February 17 - Ruth Clifford

On this day, in 1900, Ruth Clifford was born in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. After her mother died when she was just 11, Ruth and her sister were sent to St. Mary's Seminary in Narragansett. Four years later, they moved to Los Angeles, California and began living with an aunt who just happened to be a stage actress. Ruth's aunt got her work as an extra on the Universal lot, but she didn't stay in the background for very long. She earned her first screen credit in 1916, starring as Camille in Behind the Lines alongside the legendary Harry Carey (the legendary movie actor not the legendary Chicago Cubs announcer). Ruth became a bona fide star of the silent film era, playing leading roles throughout her twenties in films with names like As Man Desires, Brooding Eyes and The Dramatic Life of Abraham Lincoln. Then Al Jolson came along and ruined everything with The Jazz Singer, Hollywood's first feature with synchronized sound.

Ruth was luckier than a lot of silent film stars; her career dwindled slowly instead of stopping abruptly. While she would appear in dozens of films over the next few decades, more and more of her roles would be uncredited and have names like Valley Woman or Maid. She still had powerful friends (she played bridge with director John Ford, for instance) but that didn't translate into meaningful screen time.

When the Forties rolled around, Ruth attended a performance of the Abbey Theatre Company when they made a stop in Los Angeles. She was impressed with them and joined the troupe, travelling around the country, starring in what she called classic Irish plays. As television began ramping up production in the Fifties, Ruth found a third career in commercials and making frequent appearances on shows like Highway Patrol in the last half of the decade.

Ruth became part of the Disney family in 1942 as the third major voice of Minnie Mouse. I say major because Walt himself squeaked out Minnie in her first several cartoons and then a woman named Marjorie Ralston voiced her for exactly one short. Marcellite Garner took over for almost a decade before handing the reins over to Thelma Boardman, who mostly brought Minnie to life on a radio program in the early Forties. Ruth became Minnie to Walt's Mickey (for a few pictures, at any rate) with the wartime Pluto short Out of the Frying Pan and into the Firing Line and continued until 1952's Pluto's Christmas Tree (considered a Mickey Mouse short, not a Pluto, apparently ownership matters). But don't think Ruth was replaced at that point. The Shorts Department basically stopped existing and Minnie Mouse wouldn't officially utter a new word until 1974 for a Disneyland Record's adaptation of A Christmas Carol (and would then become mum again until 1986).

While Ruth's acting career may have dried up in her later years, her popularity did not. She found a fourth career, of sorts, as a living link to Hollywood's past. Documentary filmmakers loved to talk with her about all her silent co-stars and the culture of Tinseltown before sound. Ruth lived in Sherman Oaks, California until 1987 when she moved into the Motion Picture Home in Woodland Hills. She lived there eleven more years, passing away quietly on November 30, 1998. She was 98 years old.