Ruta Lee Biography

Fast Facts

• Has served as chairman and president of the mental health organization The Thalians for more than 45 years
• Was the Commissioner of the Los Angeles Board of Environmental Quality and was the national spokesperson for the American Cancer Society
• In 1964 she petitioned Soviet Union Premier Nikita Khrushchev to pardon her grandmother, Ludvise Kamandulis, who had been held in an internment camp since World War II, and later rescued her cousin, Maryte Kaseta, from Lithuania in 1987
• Started out as an usherette and candy girl at Grauman's Chinese Theatre
• Made her screen acting debut in the TV series "Fireside Theatre" in 1953
• Best known for her role as Diana in "Witness for the Prosecution" and as Ruth in "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers․"
• Is also a stage actress, and has appeared in musicals like "Dolly" and "Annie" and plays like "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" and "Goodbye Charlie․"
• Was a longtime participant on the game show "Hollywood Squares" in the 1960s and 1970s
• Her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is directly in front of the box office of Grauman's Chinese Theatre, from which she was fired from her job as a career several decades earlier
• Appeared in an episode of "Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue" in 2000