Hollywood's Ruta Lee Chats With Donna Lyons on "Love, Liberty and Lip Gloss"

Certainly one of Hollywood's most glamorous ladies, Ruta Lee is also one of its most multifaceted and top-notched civic contributors. She was signed by MGM as the youngest of the Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and subsequently in Funny Face with Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn, as Tyrone Power's secret love in Witness for the Prosecution, and Frank Sinatra's leading lady in Sergeant's Three, to name but a few of the many films in her credits.

Simultaneously, Lee launched into television, with over 2000 appearances on shows from Perry Mason to Power Rangers, Twilight Zone to Murder She Wrote, Hogan's Heroes to Love Boat, and Roseanne. Lee was also co-host on NBC's High Rollers with Alex Trebek, a regular on Hollywood Squares with Peter Marshall and made several television movies.

As a young starlet, Ruta made international headlines when she convinced Khrushchev to release her 90 year old grandmother from the Soviet Union. She brought her to the U.S. where she lived her remaining years in the sunshine of freedom.

Critics have raved about all of her stage roles, but two stand out as favorites, The Unsinkable Molly Brown and Goodbye Charlie.

Lee is highly acclaimed for her leadership role in The Thalians, a charitable organization which is committed to good mental health from pediatric to geriatric. She has been either chairman or president for over 45 years… roles exchanged between herself and Debbie Reynolds. The Thalians honored Ruta Lee for her dedication to mental health, where she joined the ranks of previous honorees, Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Mary Tyler Moore, Whoopi Goldberg, Angela Lansbury and and Clint Eastwood, to name just a few.