She may be gone, but she will be remembered for her straight-forward honesty. Her outward appearance was that of a “sweet little old lady,” much like your grandma, which only made her advice and witticisms more hilarious, often delivered with a slightly dirty mouth, or sometimes a very dirty mouth!
Marie Rudisill, lovably known as “The Fruitcake Lady” became a frequent guest on Jay Leno’s Tonight Show after writing a book in 2000 called Fruitcake: Memories of Truman Capote & Sook. An aunt to Capote, she helped raise him as a child, who lived with her off and on in Alabama and New York.
After her first appearance on the Tonight Show, where she not only discussed her book, but taught Jay Leno and Mel Gibson how to actually make a fruitcake. She was asked back often, which led to her own segment on the show known as “Ask the Fruitcake Lady.”
Viewers would ask advice in videotaped recordings about everything from marriage and sex to gift shopping. To audiences’ delight, the Fruitcake Lady would always have some offbeat, if not explicit suggestion, complete with profanity if she became angered, and I enjoyed watching her. She was a breath of fresh air.
A resident of Florida, Marie Rudisill wrote eight books including her first one, and her recent death on November 3 of this year came just short of the November 7 release of her latest book entitled: Ask the Fruitcake Lady: Everything You Would Already Know If You Had Any Sense.
On November 8, the Tonight Show aired some of the most popular segments in tribute to the Fruitcake Lady, including one with Tom Cruise, who could not resist planting a big kiss on Ms Rudisill’s cheek. A small lady who spoke volumes, in a world with few straight shooters, she will be missed.
