You know, it just occurred to me that the reason I'm not as crazy as the rest of you are about Jimmy Stewart is because his character was so cluelessly mean to Ruth Hussey's Elizabeth Imbrie  in The Philadelphia Story.  Yes, this is unfair, but she's just that good, I guess. Or he's really like that.

Today is Ruth Hussey's 100th Birthday, born in Providence, Rhode Island, October 30, 1911. I can count the number of pictures I've seen her in on one hand and a couple of toes, but she makes a big impression in all of them. Make it easy on yourself and watch the easiest to get: The Women (1939) or The Philadelphia Story (1940), which also grants you a double dose of Virginia Weidler.
 
Meanwhile, here she is in a strange episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents called "Mink" (1956).

I'm finding it surprisingly difficult to write about Virginia Weidler. As the smartest, most regular-looking, cleverest girl in the room, she meant the world to my sister and me. We loved her like a great friend for many years. She was the closest thing to a real person in the classic films we adored and one couldn't help but watch her and hope she'd say or do more.

If you haven't seen her in anything, you must see The Philadelphia Story. Then maybe Young Tom Edison. She's good if less herself in The Women, but that's not her fault.

By the time she was 17, Virginia had made 45 films and had been in the business for 12 years. She retired shortly after Best Foot Forward, a wise move, got married and had two children. She died in 1968 at the age of 41.

Here she is as a rabid autograph hound in her penultimate picture, The Youngest Profession (1943). Her line, "What's more important, Walter Pidgeon or liver and onions?" has become something of a motto for me.

Virginia Weidler would have been 84 today. Happy Birthday, Buddy.

An interesting quote lifted directly and wholly from IMDb:
[When asked about her career in later years,] Virginia would always change the subject as quickly as possible without being rude. She never watched her old movies or replied to requests for interviews. Although she was never one to criticize, I think our boys got the impression that their mother didn't think very much of the motion picture industry." -- Lionel Krisel, Weidler's husband