Happy Ann Rutherford Centennial
Thursday, November 2, 2017 at 9:00AM by Nathaniel R
Ann Rutherford in Bermuda Mystery (1944)
Today marks the centennial of studio system regular Ann Rutherford. Though she's best remembered today for her minor role in Gone With the Wind (Scarlett's little sister Carreen) she was actually a headliner both before and after that all time classic...
Her best remembered role outside Carreen O'Hara is surely "Polly Benedict" in several Mickey Rooney Andy Hardy features though she appeared in other classics too like A Christmas Carol (1938), Pride & Prejudice (1940), The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947), and The Adventures of Don Juan (1948). Supposedly she was offered the old Rose part in Titanic (1997) in her retirement but turned it down. Whoops !
Evelyn Keyes, Ann Rutherford, and Vivien Leigh as the O'Hara sisters
Ann Rutherford with her bestie and fellow Old Hollywood actress Anne Jeffreys at the TCM festival a handful of years back. Rutherford died in 2012, Jeffreys passed away just a month ago.
I'll admit I'm not that familiar with her work but she my understanding is that she had a loyal fanbase. Any Rutherford devotees out there?
Reader Comments (2)
She's not an actress I know a lot about, but I associate her more with the "Andy Hardy" series than "Gone with the Wind". GWTW is not held in as high esteem as it used to be, but the female actors dominated it, Hattie McDaniel, Olivia de Havilland, Ona Munson and that British interloper who stole the part from Paulette.
I'm a big fan of hers.
She actually requested the loan out for GWTW when Mayer had turned it down because she knew it was going to be something special. He tried to convince her that the role was too small for a performer of her stature but she didn't care feeling that the film would last and how right she was. In her later years she spent a great deal of time attending GWTW events and was one of the last major stars of the film to be able to do so.
Otherwise she was cute and spunky in those Andy Hardy movies but really was shown to better advantage in other films. Many of her films were B's but she made a series of pleasant films with Red Skelton all with the word Whistling in the title where he's a radio star and she his fiancee who are always getting into and out of scrapes. She was a fair damsel in distress to Errol Flynn in one of his swashbucklers "The Adventures of Don Juan" and one of her best is Orchestra Wives where she's a band wife touring with Glenn Miller's band. It's heaven for any fan of his since it's loaded with his music wall to wall.
She did several of those cool vignettes for TCM where she shared her memories of her years at MGM and certain films. She comes across as a sweet, sharp lady.