Ruth Nelson (actress)

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Ruth Nelson
Promotional photograph for the film Wilson (1944)
Born
Ruth Gloria Nelson

(1905-08-02)August 2, 1905
Saginaw, Michigan, U.S.
DiedSeptember 12, 1992(1992-09-12) (aged 87)
New York City, U.S.
OccupationActress
Years active1928–1991
Spouses
  • ​
    ​
    (m. 1931; div. 1937)​
  • ​
    ​
    (m. 1947; died 1979)​

Ruth Gloria Nelson (August 2, 1905 – September 12, 1992) was an American stage and film actress. She is known for her roles in films such as Wilson, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Humoresque, 3 Women, The Late Show and Awakenings. She was the wife of John Cromwell, with whom she acted on multiple occasions.

Early life[edit]

Ruth Nelson (back row, third from left) with members of the Group Theatre in 1938

Born in Saginaw, Michigan, Nelson was the daughter of Sanford Leroy Nelson and vaudeville actress Eva Mudge.[1][2] She attended Immaculate Heart Convent School in Los Angeles,[3] studying first with Daniel Frohman[4] and then with Richard Boleslawski at the American Laboratory Theatre in New York City during the early 1920s.[3]

Career[edit]

Ruth Nelson as First Lady Ellen Axson Wilson in Wilson (1944)

Nelson made her stage debut in New York on April 4, 1928, at the Laboratory Theatre under Boleslawski's direction, portraying the title character in Jean-Jacques Bernard's Martine. Over the next two seasons, Nelson made two more appearances—in Checkhov's The Seagull and Vladimir Kirshon's Red Rust[5]—prior to becoming, in 1931, a charter member of the newly formed theatre collective, The Group Theatre, with whom she remained throughout its run from 1931 to 1941, receiving particular praise for her performance as the chief striker's wife in Clifford Odets' play, Waiting for Lefty.[6]

After the Group Theatre ended in 1941, Nelson relocated to Hollywood. Throughout the 1940s, she made a number of movies for 20th Century Fox and other Hollywood studios. One of these was A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945), directed by fellow Group Theatre member Elia Kazan. She also appeared in Kazan's film The Sea of Grass in 1947.

As her career began to take off, she was compelled to put things on hold when her husband, the director John Cromwell, a leading Roosevelt Democrat in the film industry, was falsely accused of Communism by actor Adolphe Menjou in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings on Hollywood in 1951[7] and his career went on to be blacklisted. While offered a New York stage role as a wife in what turned out to be Death of a Salesman, Nelson turned it down as she did most acting offers at this time to stay in Los Angeles and support Cromwell.[8]

Nelson had not made a Hollywood film for nearly 30 years when she appeared with her husband in 1977's 3 Women, directed by Robert Altman, and The Late Show, a film Robert Benton wrote and directed that Altman produced. The following year, she played Aunt Beatrice Sloan Cory and Cromwell portrayed the befuddled Bishop Martin in A Wedding, a comedy directed by Altman.

In 1980, stepson James Cromwell appeared with Nelson in John Korty's made-for-TV movie A Christmas Without Snow; two years later, they appeared onstage together in the Public Theater's production of Botho Strauss's Three Acts of Recognition, staged by Richard Foreman.[9] Moreover, as early as 1968, Nelson had performed onstage under her stepson's direction, giving a well-received performance as Mary Tyrone in a regional production of O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night;[10][11] reprising the role she'd first played on Broadway in 1957, initially as Florence Eldridge's understudy, and then as the permanent replacement for an ailing Fay Bainter during the show's national tour.[12] Both critic Claudia Cassidy and director—and Group Theatre co-founder—Robert Lewis judged Nelson's Mary Tyrone the finest they'd ever seen.[13][14][15]

Reviewing the 1966 revival of Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth staged by Douglas Campbell at Minnesota's Guthrie Theatre, critic Stanley Kauffmann writes:

He [Campbell] has helped Ruth Nelson to a performance of Mrs. Antrobus that is very easily the best of the three I have seen (two of them on Broadway).[a] She is matriarchal without being maudlin, and (which is as rare in art as in life) she reveals a human being under the Mother. Miss Nelson misses no nuance or reality that the part offers, and in one moment—when she mourns her murdered son—she touches true elegy.[18]

Nelson's final feature film appearance was in 1990's Awakenings; her performance—as the mother of a hospital patient played by Robert De Niro[19][20] (a role which—in a widely disseminated contemporaneous story published by Premiere Magazine—was erroneously reported as having gone to an Oscar-flaunting Shelley Winters)[21]—was singled out for praise by several critics,[22] including the Wall Street Journal's Julie Salamon: "Nelson achieves a wrenching beauty that stands out even among these exceptional actors doing exceptional things."[23] In her 2012 memoir, the film's director, Penny Marshall, recalls:

