Barbara Ruick
Encyclopedia
Youth
Ruick was the daughter of actors Lurene TuttleLurene Tuttle
Lurene Tuttle was a character actress, who made transitions from vaudeville to radio, to films and television. Her most enduring impact was as one of network radio's most versatile actresses...
and Melville Ruick
Melville Ruick
Actor Melville Ruick was born in Boise, Idaho on July 8, 1898. He studied law at the University of California, but World War I changed him from a student lawyer to a student pilot. Ruick won his wings in the Air Service, Signal Corps, two weeks before the end of the war.During the lean years of...
. She grew up acting out scenes with dolls, employing her mother as an audience. She attended Theodore Roosevelt High School (Los Angeles)
Theodore Roosevelt High School (Los Angeles)
See also Roosevelt High School for schools of the same nameTheodore Roosevelt High School is a high school located in the Boyle Heights area of Los Angeles, California named for the 26th president of the United States....
, Burbank High School (California), and North Hollywood High School
North Hollywood High School
North Hollywood High School, originally called Lankershim High School when it opened in 1927, is a secondary school in North Hollywood in Los Angeles, California. The school mascot is the husky, and the school colors are blue, white and grey....
. She did little acting in high school but joined a school band at the age of fourteen. She sang with the band at dances and benefits.
Career
Dragnet (series)
Dragnet is a radio and television crime drama about the cases of a dedicated Los Angeles police detective, Sergeant Joe Friday, and his partners...
. She also recorded several songs for MGM Records
MGM Records
MGM Records was a record label started by the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio in 1946, for the purpose of releasing soundtrack albums of their musical films. Later it became a pop label, lasting into the 1970s...
.
In the 1950s, she starred as Kay in the first LP
LP album
The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...
recording of the songs from George Gershwin
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
and Ira Gershwin
Ira Gershwin
Ira Gershwin was an American lyricist who collaborated with his younger brother, composer George Gershwin, to create some of the most memorable songs of the 20th century....
's 1926 Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
musical
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
, Oh, Kay!
Oh, Kay!
Oh, Kay! is a musical with music by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin, and a book by Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse. It is based on the play La Presidente by Maurice Hanniquin and Pierre Veber. The plot revolves around the adventures of the Duke of Durham and his sister, Lady Kay, English...
. This was a studio cast recording released by Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
, and conducted by Lehman Engel
Lehman Engel
Lehman Engel was an American composer and conductor of Broadway musicals, television and film.-Work in theatre, television and films:...
. Despite what is sometimes claimed, it did not use the original orchestrations, but it was the most complete recording of the score made up to that time.
In seeking acting parts she was forced to travel to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
where her relation to her mother was not as well known. She landed a
job on Hollywood Screen Test
Hollywood Screen Test
Hollywood Screen Test was a talent show which aired on American Broadcasting Company from 1948 to 1953. It is believed to be the first series ever broadcast on ABC....
, a talent show which aired on ABC Television
ABC Television
ABC Television is a service of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation launched in 1956. As a public broadcasting broadcaster, the ABC provides four non-commercial channels within Australia, and a partially advertising-funded satellite channel overseas....
from 1948-1953. Ruick appeared on the Kraft Television Theater, soap operas, and The College Bowl (1950), which was hosted by Chico Marx
Chico Marx
Leonard "Chico" Marx was an American comedian and film star as part of the Marx Brothers. His persona in the act was that of a dim-witted albeit crafty con artist, seemingly of rural Italian origin, who wore shabby clothes, and sported a curly-haired wig and Tyrolean hat.As the first-born of the...
. She also performed for fifteen weeks on the Jerry Colonna Show. In 1955 she was a regular on The Johnny Carson Show
The Johnny Carson Show
The Johnny Carson Show is a 1955-56 half hour prime time television variety show starring Johnny Carson.While working as a staff writer on The Red Skelton Show , local Los Angeles television comedian Johnny Carson filled in as host when Skelton was injured during a show rehearsal...
.
Ruick did episodes of The Millionaire (1957), Public Defender
Public defender
The term public defender is primarily used to refer to a criminal defense lawyer appointed to represent people charged with a crime but who cannot afford to hire an attorney in the United States and Brazil. The term is also applied to some ombudsman offices, for example in Jamaica, and is one way...
