It's a Wonderful Life star Virginia Patton Moss is dead at the age of 97.
The last surviving adult cast member of Frank Capra's classic holiday film, Moss passed away on Aug. 18 in Albany, GA, as reported by Variety. Moss was credited in the film under her maiden name, Patton.
Moss starred in 1946's It's a Wonderful Life as Ruth Dakin Bailey, the wife of Harry Bailey (Todd Karns) and the sister-in-law of the main character George Bailey, portrayed by James Stewart. Moss was the last living adult actor who had worked on the film, though several It's a Wonderful Life actors who appeared in the film as children are still alive, such as Karolyn Grimes, who shared a tribute to Moss on her personal Facebook.
"We have another angel!" Grimes wrote. "Virginia Patton Moss. She was 97 years old. She is now with her beloved Cruse. She will be missed!"
Born in Cleveland, OH in 1925, Moss began acting while attending the University of Southern California. She appeared in a variety of short films leading up to her casting in It's a Wonderful Life, where she would go on to appear in just four more films before marrying her husband, Cruse W. Moss, in 1949 and retiring from acting. Moss would go on to appear as Doris Green in 1947's The Burning Cross and starred as Ginny Long in the 1948 Western Black Eagle. Her last on-screen credit was as Millie Dale in the 1949 comedy The Lucky Stiff, wherein she starred alongside Dorothy Lamour, Brian Donlevy and Claire Trevor.
Moss and her husband remained married until his death in 2018. The couple had moved to Ann Arbor, MI, where Moss raised their three children, began a career as a businesswoman and served as a docent at the University of Michigan Museum of Art. Though Moss had retired from acting, she would continue to give interviews about her involvement in It's a Wonderful Life throughout her life.
Considered to be one of the greatest films of all time, It's a Wonderful Life followed Stewart's John Bailey, a man who is considering suicide on Christmas Eve. His thoughts attract his guardian angel, Clarence Odbody (played by Henry Travers), who offers George the opportunity to see what his life would have been like had he never been born. The film was nominated for five Academy Awards, Best Picture among them, and was added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 1990.
Source: Variety