Ruth Clifford

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)_ (qv). 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' (qv)(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' (qv)'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.::Jim Beaver <jumblejim@prodigy.net>