(1954), Brothers Brannigan (1960), The 20th Century Fox Hour
The 20th Century Fox Hour
The 20th Century Fox Hour is an American drama anthology series televised in the United States on CBS from 1955 to 1957. Some of the shows in this series were restored, remastered and shown on the Fox Movie Channel in 2002 under the title Hour of Stars...
(1956), and Climax Mystery Theater (1955).
Ruick played bit parts in her first four films, one of them being The Band Wagon
The Band Wagon
The Band Wagon is a 1953 musical comedy film that many critics rank, along with Singin' in the Rain, as the finest of the MGM musicals, although it was only a modest box-office success. It tells the story of an aging musical star who hopes a Broadway play will restart his career...
(1953), and then graduated to supporting roles. Her best remembered roles are Carrie Pipperidge in the film version of Rodgers and Hammerstein
Rodgers and Hammerstein
Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II were a well-known American songwriting duo, usually referred to as Rodgers and Hammerstein. They created a string of popular Broadway musicals in the 1940s and 1950s during what is considered the golden age of the medium...
's Carousel
Carousel (film)
Carousel is a 1956 film adaptation of the 1945 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical of the same name which, in turn, was based on Ferenc Molnár's non-musical play Liliom. The 1956 Carousel film stars Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones, and was directed by Henry King...
(1956), where she delivers a touching rendition of "When I Marry Mr. Snow", and as Esmerelda, one of the wicked stepsisters, in the 1965 TV version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella.
Notable work
- Confidentially ConnieConfidentially ConnieConfidentially Connie is a 1953 film directed by Edward Buzzell. It stars Van Johnson and Janet Leigh.-Cast:*Van Johnson as Joe Bedloe*Janet Leigh as Connie Bedloe*Louis Calhern as Opie Bedloe*Walter Slezak as Emil Spangenberg, Butcher...
(1953) - The Affairs of Dobie GillisThe Affairs of Dobie GillisThe Affairs of Dobie Gillis is a black and white 1953 comedy musical film. The film is based on the same writings by Max Shulman as the subsequent television series, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis...
(1953) - CarouselCarousel (film)Carousel is a 1956 film adaptation of the 1945 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical of the same name which, in turn, was based on Ferenc Molnár's non-musical play Liliom. The 1956 Carousel film stars Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones, and was directed by Henry King...
(1956) - Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella (TV, 1965 remake, starring Lesley Ann WarrenLesley Ann WarrenLesley Ann Warren is an American actress and singer. She has been nominated once for an Academy Award and Emmy Awards and five times for Golden Globe, winning one....
)
Personal life and death
Ruick married actor Robert Horton Jr.Robert Horton (actor)
Robert Horton is an American television actor, who was most noted for the role of the frontier scout Flint McCullough in the NBC Western television series, Wagon Train...
, in Las Vegas, Nevada
Las Vegas, Nevada
Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and is also the county seat of Clark County, Nevada. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and fine dining. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous...
, on August 22, 1953. The couple divorced just prior to their second wedding anniversary in 1955. She was the wife of film composer John Williams from 1956 until her death. Following her marriage to Williams, Ruick appeared in few motion pictures. They had three children together: Jennifer (born 1956), Mark (born 1958), and Joseph (born 1960).
Barbara Ruick Williams died March 3, 1974, of a cerebral hemorrhage in Reno, Nevada
Reno, Nevada
Reno is the county seat of Washoe County, Nevada, United States. The city has a population of about 220,500 and is the most populous Nevada city outside of the Las Vegas metropolitan area...
while on location with her last film, Robert Altman
Robert Altman
Robert Bernard Altman was an American film director and screenwriter known for making films that are highly naturalistic, but with a stylized perspective. In 2006, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognized his body of work with an Academy Honorary Award.His films MASH , McCabe and...
's California Split
California Split
California Split is a 1974 film directed by Robert Altman and starring Elliott Gould and George Segal as a pair of gamblers. It was the first non-Cinerama movie to use eight-track stereo sound.-Plot:...
, which is dedicated to her. She had a cameo role as a barmaid. Ruick was found dead in her hotel room at the age of 43. She was interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California
Glendale, California
Glendale is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2010 Census, the city population is 191,719, down from 194,973 at the 2000 census. making it the third largest city in Los Angeles County and the 22nd largest city in the state of California...
.