Ruth Roman (born Norma Roman; December 22, 1922 – September 9, 1999) was an American actress of film, stage, and television.
After playing stage roles on the east coast, Roman moved to Hollywood to pursue a career in films. She appeared in several uncredited bit parts before she was cast as the leading lady in the western Harmony Trail (1944) and in the title role in the serial film Jungle Queen (1945), her first credited film performances.
Roman first starred in the title role of Belle Starr's Daughter (1948). She achieved her first notable success with a role in The Window (1949) and a year later was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actress for her performance in Champion (1949). In the early 1950s, she was under contract to Warner Bros., where she starred in a variety of films, including the Alfred Hitchcock thriller Strangers on a Train (1951).
In the mid-1950s, after leaving Warner Bros., Roman continued to star in films and also began playing guest roles for television series. She also worked abroad and made films in England, Italy, and Spain. She was also a passenger aboard the SS Andrea Doria when it collided with another ship and sank in 1956. In 1959, she won the Sarah Siddons Award for her work in the play Two for the Seesaw. Her numerous television appearances earned her a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Early life and stage experience
Norma Roman was born in Lynn, Massachusetts, to Lithuanian Jewish parents, Mary Pauline (née Gold) and Abraham "Anthony" Roman. She was renamed "Ruth" when a fortune teller told her mother that "Norma" was an unlucky name. Her mother was a dancer, and her father a barker in a carnival sideshow that they owned at Revere Beach, Massachusetts. She had two older sisters, Ann and Eve. Her father died when Ruth was eight, and her mother sold the sideshow. Later, she attended the William Blackstone School and Girls' High School in Boston. She then pursued her desire to become an actress by enrolling in the prestigious Bishop Lee Dramatic School in Boston. After further enhancing her skills performing with the New England Repertory Company and the Elizabeth Peabody Players, Roman moved to New York City, where she hoped to find success on Broadway. Instead, she worked as a cigarette girl, a hat check girl, and a model to make a living and save money.
Career
Roman moved to Hollywood, where she obtained bit parts in several films such as Stage Door Canteen (1943), Ladies Courageous (1944), Since You Went Away (1944), Song of Nevada (1944), and Storm Over Lisbon (1944). She had a featured role in a Harmony Trail (1944), but continued to be mostly unbilled in films such as She Gets Her Man (1945).
Roman was cast in the title role in the 13-episode serial Jungle Queen (1945). Her roles, though, remained small in such films as See My Lawyer (1945), The Affairs of Susan (1945), You Came Along (1945), Incendiary Blonde (1945), Gilda (1946), Without Reservations (1946), A Night in Casablanca (1946), and The Big Clock (1948). While waiting for an opportunity in movies, Roman wrote short stories based on her experiences living in a theatrical boarding house. She sold two of them: The House of the Seven Garbos and The Whip Song.
Roman's career began to improve in the late 1940s when she was cast in a featured role in the 1948 release Good Sam. The next year, she was chosen for the title role in Belle Starr's Daughter, as a killer in the thriller The Window, and as the wife of the central character in Champion, starring Kirk Douglas.
Warner Bros. In recognition of Roman's rising status as an actress, Warner Bros. signed her to a long-term contract in 1949, casting her first as a supporting player for Bette Davis in Beyond the Forest and then for Milton Berle and Virginia Mayo in Always Leave Them Laughing. The studio in 1950 cast her as the female lead in Barricade with Dane Clark and Colt .45 with Randolph Scott.
Warners gave her a starring role in Three Secrets (1950) with Eleanor Parker and Patricia Neal. She played a distraught mother waiting to learn whether or not her child survived an airplane crash. This was followed by Dallas (1950), where she was Gary Cooper's leading lady. The May 1, 1950, issue of Life magazine featured Roman in a cover story "The Rapid Rise of Ruth Roman".