Margaret Ruth RUNNER b. 18 Jan 1909 Oakland, Alameda County, CA d. 4 Feb 2006 Carmel Valley, Monterey County, CA: Frost, Gilchrist and Related Families

1909 - 2006 (97 years)

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Name	Margaret Ruth RUNNER
Birth	18 Jan 1909	Oakland, Alameda County, CA
Gender	Female
Name	Margaret Ruth "Betty RUNNER
Death	4 Feb 2006	Carmel Valley, Monterey County, CA
Notes	(1) Source: "Eastwood Family Tree," a Public Member Tree on Ancestry.com. (2) www.findagrave.com: Margaret Ruth Runner Eastwood Wood Birth: 18 Jan 1909, Alameda County, California, USA Death: 4 Feb 2006 (aged 97), Carmel Valley, Monterey County, California, USA Burial: Unknown Mother of Actor/Director Clint Eastwood. Widow of Clinton Eastwood (1906-1970), and John Wood (1913-2004). She was the daughter of Waldo (Walt) Errol Runner and Virginia May McClanaham. Ruth was often her son's date at the Academy Awards. Her favorite Clint Eastwood Movie was "Paint Your Wagon." Before she went to the Academy Awards, Rogers said Mrs. Wood always told him that if "anyone in Hollywood asked" about her hair, she would tell them where she got it done. Mrs. Wood was 97. Obit in the Monterey Herald February 8, 2006: Margaret Ruth Wood, mother of famed actor and director Clint Eastwood, and a Carmel Valley resident, died Saturday at 97. Mrs. Wood had lived on the Monterey Peninsula since the late 1960s and maintained strong bonds locally with her son and daughter, Jeanne Bernhardt of Carmel. At 84, Mrs. Wood accompanied her son to the 1993 Academy Awards presentation, where he told a worldwide audience that she was the most important woman in his life. As Eastwood won Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director for the gritty western "Unforgiven," he praised his mother, who was beaming in the crowd wearing a black and silver gown. "It's like every mother's dream," Mrs. Wood told a San Francisco Chronicle reporter the next day. "It was pretty unbelievable to have him say that, although we are naturally close." Judie Hoyt, an assistant at Eastwood's film company Malpaso Productions in Burbank, said the actor-director would not be releasing a statement about his mother's death. By all accounts, Eastwood and his mother had a very strong relationship, and he often turned to her for advice. She first suggested casting Meryl Streep opposite Eastwood in the steamy romance "The Bridges of Madison County," which he directed. "He always sought her advice," said Carmel resident and civic volunteer Pat Sippel, who met Eastwood and his mother in 1970 while working on a benefit celebrity tennis tournament at Pebble Beach. At the 2004 Academy Awards, Eastwood and his mother walked hand in hand on the red carpet. "I just felt a close mother-son bond," Sippel said. "She seemed to give good advice and he enjoyed her company. . . . I'm sure it's going to be a big loss to him and to the family." Her death came on the eve of this week's AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, a golf tournament with which Eastwood has been closely linked for years - first as a celebrity participant and, most recently, as chairman of the Monterey Peninsula Foundation, the event organizer. Eastwood is taking part in some tournament activities, but probably will not be as visible as years past, a tournament official said. Though she was not fond of film violence, Mrs. Wood was a devoted fan of her son's movies, saying once that she watched several of them many times and was "the first one in the theater every time." Her favorite Eastwood movie, however, occupies an almost forgotten corner of his celluloid output: the musical "Paint Your Wagon." In 1986, after Eastwood was sworn in as the mayor of Carmel, Mrs. Wood told reporters attending the event that her son would be "a fine mayor." "Don't cut it down too fine," Eastwood joked. "I'll be great." Displaying the same brand of laconic humor that Eastwood possesses, Mrs. Wood told the Carmel City Council in 1993 how her own film debut - as an extra in a train-boarding scene in "Unforgiven" - was edited out after her director son filmed the scene eight times. "I ended up on the cutting room floor," she said, as she accepted a city certificate of appreciation for Eastwood's 1986-88 tenure as Carmel mayor. Mrs. Wood was born in 1909 and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. She and Eastwood's father, Clinton Eastwood, lived in Piedmont, a wealthy community next to Oakland, before moving to Pebble Beach in the 1960s. He died of a heart attack in July 1970. She married John Wood, a retired lumber executive in 1972, after meeting him on a trip to Hawaii. For her second marriage, Eastwood walked his mother down the aisle. The Woods traveled extensively and she played golf like her son. She and her husband moved to Hacienda Carmel in Carmel Valley in 1988. John Wood died in February 2004. Roy Rogers, a Carmel hairdresser who did Mrs. Wood's hair for years, said he "enjoyed her and her young spirit." Before she went to the Academy Awards, Rogers said Mrs. Wood always told him that if "anyone in Hollywood asked" about her hair, she would tell them where she got it done. "Her favorite thing was to go to Hawaii," Rogers said. "In recent years, she always would say, 'This is my last trip,' but she went again just a few months ago." Her daughter frequently picked up Mrs. Wood at Roger's shop, but Clint Eastwood often did too. "He was devoted to her," he said. Born Margaret Ruth Runner, she met Clinton Eastwood, a high school football and swimming star, when they were teenagers in Piedmont. She, too, was tall and attractive like her future husband, according to Eastwood biographer Richard Schickel. But she was too tall to realize her childhood dream of being a ballet star. Clinton and Ruth were ideal parents, one acquaintance told Schickel. "She certainly has lived a long life and probably an interesting one," Sippel said. Family Members: Parents: Waldo Errol Runner (1882-1956), Virginia McClanahan Runner (1886-1967); Siblings: Margaret Ruth Runner Wood (1909-2006); Half Siblings: Melvin Errol Runner (1906-1982) Created by: The Perplexed Historian Added: 8 Feb 2006 Find A Grave Memorial 13271147
Person ID	I44748	Frost, Gilchrist and Related Families
Last Modified	17 Apr 2024

