Ruth Roman, '50s film actress

LAGUNA BEACH, Calif. -- Ruth Roman, who starred opposite Gary Cooper and Errol Flynn and survived the Andrea Doria wreck at sea, died in her sleep Thursday. She was 75.
In 1956, she and her 3-year-old son were returning from Italy aboard the luxury passenger liner Andrea Doria when it was struck by another ship. More than fifty people died and 760 survived after the ship went down.
The Boston-born actress got her start in community plays at age 9. She attended drama school and later moved to Hollywood.
Roman appeared in some minor films before her big break in Stanley Kramer's 1949 "Champion," which featured Kirk Douglas as an unscrupulous boxer. Following the film, Warner Bros. offered Roman a contract and she starred in nine films in less than two years opposite Cooper, Flynn and James Stewart.
Roman also appeared in "Beyond the Forest" with Bette Davis, "Three Secrets" with Patricia Neal and "Mara Maru" with Flynn. Roman appeared in more than 30 movies, most of them in the 1950s, and a number of television shows in the 1960s and 1970s.

1947 Project blog

Olivia de Havilland's 'Advisor' Lands in Jail

May 30, 1947
Hollywood

“Psst! Olivia de Havilland! “Operation Everything” is off!”

That’s the happy news police gave today to the Academy award-winning actress, with the arrest of her self-styled advisor, Paul Randall, a 34-year-old artist from Chicago who has been inundating de Havilland with unsolicited advice letters signed “St. Paul” or with a creepy P-in-a-circle motif.

The letters were followed by recent telegrams announcing Randall’s imminent arrival in Los Angeles and demanding de Havilland meet him “alone.” Today he angrily phoned de Havilland’s agent Kurt Frints to protest her failure to meet him at Municipal Airport. He told Frints that he was in town to carry out “Operations Everything,” and that Miss de Havilland, whom he had met twelve years ago when they were doing theatrical work (in Van Nuys, no less), would understand what he meant. He intended to wait at 1738 N. Las Palmas Avenue, where “she better see me.”

Instead it was detectives who came to take a look at St. Paul in his new digs in Hollywood Jail. They wired Chicago for more information, and asked that police psychiatrist Dr. Paul De River examine him. Olivia de Havilland denies knowing her visitor.


Maybe de Havilland was in town to work on The Snake Pit?

1738 Las Palmas Today...

Look familiar? Julia Roberts was saved from "the Life" by
Richard Gere at this hotel... in "Pretty Woman."

Cultural historian Kim Cooper publishes Scram, a journal of unpopular culture (http://www.scrammagazine.com)