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Barbara Ruick’s Sudden Death During the Reno Shoot of California Split

      California Split / Barbara Ruick
      1970s
      Tragedy
      Archive: verified
      4/5 wildness
    

While California Split was filming on location in Reno, Nevada, actress Barbara Ruick died unexpectedly at the age of 41 from a cerebral hemorrhage while asleep in her hotel room. Ruick played a friendly bartender in the Reno poker-room sequences, making her death especially jarring for a production built around the camaraderie and dangerous exhilaration of gambling culture. The tragedy struck while the cast and crew were immersed in the very casino atmosphere Robert Altman wanted for the film: they could spend one moment filming upstairs and the next be downstairs in the Mapes casino, winning or losing real money. Ruick’s death left her husband, the celebrated composer John Williams, a widower raising their three children. California Split was subsequently dedicated to her, permanently linking the film’s Reno location work with one of its most heartbreaking real-life events.

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Barbara Ruick’s Sudden Death During the Reno Shoot of California Split

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Barbara Ruick’s Sudden Death During the Reno Shoot of California Split

California Split / Barbara Ruick / 1970s

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Ash Christian, the Texas-born filmmaker who began writing and directing short films as a teenager and moved to Los Angeles at 16, died unexpectedly on August 14, 2020, at the age of 35. Christian was in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, on vacation when he suffered a heart attack in his sleep. His death abruptly ended a career that had already spanned acting, directing, producing, and Broadway: at 19, he wrote, directed, and starred in Fat Girls, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and won Outfest’s 2006 Award for Outstanding Emerging Talent. Through his company Cranium Entertainment, he later co-produced films including Hurricane Bianca, Social Animals, 1985, Burn, and Chick Fight, while also working on television programs such as The Good Wife and The Good Fight and producing the musical Next to Normal. The circumstances were not connected to a film set or known production accident; the tragedy lay in the sudden loss of a prolific young independent filmmaker and producer whose career had begun unusually early and was still expanding.

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Barbara Ruick’s Sudden Death During the Reno Shoot of California Split

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Barbara Ruick’s Sudden Death During the Reno Shoot of California Split

More Stories from the Hollywood Archive

The Fatal 2009 Fall That Ended Producer Dick Berg’s Career

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The AIDS-Era Death of Surge Studios Co-Founder Steve Taylor

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