Ruth was a great lady. She was a New York stage actress in the 1930s who transitioned to movies but was blacklisted in the 1950s when her second husband was among those Senator Joseph McCarthy labeled a Communist. She was victimized by association and didn't work for three decades. When I met her, she was eighty-four and had battled a brain tumor and also had arthritis. I stared at her slender arms and gnarled hands. It looked like she had pushed her kid's arms and legs down for years. I liked her. I couldn't get her insured, but I didn't care. Neither did she. She wanted to do it. To me, that’s what the movie was about.[24]

Personal life[edit]

Nelson was married twice. She wed actor William Challee on August 2, 1931. They divorced in 1937.[25] In 1947, Nelson married actor/director John Cromwell, whom she had first met two years before on the set of Anna and the King of Siam.[26][27] The marriage lasted 32 years until Cromwell's death in 1979 from a pulmonary embolism.[28]

She was the stepmother of actor James Cromwell.[29][30]

Death[edit]

Nelson died on September 12, 1992, at her home in New York City from brain cancer complicated by a stroke and pneumonia.[8][24]

Filmography[edit]

Film[edit]

Year Title Role Notes
1943 The North Star Nadya Simonov
1944 None Shall Escape Alice Grimm
1944 The Eve of St. Mark Nell West
1944 Wilson Ellen Wilson
1944 The Keys of the Kingdom Lisbeth Chisholm
1945 A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Miss McDonough
1945 The Girl of the Limberlost Kate Comstock
1946 Shock Mrs. Margaret Cross Uncredited
1946 Sentimental Journey Mrs. McMasters
1946 Anna and the King of Siam Unknown Uncredited[27]
1946 Till the End of Time Amy Harper
1946 Humoresque Esther Boray
1947 The Sea of Grass Selina Hall, Sam Hall's Wife
1947 Mother Wore Tights Miss Ridgeway
1948 Arch of Triumph Madame Fessier
1977 The Late Show Mrs. Schmidt
1977 3 Women Mrs. Rose
1978 A Wedding Aunt Beatrice Sloan Cory
1989 Sea of Love Woman on the street
1990 Awakenings Mrs. Lowe

Television[edit]

Year Title Role Notes
1979 Visions Amelia "Ladies in Waiting"
1980 Ryan's Hope Mrs. Merck "1.1322"
1980 A Christmas Without Snow Inez TV film
1981 Hart to Hart Ida Cox "Blue Chip Murder"
1981 Skokie Grandma Jannsen TV film
1983 The Haunting Passion Judith Granville TV film
1991 Lethal Innocence Bernice TV film

