Hermitage: Remembering Ruth on the fourth anniversary of her passing

Monday, August 12, 2013

Remembering Ruth on the fourth anniversary of her passing

Remembering Ruth on the Fourth Anniversary of Her Passing

Surreal Painting of Ruth Ford with background of hands that spells "Ruth Ford" in sign language.
by Pavel Tchelitchew

Four years ago today, on August 12^th, 2009, Ruth Ford passed away at home in the Dakota. By the time she died, it had been many years since the last of her famous salons there, and for a very long time Ruth was almost a complete recluse. For years at the end of her life, it was mostly just Ruth and myself in her large apartment on Central Park West, where she once entertained all of the most famous writers and artists and actors of the day. Four years after her passing, I still think of her often and miss the comfortably familiar routine of going every day to prepare her breakfast and bring her the New York Times, and the little chats we would have together. I think of her particularly on her birthday and on the anniversary of her last day of life. These days it’s easy to find her on youtube in some of the movies she made in the 1940s, and sometimes I take a look. Her movies were mostly B-Grade thrillers, although her stage career was more highbrow, and they are fun to see. I will post a link her to one of those movies, a hard-boiled noir thriller called Strange Impersonation, made in 1946, in which Ruth played the role of a devious blackmailer. If you have an hour or so to spare today, you can watch it here and think of Ruth. I have a feeling that she would enjoy knowing that people still look her up and see her in action.