Ruth GordonFilmography

Voyage of the Rock Aliens

Actors: Pia Zadora, Tom Nolan, Craig Sheffer, Alison La Placa, Michael Berryman

Synopsis: When a collection of alien rock stars descend to earth, a young teenage couple finds themselves caught up in an unusual adventure. The film was shelved for quite some time, hence the presence of octogenarian Ruth Gordon, who died in 1985. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide Read More

Maxie

Actors: Glenn Close, Mandy Patinkin, Ruth Gordon, Barnard Hughes, Valerie Curtin

Synopsis: In this comedy, an ordinary woman finds herself sharing both her home and her body with a ghost who has a pronounced wild streak. Jan (Glenn Close) and Nick (Mandy Patinkin) are a couple moving into an apartment in an old Victorian house in San Francisco. Jan is a straight-laced secretary working Read More

Mugsy's Girls

Actors: Ruth Gordon, Laura Branigan, Joanna Dierek, Rebecca Forstadt

Synopsis: Six sorority sisters are desperate for rent money, so, encouraged and trained by their den mother, they enter a mud-wrestling tournament in Las Vegas. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide Read More

Jimmy the Kid

Actors: Gary Coleman, Paul Le Mat, Dee Wallace, Don Adams, Walter Olkewicz

Synopsis: Gary Coleman stars as the title character, the bratty son of wealthy parents, who is kidnapped by a pair of bumbling crooks. The experience winds up teaching the pampered boy the realities of childhood. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide Read More

Don't Go to Sleep

Synopsis: Little Mary (Robin Ignico) is haunted by the guilty memory of her sister Jennifer, who died in an auto accident not long ago. Jennifer had always been more adored by their parents, and Mary can't help thinking that her jealousy was behind Jennifer's death. Soon, Mary begins to imagine that there's Read More

Hardhat and Legs

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Ruth Gordon

Synopsis: Made for television and initially telecast February 9, 1980, Hardhat and Legs is a new-fashioned romance from the old-fashioned writing team of Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon. The "hardhat" is pugnacious construction worker Kevin Dobson. The "legs" is Sharon Gless, a high-class NY divorcee who Read More

My Bodyguard

Actors: Chris Makepeace, Adam Baldwin, Matt Dillon, Ruth Gordon, John Houseman, Martin Mull

Synopsis: This quietly compelling film explores the hardships and anxieties of high school with intelligence, sensitivity, warmth and humor. Chris Makepeace stars as a shy, bookish student who has recently moved to Chicago and begun a new school. There he finds himself the target of a group of punks led by Matt Dillon Read More

Any Which Way You Can

Actors: Clint Eastwood, Sondra Locke, Ruth Gordon, William Smith, Harry Guardino

Synopsis: This sequel to Every Which Way But Loose finds Philo Beddoe (Clint Eastwood) on the road, orangutan companion Clyde in tow, as he makes his way as a bare-knuckle fighter. The action begins with Philo punching out a new victim while Clyde relieves himself on the seat of a police car, setting the Read More

Boardwalk

Actors: Ruth Gordon, Lee Strasberg, Janet Leigh, Joe Silver, Eli Mintz, Eddie Barth

Synopsis: In this drama, David Rosen (Lee Strasberg) and his wife Becky (Ruth Gordon) have lived in the same Coney Island neighborhood for nearly all their married life. But the area is not what it used to be, and a gang leader named Strut (Kim Delgado) has decided to make Coney Island his new turf. Strut Read More

Scavenger Hunt

Actors: Richard Benjamin, James Coco, Scatman Crothers, Cloris Leachman, Cleavon Little

Synopsis: When millionaire Vincent Price dies, he leaves a riotous will which amounts to a scavenger hunt, the winner of which receives the entire willed fortune. So 15 potential heirs are sent on a zany quest where they must outrace and outsmart one another to inherit the big bucks. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

Every Which Way But Loose

Actors: Clint Eastwood, Sondra Locke, Geoffrey Lewis, Beverly D'Angelo, Ruth Gordon

