956, she took her son Dickie on a trip to Europe. They boarded the SS Andrea Doria on July 18 in Cannes, France, as first class passengers to return to America. Ruth was dancing in the ship's Belvedere Room on the evening of July 25 when she heard "a big explosion like a firecracker". The MS Stockholm struck the Doria in heavy fog. When it was obvious that the liner was sinking, Ruth woke Dickie and told him they were going on a picnic. When they got to the lifeboats, she handed the boy to a seaman who lowered him into a boat. When Ruth began to follow down a rope ladder, the lifeboat pulled away from the ship. Ms. Roman claimed that she never feared for her son, and simply entered the next lifeboat and was reunited with Dickie later. They were among the 760 survivors of the Andrea Doria sinking.

Although the most of the films she made are not remembered as classics, she easily made the transition to TV character actress through the fifties and sixties. She was featured as a guest actress on The Bing Crosby Show, The Eleventh Hour, I-Spy, Route 66, Mannix, Marcus Welby MD, The Mod Squad, The FBI, and The Outer Limits.

Ruth Roman died in her sleep at her home in Laguna Beach, California, on September 9, 1999. A Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6672 Hollywood Blvd was dedicated in 960 to honor contributions to Television by Ruth Gordon. The Star lies in front of the American Mini Mart near the corner of Hollywood and Las Palmas Ave.