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- She was born Ruth Wilcox, the sister of director Fred McLeod Wilcox, who directed "Lassie, Come Home" (1943) and "Forbidden Planet" (1956), and former showgirl Pansy Wilcox, who was married to Loew's Inc. President Nicholas M. Schenck, one of the pioneers of the film industry. Ruth and her siblings were the children of James Wilcox, a Kentucky optometrist and drugstore owner, who was married six times, twice to one woman. His six children were from his first wife.
Ruth married former playwright and movie producer-director-writer Edgar Selwyn, for whom she appeared in his "Men Must Fight" (1933). A contract player at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, she made her first two movie appearances in Marion Davies pictures, "Five and Ten" (1931), her uncredited debut, and "Polly of the Circus" (1932), for which she received her first credit. Her most memorable role was as Pansy Peets in "Speak Easily" (1933), in which she supported Buster Keaton and Jimmy Durante and received third-billing.
She made only two more movies after appearing in "Men Must Fight," retiring after Raoul Walsh's "Baby Face Harrington" (1935), which was produced by her husband.
Ruth and Edgar Selwyn eventually divorced. They had one son, Rusty, who was born during Ruth's previous marriage to a man surnamed Snyder, and who was adopted by Edgar during their marriage. - Writer
- Soundtrack
Songwriter ("Poor Butterfly"), composer and conductor, one of the nine founders of the American Society of Composers and Publishers (ASCAP) in 1914 and its director from then into 1941, and he was also its treasurer between 1917 and 1928. He was educated in public schools and in music study in Chicago, thereafter leading his own dance orchestra, and he also worked as a staff composer for a Chicago publishing company. His Broadway stage scores include "The Runaways", "Fantana", "Mexicana", "A Knight For a Day", "The Midnight Sons", "The Jolly Bachelors", "The Never Homes", "The Ziegfeld Follies" (1911, 1912, 1913, 1914), "A Winsome Widow", "Hip Hip Hooray", "The Big Show", "Cheer Up", "The Kiss Burglar", "Happy Days", "Good Times", "Better Times", "Yours Truly", and "Three Cheers". His chief musical collaborators included Robert B. Smith, Glen MacDonough, Harry B. Smith, E. Ray Goetz, George V. Hobart, John Golden, and Anne Caldwell. His other popular-song compositions include "Look at the World and Smile", "Melodyland", "The Ladder of Roses", "Hello, I've Been Looking for You", "Jealous Moon", "Chu Chin Chow", "Melodyland", "Yours Truly", "What Am I Going to Do to Make You Love Me?", "Little Girl in Blue", "Just My Style", and "Life Is a See-Saw" plus others.