Stage and screen actor Joseph Ruskin died of natural causes at UCLA Santa Monica on December 28. He was 89.
Ruskin was a long serving actors’ union member and officer. In 1979 he became the first Western Regional Vice President of Actors Equity Association, was on the board of the Screen Actors Guild from 1976-1999 with eight of those years serving as 1st National Vice President and served a decade on AFTRA’s National Board. He was honored for distinguished service by AEA with the Lucy Jordan Award in 2003 and the Patrick Quinn Award in 2013, and by SAG with the Ralph Morgan Award in 2011.
Born in Haverhill, Massachusetts, Ruskin attended high school in Cleveland and enlisted in the Navy in 1942. He returned to study drama at Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie-Mellon University) and began his professional career at the Pittsburgh Playhouse and the Rochester Arena Stage. His list of 124 television credits include multiple appearance on such shows as “Twilight Zone,” “Star Trek,” “Mission Impossible” and “Alias.” His 25 film appearances include “The Magnificent Seven,” “Prizzi’s Honor,” “Indecent Proposal” and “Smokin’ Aces.” Over the years Joe always returned to theatre, performing at the Mark Taper Forum, UCLA’s Freud Playhouse, Theater 40 and his final appearance this year as a member of the Antaeus Theatre Company.
Ruskin is survived by his wife Barbara Greene Ruskin; daughter Alicia Ruskin and son-in-law Larry Bucklan; step-daughters Rachel Greene and her husband Jim, Martha Greene and her son Jake, and Liza Page, her husband Joe Page and their children Zoe and Eli; and brother and sister-in-law David and Helene Schlafman and their children Daniel and Lani.
Plans for a memorial service are forthcoming, and in lieu of flowers the family requests that donations be made to The Actor’s Fund, the SAG Foundation or the Motion Picture & Television Fund.
Harvey Weinstein hit with new sex crime charge in New York
Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a new sex crime charge in New York, as he awaits retrial in his landmark #MeToo case.
Details of the new allegations were not immediately available. He was charged with committing a criminal sex act.
The jailed ex-movie mogul has long maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.
Prosecutors revealed last week that Weinstein had been indicted on additional sex crime charges that weren't part of the case that led to his now-overturned 2020 conviction. But the new indictment was sealed until his arraignment.
Prosecutors have said that the grand jury heard evidence of up to three alleged assaults — two in hotels in the Tribeca neighborhood and one at a lower Manhattan residential building. The purported incidents took place from the mid-2000s to 2016, prosecutors said.
But it's not clear whether any of those allegations underlie the new indictment.
While bracing for the new charges, Weinstein also is awaiting retrial after New York state's highest court this spring overturned his 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges involving two women. The high court, called the Court of Appeals, ordered a new trial, which is tentatively scheduled to begin Nov. 12.
The Court of Appeals ruled that the then-trial judge unfairly allowed testimony against him based on allegations that were not part of the case. That judge's term expired in 2022, and he is no longer on the bench.
Prosecutors have said they'll seek to fold the new charges into the retrial, but Weinstein's lawyers say it should be a separate case.
Weinstein, who also was convicted in 2022 in a Los Angeles rape case, remains behind bars while awaiting his New York retrial.
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