LOS ANGELES —Ann Rutherford, the demure brunet actress who played the sweetheart in the long-running Andy Hardy series and Scarlett O’Hara’s youngest sister in “Gone With the Wind,” has died. She was 94.
A close friend, Anne Jeffreys, said she was at Rutherford’s side when the actress died Monday evening at home in Beverly Hills.
Rutherford was a frequent guest at “Gone With the Wind” celebrations in Georgia and, as one of the few remaining actors from the movie, continued to attract fans from around the world, Jeffreys said.
She also was known for the Andy Hardy series, a hugely popular string of comical, sentimental films that starred Lewis Stone as a small-town judge and Mickey Rooney as his spirited teenage son.
Rutherford first appeared in the second film of the series, “You’re Only Young Once,” in 1938. She played Polly Benedict, the ever-faithful girlfriend that Andy always returned to, no matter what other, more glamorous girl had temporarily caught his eye.
It was said she won the part of Carreen — the youngest of the three O’Hara sisters in “Gone With the Wind” — because Judy Garland was filming “The Wizard of Oz.”
In 1989, she was one of 10 surviving “Gone With the Wind” cast members who gathered in Atlanta for the celebration of the film’s 50th anniversary.
“Anyone who had read the book sensed they were into something that would belong to the ages, and everyone was in a frenzy to read the book,” she said.
“The specialness of this is with each generation of young people who are touched by ‘Gone With the Wind,’ ” she said.