Synopsis: Clint Eastwood's first comedy feature proved to be one of his most profitable vehicles. Eastwood plays Philo Beddoe, a bare-knuckle boxer who travels from fight to fight in a beat-up truck, accompanied by his "pal" Clyde, a orangutan with a mean right hook, and his human buddy Orville (Geoffrey Lewis Read More

Perfect Gentlemen

Actors: Lauren Bacall, Sandy Dennis, Lisa Pelikan, Ruth Gordon

Synopsis: We're not sure who the gentlemen are in this TV movie adaptation of Nora Ephron's Perfect Gentlemen, but there's no doubt as to the identity of the ladies. The plot revolves around three convict's wives. Sandy Dennis owns a bankrupt deli; Lisa Pelikan is pregnant and broke; and Lauren Bacall (in Read More

Saturday Night Live: Ruth Gordon

Actors: Ruth Gordon, Chuck Berry

Synopsis: This 1977 episode of Saturday Night Live is hosted by Ruth Gordon and features musical guest Chuck Berry. ~ Skyler Miller, All Movie Guide Read More

The Prince of Central Park

Actors: Ruth Gordon

Synopsis: The Prince of Central Park is 11-year-old Jay Jay (T. J. Hargrave). An orphan from Hell's Kitchen who has been shunted from one foster home to another, Jay Jay is conditioned to despise, or at the very least distrust, all adults and authority figures. Running off to Central Park, Jay Jay and his Read More

Try and Catch Me

Synopsis: Try and Catch Me could easily be the title of any episode of the TV series Columbo. It so happens, however, that this particular installment aired on June 23, 1978. Ruth Gordon guest stars as a popular mystery writer who turns one of her own plots into reality by bumping off her hateful nephew. Read More

The Big Bus

Actors: Joseph Bologna, Stockard Channing, John Beck, René Auberjonois, Ned Beatty

Synopsis: The Big Bus is set aboard a nonstop, nuclear-powered luxury bus commandeered by Joseph Bologna. Naturally, Bologna is a tortured hero with a deep dark secret (he keeps insisting he didn't eat all those passengers on his last disastrous drive). Stockard Channing and Harold Gould play the designers Read More

Emergency!: The Nuisance

Synopsis: Injured in a hit-and-run accident, John (Randolph Mantooth) ends up in a Rampart hospital bed, where he proceeds to drive the staff crazy. Meanwhile, Roy is saddled with John's replacement Craig Bice (John R. Richardson in his first series appearance), an unsufferable perfectionist whose strict Read More

Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby

Synopsis: This sequel to the smash hit chiller Rosemary's Baby (1968) chronicles the childhood of Rosemary's demon spawn. The still distraught mother, whose husband sold his soul, thus allowing Satan himself to father her child, is helped out by her charming neighbors the devil worshippers. The film is also Read More

The Great Houdinis

Actors: Paul Michael Glaser, Sally Struthers, Vivian Vance, Ruth Gordon

Synopsis: Made for television, The Great Houdinis tells the life story of famed American illusionist/escape-artist Harry Houdini and his wife Bess. Studiously avoiding covering the same ground as the 1953 Houdini theatrical-film biopic, director Mel Shavelson's script for Great Houdinis spends a great deal Read More

Kojak: I Want to Report a Dream

Synopsis: In her first TV-series appearance, stage and screen star Ruth Gordon is cast as spiritualist Eudora Temple, who has had visions of women being strangled. Sure enough, a killing spree follows Eudora's grim prognostications, whereupon Lt. Kojak (Telly Savalas) contacts the woman to ask what else Read More

Isn't It Shocking?

Actors: Louise Lasser, Lloyd Nolan, Alan Alda, Ruth Gordon

Synopsis: This curious made-for-TV movie stars Alan Alda as a police detective in a small New England town. The community's elderly are dying at an unusual rate, prompting Alda to investigate. He deduces that the old folks are being murdered, but can't find a motive (there are no robberies involved, and Read More

Harold and Maude

Actors: Ruth Gordon, Bud Cort, Vivian Pickles, Cyril Cusack, Charles Tyner

Synopsis: A young man with a death wish and a 79-year-old high on life find love in Hal Ashby's cult black comedy. Deadpan rich boy Harold (Bud Cort) keeps staging elaborate suicide tableaux to get the attention of his mother (Vivian Pickles), but she keeps planning his brilliant future for him instead. Read More

Where's Poppa?

