Ruth Warrick

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Ruth Warrick

An elderly Ruth Warrick in her final AMC storyline
Born June 29, 1915(1915-06-29)
Saint Joseph, Missouri
Died January 15, 2005 (aged 89)

Dame Ruth Elizabeth Warrick (June 29, 1915 – January 15, 2005) , DM, OSJ, Regend of Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Dame of Honour and Merit by the Imperial Russian Order of Saint John of Jerusalem Ecumenical Foundation [1] was an American singer, actress and activist, best known for her role as Phoebe Tyler on All My Children.

She celebrated her 80th birthday by attending a special screening of Citizen Kane to a packed, standing room only audience, to which she spoke after the screening. Over the years she collected several books about Orson Welles and Citizen Kane, in which she would write Property of Ruth Warrick, Mrs. Citizen Kane.

She served as a Licensed Unity Teacher.

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[edit] Early life

She was born in Saint Joseph, Missouri. By writing an essay in high school called Prevention and Cure of Tuberculosis, Warrick won a contest to be Miss Jubilesta, Missouri's paid ambassador to New York City. Popular legend says that she made her debut in New York City on the steps of city hall with an armful of turkeys for Mayor Fiorello La Guardia.

Warrick began her career in the 1940s as a radio singer where she met her first husband Eric Rolf, but her first big break was being hired by a young Orson Welles for Citizen Kane, where she played his first wife, "Emily Monroe Norton". When she auditioned for the part, she read with Welles. She said that because she was so new to the acting business, she was not aware that it was very rare to actually read with the star. What she also didn't realize was that this was also Welles' first film role. Kane proved to be a major moment of her life and the long term success of the film would follow her for the rest of her life. During the filming of Citizen Kane that she learned she was pregnant with her first child, Karen Rolf. Her son, Jon Rolf, was born 16 months later.

The controversy surrounding Citizen Kane led to the film being a box office disaster and Welles, despite co-winning an Academy Award for the screenplay, being shunned by Hollywood. Nevertheless, Welles hired her again for his film Journey Into Fear alongside fellow Kane actor Joseph Cotten. She worked alongside Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., in the film The Corsican Brothers and had a role in the Academy Award winning Disney film Song of the South; she also appeared in Daisy Kenyon, which starred Joan Crawford and Henry Fonda, but by the late 1940s her film roles were becoming infrequent and less notable.

In the 1950s she befriended soap opera inventor Irna Phillips and her protégé, Agnes Nixon. Warrick became a cast member on the soap opera The Guiding Light, playing Janet Johnson, R. N. from 1953-1954. Phillips was impressed by Warrick's performance and hired her as a cast member on her new soap opera, As The World Turns when the show debuted in 1956. Her character, Edith Hughes, was madly in love with a married man, Jim Lowell. Phillips wanted the characters to live happily ever after, but Procter & Gamble, which owned the show, demanded that the characters not endorse adultery, so Jim died. Warrick stayed on the show until 1960, and was so popular with fans that she would return several times for holiday visits. Her character married another doctor, Dr. Frye.

From 1959-1960 she was the understudy for Una Merkel and future All My Children co-star Eileen Herlie in the Broadway production of Take Me Along.

During the 1961-62 television season, she starred in the Father of the Bride television series. Then in 1965 she joined the cast of the primetime serial, Peyton Place, playing Hannah Cord. While there had been previous primetime serials (such as One Man's Family), none had enjoyed the phenomenal success of Peyton Place, garnering a new respect for the form. Warrick received an Emmy Award nomination for this show in 1967, the same year she exited the show. Peyton Place was cancelled two years later.

In 1969, she made her last major film, Disney's The Great Bank Robbery.

During this time, Agnes Nixon had been moving up the daytime television ranks. She had created her own show One Life to Live in 1968. ABC greenlighted her new show All My Children in 1969, which was based on a treatment that Procter & Gamble had rejected a few year earlier.

[edit] All My Children

When All My Children debuted on January 5, 1970, Warrick was among the contracted cast, playing Phoebe Tyler (the character's full name via her marriages would eventually be Phoebe English Tyler Wallingford Matthews Wallingford). The show was an instant hit and Phoebe became a popular daytime character. Phoebe's first storyline involved her marriage to Charles Tyler. They were unhappy in their marriage. Mona Kane (Frances Heflin), Charles Tyler's secretary, fell in love with Charles and after several years, Phoebe and Charles were divorced.

Phoebe spent her time being a professional socialite. In the late 1970s she was wooed by, and later engaged to, Langley Wallingford (Louis Edmonds). She married him before learning the truth that he was really Lenny Wlasik, a professional conman. Despite the deception she still loved him and they remained married. The marriage was strained by the arrival of his daughter, Verla Grubbs (Carol Burnett), and by con artists intent on stealing Phoebe's fortune. In real life, Warrick became good friends with Edmonds.

Phoebe's clan was increased when her niece Brooke English joined the show. Phoebe prided herself on her proper place in society and had her hands full trying to keep her rebellious niece in check.

Warrick received Daytime Emmy Award nominations in 1975 and 1977. In 1985, she played Hannah Cord in the TV movie Return to Peyton Place.

She was on Broadway with Debbie Reynolds in the 1973 stage play Irene.

