Ann Rutherford, Andy Hardy's Screen Sweetheart, Dies at 94 MGM, via Phtofest Ann Rutherford with Mickey Rooney in "Out West With the Hardys" (1938). Ann Rutherford, an actress who became famous in the late 1930s as Mickey Rooney's sweetheart in the hugely successful Andy Hardy series and earned a role in one of the biggest movies in Hollywood history, as Scarlett O'Hara's sister in "Gone With the Wind," died on Monday at her home in Beverly Hills, Calif. She was 94. New Line Cinema, via Associated Press Ann Rutherford, far left, in "Gone With the Wind" (1939), with Vivien Leigh, center, and Evelyn Keyes. Her death was announced by her daughter, Gloria May. Ms. Rutherford was already a veteran of radio and theater as well as several movies when she moved from the low-budget Republic Pictures to Hollywood's premiere studio, MGM, in 1937. But she was still a relative unknown. She didn't stay unknown for long: that same year she was cast in "You're Only Young Once," the follow-up to "A Family Affair," the movie that had introduced the world to the Hardy family and particularly Andy, a rambunctious but good-hearted teenage boy with an eye for the girls, played by Mickey Rooney. Ms. Rutherford took over the role of Polly Benedict - literally the girl next door - which Margaret Marquis had played in the earlier film. She went on to play Polly in a dozen more movies, six of them by the end of 1939 alone. Her last was "Andy Hardy's Double Life" in 1942. There were 16 Andy Hardy movies in all. The Hardy series painted an idyllic picture of small-town American family life that was already dated by the 1930s, but with the country mired in the Depression, audiences found it as reassuring as it was entertaining. Andy had a roving eye - he considered Polly his steady girl but still found time for others played by the likes of Lana Turner, Esther Williams and Judy Garland - and a propensity for getting into trouble. But his transgressions were minor, and he always listened attentively when his father, Judge James K. Hardy (Lionel Barrymore in the first film and Lewis Stone in the others), gave him the wise and gentle talking-to he needed. It was while making a name for herself as Polly that Ms. Rutherford joined the cast of "Gone With the Wind" as Carreen, one of two sisters of Scarlett O'Hara (Vivien Leigh); Evelyn Keyes played the other sister. In 1979, at a reunion of surviving cast and crew, she reminisced about her "very small role" and said she "would have carried a basket of cotton to be in it." Being in "Gone With the Wind," she said, had been "a passport to the world." Her death leaves Olivia de Havilland as the only principal player still alive. Ms. Rutherford also played the Spirit of Christmas Past to Reginald Owen's Scrooge in the 1938 version of "A Christmas Carol" and one of the marriage-eligible Bennet sisters in "Pride and Prejudice" (1940), which starred Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier. And in the early 1940s she was paired with the comedian Red Skelton in "Whistling in the Dark," "Whistling in Dixie" and "Whistling in Brooklyn," about the clownish star of a radio crime show who gets tangled up with real criminals and somehow manages to survive. Despite Ms. Rutherford's image as the all-American girl, she was actually born in Canada. Therese Ann Rutherford was born on Nov. 2, 1917 - in Toronto, according to her family, although some sources say Vancouver. Her father, John, was a tenor who had sung with the Metropolitan Opera, and her mother, the former Lucille Mansfield, was an actress. Her family moved to San Francisco when she was an infant, and after her parents separated her mother moved to Los Angeles with Ann and her sister, Judith. By the time Ann was 5 she had begun to perform on radio and in local theaters. Her first film role was in "Waterfront Lady" (1935), in which she played a singer in a sleazy cafe. Then came a string of westerns in 1936, including "Comin" "Round the Mountain" with Gene Autry and "The Lawless Nineties" and "The Lonely Trail" with John Wayne. And then came Andy Hardy. Her last major role was in "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" (1947), based on the story by James Thurber and starring Danny Kaye as the timid daydreamer who imagines himself performing heroic deeds. Ms. Rutherford played the woman Walter's mother wants him to marry; Virginia Mayo played the woman with whom he ends up. In the 1950s and 1960s she worked only on television, but returned to films in 1972, when she played a police secretary in the murder mystery "They Only Kill Their Masters." Her last movie was the comedy "Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood" (1976), in a cast that included many other movie stars of a bygone era. Her last television appearance was on "The Bob Newhart Show," playing the Newhart character's mother-in-law. Ms. Rutherford's first marriage, to David May, ended in divorce. Her second husband, the film and television producer William Dozier, died in 1991. In addition to her daughter, she is survived by her companion of 20 years, Al Morley; a stepdaughter, Deborah Dozier Potter; and two grandsons. Ms. Rutherford remembered her days as a star with fondness and, even years later, a bit of disbelief. "I went to the studio every day like kids today go to Disneyland," she told The New York Times in 1972. "To me those years were never-never land, save the frosting on the cake for last, make it all last forever," she added. And all I wanted was for it not to end until I was ready to have it end. Peter Keepnews and Daniel E. Slotnik contributed reporting.