It S A Wonderful Life Actress Virginia Patton Has Died Aged 97

The actress was born in Cleveland, Ohio on June 25, 1925 and was the niece of General George S. Patton. Her family moved to her father’s hometown of Portland, Oregon when she was still an infant, and the future actress stayed there until she graduated from high school and moved to Los Angeles to study at the University of Southern California. While there, he collaborated with playwright-turned-screenwriter William C. deMille, who helped found the USC film school. He was the older brother of director Cecil B. DeMille. It was this connection that led to an introduction between Patton and director Frank Capra. RIP: Actress Virginia Patton, the last surviving adult actor from the 1946 holiday classic It’s a Wonderful Life, has died. It was 97 The fledgling actress signed a contract with Warner Brothers and made her big screen debut in 1943 in Thank Your Lucky Stars. She went on to have small roles in Janie, Hollywood Canteen and The Horn Blows at Midnight. The player’s Warner contract had expired by then, and when Capra was looking for actors for the Christmas film under his new Liberty Films banner, she auditioned for the director. “I read him and he signed me,” she told the National Catholic Register in 2013, and because of the way the studio system worked back then, “I was the only girl he ever signed in his entire career.” Stewart, Donna Reed and the other cast members were under contract to other studios and on loan for the project. Patton played Ruth Dakin who married George Bailey’s brother Harry – surprising George (Jimmy Stewart) and Uncle Billy (Thomas Mitchell) when they arrived in Bedford Falls Classic Movie: Born in 1925, the Cleveland, Ohio native was the niece of General George S. Patton, and her role as Ruth Dakin was her biggest Hollywood role. The audience was first introduced to Patton’s character when George Bailey’s brother Harry arrived with a surprise – his wife. The couple are greeted at the train platform by George and Uncle Billy, played by Thomas Mitchell. Her biggest concern for the scene was how to eat buttered popcorn while wearing white gloves. “I was dressed as a young matron. I had a hat, a suit and white gloves, I was coming to meet my new in-laws,” he said at the St. Nicholas Institute in 2016. And I’m going to eat buttered popcorn with white gloves?” “We rehearsed it and Frank didn’t say anything about it, his assistant didn’t say anything about it, the cameraman didn’t say anything about it. I was sitting there, “What am I going to do?” I’ll get the popcorn in all these gloves.’ … I thought, “Well, I’m going to pretend everyone’s eating buttered popcorn with their gloves on, and everyone’s getting butter.” Tricky: Patton said her biggest worry while filming that scene where she introduces herself to her husband’s brother was how to eat buttered popcorn with white gloves He went on to make a few more films, including 1948’s Black Eagle, before retiring from show business after a small role in 1949’s The Lucky Stiff. Patton married auto executive Cruse W. Moss in 1949 and they had three children. They were married for 69 years until his death in 2018. The former actress served as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan Museum of Art and president and director of Patton Corp., an investment and real estate firm. In a 2012 interview with Patch.com, Patton noted that Capra asked her to think twice about leaving show business, but said she was comfortable with her decision. “I have a beautiful letter this [Capra] he wrote to me because I kept in touch with him,” she said. She wrote, “I just knew you would be a wonderful mother to three little babies and a wonderful husband.” Patton spent her final years in an assisted living facility in Albany, Georgia, where she died on Thursday. She was the last surviving adult actress from the holiday classic. Carol Coombs, Karolyn Grimes and Jimmy Hawkins, who played Janie, Zuzu and Tommy Bailey appear to be the last remaining actors from the film. Retired: Patton retired from Hollywood in 1949, married an auto executive and has three children. Seen here in the 1948 film Black Eagle