Deaths 2022

Deaths 2021

Deaths 2020

Deaths 2019

Deaths 2018

Deaths 2017

Deaths 2016

Deaths 2015

Deaths 2014

Deaths 2013

Deaths 2012

Deaths 2011

Deaths 2010

Deaths 2009


Full list by date of death

Ann Rutherford

Actress

Born - 2 November 1917, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Died - 11 June 2012

Vivacious, raven-haired. rosy-cheeked Canadian actress best remembered as Mickey Rooney's perennial on-off girlfriend Polly in MGM's long-running 'Andy Hardy' series. The daughter of opera singer John Rutherford, the actress, born Mary Therese Ann Rutherford, was on stage as a child, and lied about her age to get a contract with a minor Hollywood studio at 17. After a minor role in Student Tour (1934), she was top-billed in her second film, Waterfront Lady (1935) and subsequently played feisty heroines in Melody Trail (1935), The Lawless Nineties (1936), The Devil is Driving (1937) and others, before signing for MGM, who used her mainly as 'second leads' in light films, though she did play Vivien Leigh's sister in Gone with the Wind (1939). Some of her other MGM films were The Bride Wore Red (1937), Dramatic School (1938), Of Human Hearts (1938), Four Girls in White (1939), Pride and Prejudice (1940, as Lydia Bennet), Badlands of Dakota (1941) and three opposite Red Skelton, Whistling in the Dark (1941), Whistling in Dixie (1942) and Whistling in Brooklyn (1943). She quit her role as Polly in the Hardy series, and the studio, in 1943, but it was a mistake. Her remaining roles were fairly insignificant, among them Happy Land (1943), Bermuda Mystery (1944), Two O'Clock Courage (1945), Murder in the Music Hall (1946), The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947), The New Adventures of Don Juan (1948) and Operation Haylift (1950). She cut down her film and TV workload after marrying producer William Dozier, her second husband, in 1953. There were two latter-day film appearances, in They Only Kill Their Masters (1972) and Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1975). She died following heart problems.