Warrick with Eileen Herlie and Louis Edmonds in 1995
Warrick with Eileen Herlie and Louis Edmonds in 1995

Due to health problems, Edmonds left All My Children in 1995 and his character bid a goodbye to his loving wife to spend time on an archeological dig in Egypt. He died in 2001; his character was sent off to Egypt until during Phoebe's funeral, the show made a passing reference to Langley's death. Langley's departure combined with Warrick's own health problems from old age signaled a reduction in her screentime in the 1990s. Warrick broke her hip while on vacation in Greece in 2001 and had been confined to a wheelchair ever since.

Head writer Richard Culliton was the last writer to utilize her character in a major way. In 2002, Phoebe schemed to get Brooke engaged to her true love Edmund Grey (John Callahan). One of her lines during this storyline was "They are happy... and they're going to be happy if it's the last thing I do in my life." This line led to rumors that Culliton was planning to kill off Phoebe amid rumors that Warrick would be dropped from the show for budgetary reasons (General Hospital had done this twice to Anna Lee, who had played matriarch Lila Quartermaine).

After this storyline collapsed due to Edmund's wife coming back from the dead, Phoebe was not seen on screen until All My Children's 35th anniversary show on January 5, 2005. This brief appearance would ultimately be Warrick's final screen appearance. When Warrick was wheeled into the building the cast and crew gave her a standing ovation to welcome her back to Pine Valley after such a long absence. This episode featured not only a rare appearance from Warrick, but the return of her stepdaughter Verla played by comedic legend Carol Burnett. This episode also featured Agnes Nixon playing Agnes Eckhardt (Nixon's birth name), a board member of Pine Valley Hospital who shared screentime with not only Warrick's Phoebe but also Susan Lucci's Erica Kane, and other core characters.

Warrick had three children from two of her three marriages. She had one grandson and six great-grand children. She published her autobiography, The Confessions of Phoebe Tyler (co-written by Don Preston) in 1980, the same year she won a Soapy Award (a prelude to the Soap Opera Digest Awards).

She received a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and was on hand to receive her Daytime Emmy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2004.

Warrick was a member of the Democratic Party, working with the administrations of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter on labor and education issues. Upon Carter's 1980 defeat, she sent him a long letter thanking him for his efforts. He replied, telling her that if he had hired her as a speechwriter, he would have been reelected. Warrick had generally liberal political views. In her first years at All My Children, Warrick was flustered by her character's strong right wing politics and support of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, which Warrick personally adamantly opposed.

In July 2000, she refused to accept a lifetime achievement award from the South Carolina Arts Commission, because she was offended by legislators' decision to move the confederate flag from the state Capitol dome, to another spot on the grounds in response to a boycott of the state by flag opponents. A lifelong supporter of African-American rights, she felt the flag should be removed completely, and commented: "In my view, this was no compromise. It was a deliberate affront to the African-Americans, who see it as a sign of oppression and hate."

Warrick's name popped up in television infotainment shows and supermarket racks in 2002 in connection with the highly publicized courtship and marriage of Liza Minnelli and David Gest. Gest had long been spreading the rumor that he and Warrick, 38 years his senior, were romantically involved. Confronted by a reporter to confirm or deny this, Warrick predicted that Minnelli would be disappointed on her honeymoon. Minnelli and Gest escalated the tabloid war by scolding Warrick for her insinuation about Gest's sexuality. Eventually, while not recanting her statement, Warrick apologized.

In her senior years, she became a spokeswoman for the rights of senior citizens as well as the disabled and was appointed to the U.N. World Women's Committee on Mental Health.

She was the last living cast member of Song of the South. She died of complications related to pneumonia, aged 89, on January 15, 2005. She received a memorial tribute at the 11th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards.

The day after the 2005 Academy Award ceremony, former castmate Kelly Ripa expressed her outrage on her national television show Live with Regis and Kelly that Warrick had not been included in the annual memorial tribute to actors who had passed on the previous year on the telecast.

[edit] Death

The January 24, 2005 episode of All My Children was dedicated In Loving Memory of Ruth Warrick. Phoebe died off screen in May 2005. Phoebe's funeral was aired May 12, 2005. The episode featured many of Warrick most notable performances as flashbacks and included the return of many of the characters who had been heavily involved in her storylines over the years.

After her death her family put much of her estate in an auction by [1]. This auction included her extensive collection of art and photographs as well as books signed by former United States President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary. Signed scripts from Peyton Place and All My Children as well as her Broadway appearances were also in the catalog. The centerpiece of the catalog was the 25th anniversary reprint script of Citizen Kane signed by Warrick, Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles, one of only 100 that were printed.

Her family donated the Lifetime Achievement Emmy Award she won in 2004 to a museum in her hometown of Saint Joseph, Missouri.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^  Rout, Nancy E., Buckley, Ellen., & Rout, Barney M. The Soap Opera Book: Who's Who in Daytime Drama, West Nyack, NY: Todd Publications, 1992. She received this titled in the early 1990s when she traveled to Russia as part of a "Global Forum" to discuss the world's environmental problems with Mikhail Gorbachev. It is noteworthy that this chapter is not officially recognised by the bona fide Order of St. John.

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[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Dawson & Nye Auctioneers Appraisers