Actors: George Segal, Ruth Gordon, Ron Leibman, Trish VanDevere, Barnard Hughes

Synopsis: Director Carl Reiner, most closely associated with the homey values of situation comedies, shocked, surprised, and (in some cases) delighted his admirers with the jet-black comedy Where's Poppa?. George Segal plays Gordon Hocheiser, a New York attorney whose love life is constantly being sabotaged Read More

Whatever Happened to Aunt Alice?

Actors: Geraldine Page, Ruth Gordon, Rosemary Forsyth, Robert Fuller, Mildred Dunnock

Synopsis: Mrs. Marrable (Geraldine Page) is a bereaved widow who takes to hiring housekeepers then kills them for their money in this shadowy macabre drama. When Miss Tinsley (Mildred Dunnick) disappears, her former employer Alice (Ruth Gordon) investigates. Posing as a maid, she gains employment with the Read More

Rosemary's Baby

Actors: Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon, Sidney Blackmer, Maurice Evans

Synopsis: In Roman Polanski's first American film, adapted from Ira Levin's horror bestseller, a young wife comes to believe that her offspring is not of this world. Waifish Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow) and her struggling actor husband, Guy (John Cassavetes), move into the Bramford, an old New York City Read More

Rosie!

Crew: Play Author, Screen Story

Actors: Rosalind Russell, Sandra Dee, Brian Aherne, Audrey Meadows, James Farentino

Synopsis: Rosie! is directly based upon Ruth Gordon's play A Very Rich Woman, which was itself based upon a French play by Philippe Heriat, but the indirect source for all three versions is Shakespeare's King Lear. Rosalind Russell has the Lear part, here transformed from a powerful king into a rich, madcap Read More

Lord Love a Duck

Actors: Roddy McDowall, Tuesday Weld, Lola Albright, Martin West, Ruth Gordon

Synopsis: An intelligent, eccentric high school senior devotes his life to indulging the every whim of the beautiful girl he adores in this quirky, dark-humored comedy. Roddy McDowall plays Alan Musgrave, an odd duck who immediately falls for the school's new student, Barbara Ann Greene (Tuesday Weld). Read More

Inside Daisy Clover

Actors: Natalie Wood, Christopher Plummer, Robert Redford, Roddy McDowall, Ruth Gordon

Synopsis: Daisy Clover (Natalie Wood) goes from teenage girl to movie star practically overnight when her demented mother enters her voice in a talent-search contest. From a broken-down carnival on the Santa Monica Pier, in no time at all she is attending glamorous Hollywood parties. But Daisy soon learns Read More

The Actress

Crew: Play Author, Screenwriter

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Jean Simmons, Teresa Wright, Anthony Perkins, Ian Wolfe

Synopsis: The Actress is based on Years Ago, one of several autobiographies by actress/playwright Ruth Gordon. Jean Simmons stars as blossoming teenager Ruth Gordon Jones, who is determined to become a famous stage star despite the objections of her stubborn ex-sea captain father Clinton Jones (Spencer Tracy Read More

The Marrying Kind

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Judy Holliday, Aldo Ray, Madge Kennedy, Sheila Bond, John Alexander, Mickey Shaughnessy, Griff Barnett

Synopsis: A master blend of comedy, domestic drama and sudden tragedy, The Marrying Kind remains one of the best collaborations between star Judy Holliday, screenwriters Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon, and director George Cukor. The film begins at the end, with married couple Florence and Chet Keefer (Judy Holliday Read More

Pat and Mike

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Aldo Ray, Jim Backus, William Ching, Sammy White

Synopsis: Pat (Katharine Hepburn), a college phys-ed instructor, enters into professional competition as a golf and tennis player. Mike (Spencer Tracy), a likeable but unscrupulous sports promoter, first attempts to bribe Pat to lose, but later becomes her manager. Pat performs brilliantly until her Read More

Adam's Rib

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Judy Holliday, Tom Ewell, David Wayne

