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Ruth Roman and Kenneth Tobey in Down Three Dark Streets (1954)

Ruth Roman in Down Three Dark Streets (1954)

Carole Mathews and Ruth Roman in Look in Any Window (1961)

Dorothy McGuire and Ruth Roman in Invitation (1952)

Paul Anka and Ruth Roman in Look in Any Window (1961)

John Savage and Ruth Roman in The Killing Kind (1973)

Marvin Miller and Ruth Roman in The Shanghai Story (1954)

Edmond O'Brien and Ruth Roman in The Shanghai Story (1954)

Gary Cooper and Ruth Roman in Blowing Wild (1953)

Gary Cooper, Anthony Quinn, and Ruth Roman in Blowing Wild (1953)

Steve Cochran, Robert Hyatt, Ruth Roman, Ray Teal, and Lurene Tuttle in Tomorrow Is Another Day (1951)

Steve Cochran and Ruth Roman in Tomorrow Is Another Day (1951)

Steve Cochran, Lee Patrick, Stuart Randall, and Ruth Roman in Tomorrow Is Another Day (1951)

Ruth Roman in Tomorrow Is Another Day (1951)

Ruth Roman and Akim Tamiroff in Desert Desperados (1959)

Raymond Burr and Ruth Roman in Mara Maru (1952)

Eleanor Parker and Ruth Roman in Three Secrets (1950)

Bobby Driscoll and Ruth Roman in The Window (1949)

Bobby Driscoll, Ruth Roman, and Paul Stewart in The Window (1949)

Glenn Ford, Nadine Ashdown, Ruth Roman, and Donna Corcoran in Young Man with Ideas (1952)

John Payne and Ruth Roman in Rebel in Town (1956)

Diana Ewing and Ruth Roman in A Knife for the Ladies (1974)

Ruth Roman in A Knife for the Ladies (1974)

Glenn Ford, Nadine Ashdown, Barry Rado, Norman Rado, Ruth Roman, and Donna Corcoran in Young Man with Ideas (1952)

Ruth Roman in Young Man with Ideas (1952)

Nina Foch and Ruth Roman in Young Man with Ideas (1952)

Errol Flynn and Ruth Roman in Mara Maru (1952)

Ruth Roman and Zachary Scott in Lightning Strikes Twice (1951)

Ruth Roman and Rhys Williams in Lightning Strikes Twice (1951)

Darryl Hickman, Mercedes McCambridge, Ruth Roman, and Rhys Williams in Lightning Strikes Twice (1951)

Ruth Roman in Lightning Strikes Twice (1951)

Dane Clark and Ruth Roman in Barricade (1950)

Van Heflin, Howard Duff, and Ruth Roman in Tanganyika (1954)

Hugh O'Brian and Ruth Roman in Love Has Many Faces (1965)

Ken Maynard, Ruth Roman, and Max Terhune in Harmony Trail (1944)

Ruth Roman was born in Lynn, Massachusetts, the youngest of three daughters of Lithuanian-Jewish parents Mary Pauline (Gold) and Abraham Roman. Her father, a carnival barker, died when she was a small child, forcing her mother to support the family by working as a waitress and cleaning woman. Ruth grew up in the poor tenement district of Boston, Massachusetts, where she went to school. However, she left school after just two years to pursue an acting career. Her chosen path proved to be strewn with obstacles: in New York, she obtained a job posing for stills for a crime magazine, but theatrical work eluded her. She then worked as a hat check girl at a night club before calling it quits and returning to Boston. There, she made ends meet as an usherette during the day while at night performing with the New England Repertory Company, her first steady acting job. She also studied drama and eventually graduated from the Bishop-Lee Theatre School.

Trying to get into films, Ruth unsuccessfully made the rounds of agents and producers for two years (1940-42), until a bit part as a WAVE came her way in the film Stage Door Canteen (1943). With $200 to her name, she purchased a one-way ticket to Hollywood, where she found shared accommodation with other aspiring starlets, naming it, optimistically, 'the House of the Seven Garbos'. After a screen test with Warner Brothers failed to result in a contract, Ruth had another run of six hard years playing bit parts, many of them uncredited, some ending up on the cutting room floor. A sole speaking part of consequence was in the titular role of Jungle Queen (1945), a Universal serial (after subsequent acting lessons, Ruth was aghast when the serial was rereleased in 1951).

Ruth finally got her big break when producer Dore Schary cast her (against character, as a murderess) in the RKO thriller The Window (1949). That same year, she successfully auditioned for Stanley Kramer's boxing drama Champion (1949) as the dependable wife of the fighter (Kirk Douglas). After this turning point in her life, the shapely, smoky-voiced brunette secured a contract with Warner Brothers. During the next phase of her career, she moved effortlessly from glamorous and seductive to demure and wholesome in films opposite stars like James Stewart, Errol Flynn, and Gary Cooper. Look Magazine billed her as the 'Big Time Movie Personality of 1950', and by the following year she was receiving some 500 fan letters per week.

While many of her leads were in westerns (albeit mostly A-grade ones), Ruth was somewhat more memorable in support of Farley Granger (as his upper-crust lover and the raison d'etre for the planned murder of his wife) in Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train (1951). Another offbeat role was as a gangster's moll in the British-made updated adaptation of Shakespeare's Joe MacBeth (1955). As Lily, she is the power behind angst-ridden Paul Douglas ('Joe'), whom she easily manipulates to do her bidding. In The Bottom of the Bottle (1956), she was at her dependable best as the supportive wife of lawyer Joseph Cotten. Arguably, her last noteworthy performance on the big screen was in Alexander Singer's romance/drama Love Has Many Faces (1965).

By the 1960s, Ruth had made the transition to middle-aged character parts and began to appear mostly on television in shows like The Outer Limits (1963), Mannix (1967), Gunsmoke (1955), and (in a recurring role) in The Long, Hot Summer (1965). She also toured nationally with theatrical productions of "Plaza Suite", "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf", and "Two for the Seesaw". For the actress, who was said to disdain the trimmings of Hollywood stardom, real-life drama came when she and her son counted among the 760 survivors of the sinking of the luxury cruise liner 'Andrea Doria' in 1956. In September 1967, she jumped from her burning car but still managed to make her scheduled performance in "Beekman Place" at the Ivanhoe Theatre. Ruth died in September 1999 at her home in Laguna Beach, aged 76.

Ruth Roman in The Old Man Who Cried Wolf (1970)

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