Ruth Warrick Movies and Career Information

Dame Ruth Elizabeth Warrick (June 29, 1915 – January 15, 2005), DM, 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 afterward. (She made her film debut as Kane's first wife.) 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. 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 Emily Monroe Norton. When she auditioned for the part, she read with Welles.