Celebrity Biographies
Virginia Patton
She was the last surviving adult from the cast of “How beautiful it is to live!”, as some of the components of the child cast survived her. Virginia Patton she passed away at the age of 97, in a hospice center in Albany (Georgia), on August 18, 2022.
Born in Cleveland, Ohio on June 25, 1925, Virginia Patton was the niece of noted General George S. Patton . While studying at the University of Southern California, she began participating in plays and auditioning for movies.
She played several minor roles before being cast as Ruth Dakin Bayley, sister-in-law of James Stewart ‘s unforgettable character George Bailey, in It’s a Nice Life! “. He had a great scene at the Bedford Falls train station, where he meets George and Uncle Billy ( Thomas Mitchell ). “I was wondering how he could eat popcorn while we were shooting that sequence, while wearing white gloves,” he commented in an interview “We rehearsed it and the director didn’t clarify anything for me, neither the assistant nor the cameraman”.
“She was the only actress recruited directly by Frank Capra , because all the others were loaned to his production company, Liberty Films, by other studios,” Cruse W. Moss, her husband, explained in an interview. “I read a little text for him and he signed me,” commented Virginia Patton .
After starring in the western The Black Rider , from 1948, and the comedy The Lucky Stiff, from 1949, with Dorothy Lamour, Virginia Patton married, and decided to retire from acting, to dedicate herself to practicing as a businesswoman, and taking care of her three children. . “I became exactly what I always dreamed of, a neighbor of a small town, in which I work hard for others,” she once said.