Born 1911 in Providence, Rhode Island, American actress Ruth Hussey made her film debut in 1937. She quickly became a leading lady in MGM’s “B” unit, usually playing sophisticated, worldly roles. For a 1940 “A” picture role, she was nominated for an Academy Award for her turn as Elizabeth Imbrie, the cynical magazine photographer and almost-girlfriend of James Stewart’s character Macaulay Connor in The Philadelphia Story. In 1941, exhibitors voted her the third-most-popular new star in Hollywood.
Hussey also worked with Robert Taylor in Flight Command (1940), Robert Young in Northwest Passage (1940) and H. M. Pulham, Esq. (1941), Van Heflin in Tennessee Johnson (1942), Ray Milland in The Uninvited (1944), and Alan Ladd in The Great Gatsby (1949). In 1946, she starred on Broadway in the Pulitzer Prize-winning play State of the Union. Her 1949 role in Goodbye, My Fancy on Broadway caused a Billboard reviewer to write: “Miss Hussey brings a splendid aliveness and warmth to the lovely congresswoman....”
Hussey died April 19, 2005, at the age of 93, from complications from an appendectomy. Take a look at these vintage photos to see the beauty of young Ruth Hussey in the 1930s and 1940s.
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