'Natural Woman' Dies: Ruth Anne Steinhagen Portrayed In "The Natural" Film Passes Away at 83
The body of The Natural actress Ruth Anne Steinhagen was discovered on Friday. Reports stated she had passed away from natural causes.
Though Steinhagen died on Dec. 29, she lived a quiet life in Chicago for several years, and her state was not known until last week, when the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office confirmed her death, according to Today Entertainment
"She chose to live in the shadows and she did a good job of it," John Theodore, an author who wrote a 2002 nonfiction book about the crime, wrote in an email Sunday, the report stated. The actress was 83.
Steinhagen starred in the movie The Natural in 1984, featuring a character, Barbara Hershey who convinced a major league baseball player she'd never met to follow her into a hotel room, where she shot him.
Details about the rest of her life are sketchy, having lived with her sister in a house just a few miles from the hotel where she shot Waitkus, worked in an office for 35 years but never revealed her employer, and often refused to answer the phone or came to the door to greet visitors.
The 1984 movie was based on a novel by Bernard Malamud that was inspired by the story. Theodore's 2002 book was entitled Baseball's Natural: The Story of Eddie Waitkus.
