Actress Ruth Warrick, wife of Citizen Kane, dies

NEW YORK - Actress Ruth Warrick, who played the wife of Citizen Kane in Orson Welles' 1941 classic movie and was a star of daytime soap operas in her later years, died on Saturday at the age of 88, her agent said on Tuesday.

Born in St Joseph, Missouri, Warrick moved to Kansas City while she was in high school and later attended the University of Kansas City. A promotional tour brought her to New York where she worked in the theater with Welles.

She was handpicked by Welles for Citizen Kane, and was honoured on its 50th anniversary in 1991 by a caricature on the wall of the famed New York restaurant Sardi's.

Citizen Kane was the first of some 20 movies Warrick made before moving into television on Peyton Place and the long-running All My Children, which she joined in 1970 as meddling matriarch Phoebe Tyler.

She published an autobiography in 1980 titled The Confessions of Phoebe Tyler and made her final appearance on the show earlier this month on its 35th anniversary.

"I'll miss Ruth Warrick ... She had such class," one fan wrote on the internet message board for All My Children. Another posting said: "Phoebe the meddling snob was great."

Warrick was honoured with a Daytime Emmy Award last year for lifetime achievement.

She was a big supporter of arts in education, and joined Bill Clinton on the campaign trail when she was already in her late 70s. She was married five times and had three children.

Warrick, who died of pneumonia, is to be buried at a private service on Saturday in New York. A memorial service is planned for February or March.

- REUTERS