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ Presumably, the performances to which Nelson's is being compared—that is, those seen in the only two productions staged on Broadway prior to this 1966 revival—are those by Florence Eldridge in the original 1942 production and Helen Hayes in 1955.[16][17]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Ohio, County Marriages, 1789-2016", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:ZZBV-F9W2 : 15 October 2021), Sanford Leroy Nelson and Genevra Delphine Mudge, 1904.
  2. ^ "Eva Mudge Gets Divorce". The Evening World. September 30, 1914. p. 7. Retrieved October 25, 2022.
  3. ^ a b "Ruth Nelson, 87; Veteran Actress". Los Angeles Times. September 14, 1992. Retrieved September 10, 2013.
  4. ^ "Local Woman Visits Ex-charge, Now in 'Elizabeth, the Queen'". The Capital Times. May 6, 1931. p. 4. Retrieved October 25, 2022.
  5. ^ "Ruth Nelson". IBDb.
  6. ^ Shipman, David (September 22, 1992). "Obituary: Ruth Nelson". The Independent. Retrieved September 10, 2013.
  7. ^ "Cromwell" essay by Kingsley Canham, in World Film Directors, Vol. One 1890-1940 p. 158
  8. ^ a b Lambert, Bruce (September 13, 1992). "Ruth Nelson, 87, an Actress for Nearly 70 Years". The New York Times. Retrieved September 10, 2013.
  9. ^ Rich, Frank (April 8, 1982). "Theatre: 'Three Acts of Recognition,' Foreman Extravaganza'". The New York Times. pp. C11. ProQuest 2610466570. Some vignettes, as translated by Sophie Wilkins, are arresting. [...] Frank Maraden, as a failed actor, suddenly turns on a kindly old woman (Ruth Nelson) for giving him a birthday sweater purchased cheap at Woolworth's. [...] The cast members who fit best into Mr. Foreman's stylized scheme are Miss Nelson, Miss MacIntosh, James Cromwell, Cristine Rose, Bill Raymond (of the Mabou Mines), and Kate Manheim, that inimitable, ravaged siren of the anomic void. The others are either incompetent or waste time trying to create naturalistic characterizations when none are warranted.
  10. ^ Kelly, Kevin (April 23, 1968). "Perfection on Stage West". The Boston Globe. p. 33. Retrieved August 28, 2022.
  11. ^ "'Long Day's Journey' Final, Finest Stage West Offering of Year". Holyoke Transcript-Telegram. p. 9. Retrieved February 12, 2023.
  12. ^ O'Neill, Pat (February 19, 1958). "Role at Nixon Is Arduous; Ruth Nelson Talks of Her Part in O'Neill Play; Actress Finds This Role a Drain on Energy; Husband, Noted Director, Says It Grips People". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. p. 20. Retrieved September 2, 2022.
  13. ^ Cassidy, Claudia (May 4, 1964). "On the Aisle: In the Expanding Realm of Shakespeare Whodunit; How About Malvolio at Agincourt?". The Chicago Tribune. p. B3. Retrieved September 2, 2022.
  14. ^ Harris, Dale (September 18, 1992). "Obituary: Ruth Nelson, Conscience of the Group". The Guardian. p. 35. Retrieved September 2, 2022.
  15. ^ Lewis, Robert (1984). Slings and Arrows : Theater in my Life. New York: Stein and Day. p. 330. ISBN 0-8128-2965-4.
  16. ^ Ibee (November 25, 1952). "Plays on Broadway: The Skin of Our Teeth". Variety. p. 52. Retrieved September 6, 2022.
  17. ^ McCord, Bert (August 17, 1955). "'Skin of Our Teeth Opens at ANTA Theater Tonight". New York Herald Tribune. p. 16. ProQuest 1327289419. Helen Hayes and Mary Martin head the cast, with Miss Hayes playing Mrs. Antrobus and Miss Martin, Sabina.
  18. ^ Kauffmann, Stanley; New York Times Service. (June 2, 1966). "Campbell Praised for 'Crackling' 'Skin of Our Teeth' Production". Minneapolis Tribune. p. 45. Retrieved September 6, 2022.
  19. ^ Maltin, Leonard (September 1991). "Awakenings". Video Review. Retrieved March 7, 2022
  20. ^ Agan, Patrick (1993). Robert De Niro: The Man, the Myth and the Movies. London: Robert Hale. pp. 187–188 ISBN 9780709052241. Retrieved March 7, 2022.
  21. ^ "Shelley Winters Flaunts Talent". The Baltimore Sun. January 25, 1990. p. 2F. Retrieved September 12, 2022.
  22. ^ Stone, Judy (December 20, 1990). "De Niro Shines in "Awakenings'". The San Francisco Chronicle. p. 4. ProQuest 302504282. For an all-too-brief time, he's free of the deeply symbiotic relationship with his too-devoted mother (Ruth Nelson, so splendidly shaken by his unexpected 'recovery'). See also:
  23. ^ Salamon, Julie (December 20, 1990). "Real Rip van Winkles in 'Awakenings'". The Wall Street Journal. pp. A14. ProQuest 135423138..
  24. ^ a b Marshall, Penny (2012). My Mother Was Nuts: A Memoir. Boston: New Harvest/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. pp. 239–240. ISBN 978-0-547-89262-7.
  25. ^ "COURT ACTIONS FILED". Reno Gazette-Journal. August 13, 1937.
  26. ^ "PURELY PERSONAL". Los Angeles Times. September 10, 1947.
  27. ^ a b Sullivan, Dan (May 31, 1964). "Nun Launches a Star for Guthrie Theater". Minneapolis Tribune. p. 1 Ent.. Retrieved September 6, 2022.
  28. ^ "John Cromwell – Hollywood Star Walk". Los Angeles Times. October 1, 1979. Retrieved September 10, 2013.
  29. ^ Cromwell, James (January 8, 2021). "Teenage Kicks: James Cromwell on being raised among film royalty, avoiding the draft, and losing at tennis; My Three Parents". The Guardian. p. SS1-3. ProQuest 2492951407. My stepmother [Ruth Nelson], whom I consider my second mother, was a member of the New York Group Theatre. We went to see her perform Mary Tyrone in Long Day's Journey Into Night. When they announced her name, the audience booed, which was strange. At the end of the play, they gave her a standing ovation.
  30. ^ Weinrab, Bernard (July 30, 1999). "At the Movies: Getting Older? Great!". New York Times. p. 24. ProQuest 431194745. By the time actors turn 50, their careers often take a downhill slide. Not 59-year-old James Cromwell's. [...] The actor grew up in Hollywood. His father was John Cromwell, an actor and director who was blacklisted in 1954 and then moved to the East Coast. His mother, Kay Johnson, was a stage and film actress, as was his stepmother, Ruth Nelson.

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