It was in New York that Ruth met Orson Welles. She was working at CBS radio when she bumped into him in 1938. In 1940 she was called to a meeting at the Waldorf Astoria where Welles told her he was looking for someone to play the role of his first wife. Welles told her he was looking for a lady, not someone to play a lady, but an actual lady, and there were no ladies in Hollywood. Within 36 hours Ruth was on a plane to Hollywood to test for the film, where she was chosen for the part of Emily Norton Kane.

 

Citizen Kane is considered by many to be the greatest American movie of all time. Before its release, Ruth Warrick slipped up and told a reporter that Citizen Kane was about men like William Randolph Hearst, who was a highly influential newspaper tycoon at the time. Hearst, enraged at the thought of being portrayed in a negative manner, tried to stop the film from being released. Welles and RKO Pictures resisted the pressure but Hearst along with his Hollywood film connections pressured several theater chains into only doing limited showings.