Pert, curly-haired Ruth Hiatt was born Ruth Redfern, a WAMPAS Baby Star
of 1924, former child actress, dancer and comedienne. She had moved
with her family from San Diego and made her screen bow at age eleven.
Ruth was briefly under contract with the Lubin company in 1915, later
moving on to Educational and then to
Mack Sennett's Keystone. Gravitating
towards comedy, she was helped along the way by a close friendship with
the writer/director Lloyd Bacon, who
introduced her to star comedian
Lloyd Hamilton. Hamilton, who had
been looking for a suitable leading lady, was impressed after meeting
the personable, dimple-cheeked and (most of all) photogenic,lass.
One of Ruth's first feature film roles was a small part in
Douglas Fairbanks's epic
swashbuckler Robin Hood (1922).
However, she established herself primarily as a leading lady of one-
and two-reelers, often cast in slapstick farce opposite comics like
Hamilton (Going East (1924)) or
Harry Langdon
(Saturday Afternoon (1926)).
At the height of her popularity, she co-starred in all 23 instalments
of the 'Smith Family' series of domestic comedies (1926-28).
As the 1920's drew to a close, Ruth wisely varied her repertoire and
managed to weather the transition from silent pictures to sound. She
now showed up in anything from crime dramas
(Shanghai Rose (1929)) to
Ken Maynard westerns
(Schreckensnacht am Black River (1932)). Ruth
continued on in supporting roles of ever diminishing size until 1941,
notably as the
'whispering nurse' in The Three Stooges
Oscar-nominated short
Men in Black (1934). After her
retirement from acting, she established a make-up business.
