| Ruth Roman | |
|---|---|
from the trailer for the film Strangers on a Train (1951). |
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| Born | Norma Roman December 22, 1922 Lynn, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Died | September 9, 1999 (aged 76) Laguna Beach, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1943–1989 |
| Spouse | Mortimer Hall (1950–1956) Bud Burton Moss(1956–1960) William Ross Wilson(1976–1999) |
Ruth Roman (born Norma Roman December 22, 1922 – September 9, 1999) was an American actress. One of her most memorable roles was in the Alfred Hitchcock 1951 thriller Strangers on a Train.
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She was born in the Boston suburb of Lynn, Massachusetts and was of Russian and Polish descent.[1] As a girl, she pursued her desire to become an actress by enrolling in the prestigious Bishop Lee Dramatic School in Boston. Following completion of her studies Roman headed to Hollywood where she obtained bit parts in several films before being cast in the title role in the thirteen-episode serial Jungle Queen (1945). Married three times, she had one son, Richard, with her first husband, Mortimer Hall. She died at the age of seventy-six in her sleep at her Laguna Beach, California home.
In July 1956, Ruth was just finishing a trip to Europe with Richard, or "Dickie" as he was called as a child, who was three years old at the time. At the port of Cannes, they boarded the Italian passenger liner SS Andrea Doria as First Class passengers for their return trip home to the United States. On the night of July 25, Ruth's life took an unexpected turn as she found herself and her young son in the middle of an unfolding disaster when the Andrea Doria collided with the Swedish passenger liner MS Stockholm. Ruth was in the Belvedere Lounge when the collision happened and immediately took off her high heels and scrambled back to her cabin barefoot to retrieve her sleeping son. Several hours later she and the other passengers were being evacuated from the sinking liner. Dickie was lowered first into a waiting lifeboat, and before she could follow the lifeboat departed. Ruth stepped into the next boat and was eventually rescued along with 750 other survivors from the Andrea Doria by the French passenger liner SS Ile de France. Dickie was rescued by the Stockholm and was reunited with his mother in New York.[2]
She also played an important role in the 1949 film, Champion. In one of her most memorable roles, Roman co-starred with Farley Granger and Robert Walker in the Alfred Hitchcock thriller Strangers on a Train (1951).In the 1950 film Three Secrets, she played a distraught mother waiting to learn whether or not her child survived an airplane crash. In 1959 she won the Sarah Siddons Award for her work in Chicago theatre. Although she never achieved the level of success as a leading lady that many predicted, Roman nevertheless worked regularly in film well into the 1960s after which she began making appearances on television shows, including a recurring role in NBC's 1965-1966 The Long Hot Summer and for the 1986 season of Knots Landing and on Murder She Wrote, both on CBS. She also guest starred in NBC's Sam Benedict featuring Edmond O'Brien, ABC's The Bing Crosby Show sitcom and its circus drama, The Greatest Show on Earth starring Jack Palance, I-Spy featuring Robert Culp and Bill Cosby, and others. She also appeared in the early 1960s in both the NBC medical drama The Eleventh Hour and its ABC counterpart, Breaking Point. She also starred in Mission:impossible season 3, 1968 titled *The Elixir" as Riva Santel.
Roman was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6672 Hollywood Boulevard. for her contribution to television.