In Remembrance: Ruth Warrick

     Ruth Warrick, the character actress who appeared in Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane and spent a majority of career on television soap operas, has passed away in New York City on Saturday January 15, 2004. She was 89.

     Born on June 29, 1915 in St. Joseph, Missouri, she attended the University of Missouri- Kansas City. Upon graduating, she headed to New York City, first working in radio and then eventually becoming a member of Welles’ Mercury Theatre stage company. Welles took the company west to Hollywood in 1941 for the production of his first film Citizen Kane. The director cast her in the role of Charles Foster Kane’s first wife Emily reportedly saying that there were no “ladies in Hollywood” to fill the role. RKO Studios, for whom Welles was making Citizen Kane, signed her to a contract based on her performance in the film,

     Her first film as an RKO contract player was the 1941 with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. She stayed at RKO for two years making mostly dramas like Forever And A Day (1943) and The Iron Major (1943). She also reunited on screen with Welles in the thriller Journey Into Fear. She then went to work for Universal Studios.

     The rest of the 1940s found Warrick working at various studios. At Columbia she made the war film Mr. Winkle Goes To War and the espionage thriller Secret Command in 1944. She found herself back at RKO in 1945 for the swashbuckler China Sky with Randolph Scott. In 1946 she appeared in Disney’s Song Of The South. She returned to Columbia for the musical Make Believe Ballroom (1949) and the drama Beauty On Parade (1950).

     In 1952, she landed a role on the first of the many soap operas she would appear in, The Guiding Light. She would also appear on As The World Turns, Peyton Place, All My Children and its spin-off series Loving. She was nominated twice for a Daytime Emmy for her work on All My Children, a role she stayed with for over three decades starting with the launch of the series in 1970.