41 Facts About Ruth Ellis

Ruth Ellis was a Welsh-born nightclub hostess and convicted murderer who became the last woman to be executed in the United Kingdom following the fatal shooting of her lover, David Blakely.

On Easter Sunday, 10 April 1955, Ruth Ellis shot Blakely dead outside The Magdala public house in Hampstead, London.

At her trial in June 1955, Ruth Ellis was found guilty of premeditated murder and was sentenced to death; on 13 July she was hanged at Holloway Prison.

Ruth Ellis was born Ruth Neilson in Rhyl, Denbighshire, Wales, on 9 October 1926, the fifth of six children.

Ruth Ellis moved to Basingstoke, Hampshire, England, with her family during her childhood.

Ruth Ellis's mother, Elisaberta Goethals, was a Belgian war refugee; her father, Arthur Hornby, was a cellist from Manchester who played on Atlantic liners.

Arthur's twin brother Charles was killed in 1928, when Ruth Ellis was 2 years old, after his bicycle collided with a steam wagon.

Ruth Ellis briefly attended Fairfields Senior Girls' School in Basingstoke until 1940, after which she attended Worting village school before leaving school when she was 14 years old.

In 1941, Ruth Ellis befriended Edna Turvey, the girlfriend of her older brother Julian, who was on leave from service in the Royal Navy.

In 1944, when Ruth Ellis was 17 years old, she became pregnant by Clare Andrea McCallum, a married Canadian soldier.

On 8 November 1950, Ruth Ellis married 41-year-old George Johnston Ruth Ellis, a divorced dentist with two sons, at the register office in Tonbridge, Kent.

In 1951, while she had been four months pregnant, Ruth Ellis appeared, uncredited, as a beauty queen in the Rank film Lady Godiva Rides Again.

Ruth Ellis returned to prostitution following her divorce from George, having moved into her parents' residence with her daughter.

In 1953, Ruth Ellis became the manager of the Little Club, a nightclub in Knightsbridge.

Ruth Ellis became pregnant for a fourth time but had her second abortion, feeling she could not reciprocate the level of commitment Blakely showed towards their relationship.

Ruth Ellis then began seeing Desmond Cussen, a former Royal Air Force pilot who had flown Lancaster bombers during the Second World War, and who had taken up accountancy after leaving the service.

Ruth Ellis eventually moved in with Cussen at 20 Goodwood Court, Devonshire Street, north of Oxford Street.

The relationship with Blakely continued and became increasingly violent as he and Ruth Ellis continued to see other people.

Blakely offered to marry Ruth Ellis; she consented, but in January 1955, she had a miscarriage after he punched her in the stomach during an argument.

On Easter Sunday, 10 April 1955, Ruth Ellis took a taxi from Cussen's home to a second-floor flat at 29 Tanza Road, Hampstead, the home of Anthony and Carole Findlater, where she suspected Blakely might be.

Blakely passed Ruth Ellis waiting on the pavement when she stepped out of the doorway of Henshaw's, a newsagent next to The Magdala.

Ruth Ellis pursued Blakely as he started to run around the car, firing a second shot which caused him to collapse onto the pavement.

Ruth Ellis then stood over him and fired three more bullets, with one fired less than half an inch from his back, leaving powder burns on his skin.

Ruth Ellis was seen to stand over Blakely as she repeatedly tried to fire the revolver's sixth shot, finally firing it into the ground.

At Hampstead police station, Ruth Ellis appeared to be calm and not obviously under the influence of drink or drugs.

On 20 June 1955, Ruth Ellis appeared in the Number One Court at the Old Bailey, London, before Mr Justice Havers.

Ruth Ellis was dressed in a black suit and white silk blouse with freshly bleached and coiffured blonde hair.

Ruth Ellis's defending counsel, Aubrey Melford Stevenson, supported by Sebag Shaw and Peter Rawlinson, expressed concern about her appearance but she did not alter it to appear less striking.

Ruth Ellis told her mother that she did not want a petition to reprieve her from the death sentence and took no part in the campaign.

Ruth Ellis dismissed Bickford and asked to see Leon Simmons, the clerk to solicitor Victor Mishcon.

On 12 July 1955, the day before her execution, Mishcon and Simmons saw Ruth Ellis, who wanted to make her will.

Ruth Ellis divulged that Cussen had given her the gun and taught her how to use it on the weekend prior to the murder.

Ruth Ellis revealed that Cussen had driven her to the murder scene.

Ruth Ellis's case caused widespread controversy at the time, evoking exceptionally intense press and public interest to the point that it was discussed by the Cabinet.

Ruth Ellis was the last woman ever to be executed in Britain.

Ruth Ellis accepted that the decision was the responsibility of the Home Secretary, but there are indications that he was troubled by it.

The trial judge, Sir Cecil Havers, had sent money every year for Andy's upkeep, and Christmas Humphreys, the prosecution counsel at Ruth Ellis's trial, paid for his funeral.

Ruth Ellis appeared on the television discussion programme After Dark and died of cancer in 2001 at age 50.

The Ruth Ellis case continues to have a strong grip on the British imagination and in 2003 was referred back to the Court of Appeal by the Criminal Cases Review Commission.

In 1980, the third episode of the first series of the ITV drama series Lady Killers recreated the court case, with Ruth Ellis played by Georgina Hale.

Diana Dors, who had starred in Lady Godiva Rides Again, in which Ellis had a minor, uncredited role, played a character resembling Ellis in the 1956 British film Yield to the Night, directed by J Lee Thompson.