Father	Waldo Errol RUNNER, b. 17 Feb 1882, Buena Vista, Chaffee County, CO d. 22 Feb 1956, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, CA (Age 74 years)
Mother	Virginia May McCLANAHAN, b. 10 Aug 1886, MO d. 8 Jan 1967, St. Helena, Napa County, CA (Age 80 years)
Marriage	13 Jul 1903	Colorado Springs, El Paso County, CO
Family ID	F19244	Group Sheet \| Family Chart

Father	Waldo Errol RUNNER, b. 17 Feb 1882, Buena Vista, Chaffee County, CO d. 22 Feb 1956, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, CA (Age 74 years)
Mother	Virginia May McCLANAHAN, b. 10 Aug 1886, MO d. 8 Jan 1967, St. Helena, Napa County, CA (Age 80 years)
Marriage	13 Jul 1903	Colorado Springs, El Paso County, CO
Family ID	F19308	Group Sheet \| Family Chart

Family 1 Clinton EASTWOOD, Sr., b. 11 Jun 1906, San Francisco, San Francisco County, CA d. 21 Jul 1970, Pebble Beach, Monterey County, CA (Age 64 years)

Marriage 5 Jun 1927 Alameda County, CA [1]

Children

	1. Living
	2. Living

Family ID F19245 Group Sheet | Family Chart

Last Modified 17 Apr 2024

Family 2	John Belden WOOD, b. 24 Nov 1913, Oakland, Monterey County, CA d. 18 Feb 2004, Carmel Valley, Monterey County, CA (Age 90 years)
Marriage	29 Oct 1972	Monterey County, CA
Family ID	F19243	Group Sheet \| Family Chart
Last Modified	17 Apr 2024

Sources

Details: Details: Details: Citation Text: (1) California, Marriage Records from Select Counties, 1850-1941 [database online], Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014: Name: Clinton Eastwood Gender: Male Marriage Date: 5 Jun 1927 Marriage Place: Alameda, California, USA.