Ruth Attaway

Ruth Attaway

Birth : 1910-06-28, Greenville, Mississippi, USA

Death : 1987-09-21

History

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Ruth Attaway (June 28, 1910 – September 21, 1987) was an American film and stage actress. Among the films she appeared in include Raintree County (1957), Porgy and Bess (1959) and Being There (1979). Attaway was born on June 28, 1910, in Greenville, Mississippi. She was the daughter of physician W.A. Attaway, PhD. Her siblings included a sister, Florence and a brother, William. She graduated from the University of Illinois, where she majored in sociology. Attaway made her Broadway debut in 1936 in the Pulitzer Prize winning play, You Can't Take It with You. She was the first director of the New York Players Guild, a black repertory theater company formed in New York in 1945. From 1954 to 1955, she portrayed Anna Hicks in the play Mrs. Patterson at the National Theater. From 1964 to 1967, she was with the Repertory Society of Lincoln Center. Attaway made her film debut by portraying Moll in The President's Lady (1953), opposite Susan Hayward and Charlton Heston. She went on to play a variety of characters in film such as Philomena in The Young Don't Cry (1957), Serena Robbins in Porgy and Bess (1959), the Farmer's Wife in Terror in the City (1964), Edna in Conrack (1974) and Louise in Being There (1979). In 1954, Attaway was within the cast of an unaired pilot titled Three's Company. She also played Delia in the 1978 television movie, The Bermuda Depths. Attaway was married to Allan Morrison, an editor of Ebony. He died on May 29, 1968, at the age of 51. Attaway died on September 21, 1987, in New York Hospital of injuries resulting from a Manhattan apartment fire. She was 77 years old.

Profile

Ruth Attaway

Movies

Being There
Being There
Louise
A simple-minded gardener named Chance has spent all his life in the Washington D.C. house of an old man. When the man dies, Chance is put out on the street with no knowledge of the world except what he has learned from television.
The Bermuda Depths
The Bermuda Depths
Delia
Scientists investigating the briny deep are threatened by a giant turtle and the spirit of a young brunette swimmer in the Bermuda Triangle.
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three
Mayor's Nurse
In New York, armed men hijack a subway car and demand a ransom for the passengers. Even if it's paid, how could they get away?
Conrack
Conrack
Edna
A young, white teacher is assigned to an isolated island off the coast of South Carolina populated mostly by poor black families. He finds that the basically illiterate, neglected children there know so little of the world outside their island.
Terror in the City
Terror in the City
Farmer's Wife
Rural runaway finds himself in Manhattan.
Porgy and Bess
Porgy and Bess
Serena Robbins
Set in the early 1900s in the fictional Catfish Row section of Charleston, South Carolina, which serves as home to a black fishing community, the story focuses on the titular characters, crippled beggar Porgy, who travels about in a goat-drawn cart, and the drug-addicted Bess, who lives with stevedore Crown, the local bully.
The Young Don't Cry
The Young Don't Cry
Philomena
An orphaned teen gets involved with some chain-gang convicts.
The President's Lady
The President's Lady
Moll
The story of president Andrew Jackson from his early years, through his meeting with and subsequent marriage to Rachel Donelson Robards. The plot concentrates on the later scandal concerning the legality of their marriage and how they overcame the difficulties.