Ruth Hussey
From the Washington Post:
‘Philadelphia Story’ Screen Actress Ruth Hussey Dies
by Adam Bernstein, Thursday, April 21, 2005; Page B06
Ruth Hussey, 93, the breathtaking brunette best known for her Academy Award-nominated performance as the sarcastic photographer in “The Philadelphia Story,” died April 19 at a nursing home in Thousand Oaks, Calif. She had complications from a recent hospital stay for appendicitis.
Ms. Hussey, a former Powers model, appeared in more than 40 films and typically was cast as elegant, wise and slightly world-weary women.
Director George Cukor, a friend who hired Ms. Hussey for “The Philadelphia Story” (1940), became a mentor. “He gave me one piece of advice that I always use,” she once said. “‘Keep your emotions near the surface so that you can call on them when you need to.'”
In that film, she played Liz Imbrie, the scandal-magazine photographer who, with writing partner James Stewart, is sent to cover the Main Line wedding of haughty Katharine Hepburn.
Ruth Carol Hussey was born Oct. 30, 1911, in Providence, R.I. Her ancestor Christopher Hussey was one of the original purchasers of Nantucket Island, Mass.
Noticed by a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer casting agent when “Dead End” came to Los Angeles, she was signed to a contract in 1937. Reportedly, she was hired as a threat to keep stars Myrna Loy and Norma Shearer from becoming too demanding.
Her ascent was swift. A bit player opposite Spencer Tracy in the drama “Big City” (1937), she became his co-star three years later in the frontier drama “Northwest Passage” (1940).
The Song of Soda
Here’s how I’ve been frittering away my time recently: the X.3 version of the Macintosh OS supports a version of iTunes that allows one to display the cover art of the album in conjunction with the song playing. The Jaguar version didn’t do that, and so I find myself with a staggering 1150 songs — mostly acquired in 1999 during the heady days of AudioGalaxy… sorry, Copyright Cops — with only the barest handful linking to an image file. And there doesn’t seem to be any way of sorting the tracks by available cover artwork, so it’s difficult to mount a planned mission to fill my remaining slivers of hard drive space with 200 by 200 pixel JPEGs.
So if I find myself with an idle moment or — heaven forfend! — doing some reading for my Adolescence class, I turn on Clutter and keep my fingers resting near the keyboard. Clutter searches for album cover artwork through Amazon.com, which one can paste into the system easier than if one was trying to drag and drop the data from the otherwise impeccable Firefox. Useful little toy. Because Clutter associates the artwork with the album file instead of the individual track, it’s difficult to know how many songs I have artwork for. Still and all, I’ve acquired 133 folders of artwork for 443 folders of musical artists. Not bad.
Speaking of iTunes, a very attractive married woman comes up to me yesterday and hands me a bottle cap, and I take it from her, wondering briefly if this is some variation on the old grade school pull-tab code, and how she’s going to take it when I remind her, gently, that she’s married. However, the cap’s got some sort of PepsiCo iTunes code under the cap that allows me to download a tune for free. I’m reminded of the album and a half of varied songs languishing in my virtual shopping cart and am well pleased. More pleased, perhaps, than if she’d handed me a pull-tab.
Anyway, I must say, it made me go out and buy a Pepsi-brand soda in attempts to get another free download. Hard to argue with the fiscal logic: spend 34¢ for twenty ounces of sugar water and buy a song I was going to buy anyway. Or, alternatively, spend a mere 84¢ for a soda and get half off the cost of a song. iTunes wins, the record labels win, PepsiCo cleans up, and I’m happy; everyone is happy, in fact, except for the communists. Good thing the offer ends tomorrow, or I could see this behavioral pattern getting well-entrenched into my buying habits.
And speaking of downloadable music, the other vernal song that frequently occupies my mouth and mind during this time of year is Tom Lehrer‘s blissful “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park” from the Another Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer album. Sublime stuff.
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