Synopsis: Written by Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin, Adam's Rib is a peerless comedy predicated on the double standard. Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn play Adam and Amanda Bonner, a husband-and-wife attorney team, both drawn to a case of attempted murder. The defendant (Judy Holliday) had tearfully Read More

A Double Life

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Whit Bissell, Ronald Colman, Signe Hasso, Betsy Blair, David Bond, Edmond O'Brien, Shelley Winters, Harlan Briggs, Georgia Caine, Ray Collins

Synopsis: Ronald Colman won an Academy Award for his portrayal of an off-the-beam actor in A Double Life. A beloved stage star, Anthony John (Colman), has problems with his private life due to his unpredictable outbursts of temper. This trait has already cost him his wife, Brita (Signe Hasso), and threatens Read More

Over 21

Crew: Play Author

Actors: Irene Dunne, Alexander Knox, Charles Coburn, Jeff Donnell, Loren Tindall

Synopsis: Based on a play by Ruth Gordon, Over 21 represents the felicitous teaming of two middle-aged but attractive film favorites. Alexander Knox plays newspaper editor Max Wharton, who despite his age, patriotically signs up for Officer Candidate School. The humor arises from the fact that Wharton has Read More

Edge of Darkness

Actors: Errol Flynn, Ann Sheridan, Walter Huston, Tom Fadden, Judith Anderson, Nancy Coleman, Helmut Dantine

Synopsis: The Norwegian resistance to the Nazi occupation of their country inspired several wartime films from Hollywood, including this Warner Bros. production, filmed in and around Monterey, California. In October 1942, a German observation airplane discovers a seaside village named Trollness where the Read More

Action in the North Atlantic

Actors: Humphrey Bogart, Raymond Massey, Ruth Gordon, Alan Hale, Julie Bishop

Synopsis: Action in the North Atlantic is solid wartime propaganda with a rather endearing inner lining of left-wing politics, courtesy (no doubt) of scenarist John Howard Lawson, who based his screenplay on a novel by maritime specialist Guy Gilpatric. While running war goods to America's Russian allies, a Read More

The North Star

Actors: Anne Baxter, Dana Andrews, Walter Huston, Walter Brennan, Farley Granger, Ann Harding

Synopsis: In this bit of WWII propaganda (designed to boost support of America's alliance with Russia against Germany), Kolya (Dana Andrews), Kurin (Walter Huston), Damian (Farley Granger), and Marina (Anne Baxter) are members of a farming collective in the Ukraine known as the North Star. The hard-working Read More

Two-Faced Woman

Actors: Greta Garbo, Melvyn Douglas, Constance Bennett, Ruth Gordon, Robert Sterling, Roland Young

Synopsis: Attempting to Americanize Greta Garbo to appeal to American audiences (since most of the foreign markets for Hollywood product had been cut off due to World War II), M.G.M.'s Two-Faced Woman succeeded in making Garbo angry enough to announce her retirement from the screen. Two-Faced Woman was Read More

Abe Lincoln in Illinois

Actors: Raymond Massey, Ruth Gordon, Gene Lockhart, Mary Howard, Dorothy Tree

Synopsis: Raymond Massey plays Abe Lincoln in this moving adaptation of Robert Sherwood's Pulitzer Prize-winning play. Expanded a bit for cinematic purposes, the film traces Lincoln's progress from his days of scrambling for a living as a woodsman, to his courtship of the tragic Ann Rutledge (Mary Howard) Read More

Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet

Actors: Edward G. Robinson, Ruth Gordon, Otto Kruger, Donald Crisp, Maria Ouspenskaya

Synopsis: Edward G. Robinson portrays real-life German medical researcher Paul Erlich, the man who discovered and perfected "Formula 606," the cure for syphilis. The world at large would prefer to treat the disease as though it does not exist, so Erlich spends most of his life underfunded and frustrated. A Read More

Blue Streak McCoy

Synopsis: Veteran cowboy star Harry Carey played a ranger in this silent Western melodrama directed for Universal by action specialist B. Reeves Eason. Ranger Job McCoy, nicknamed "Blue Streak," comes to the aid of prospector Howard Marlowe (Charles Arling) and his blond daughter Eileen (Lila Leslie), whose Read More