The character became so popular that HBO greenlit a pilot for a potential Ruby Romaine spin-off series resulting in the one-off television special, Tracey Ullman in the Trailer Tales, in 2003.

Sometime before the age of fifteen, her uncle Rosco lost his job as a mule skinner and came to live with her family.

[3] According to the 1998 book Tracey Takes On, Ruby had a short-lived marriage to entertainer Tubby Lapels, chairman emeritus of the Hermosa Beach Friars Club which produced her daughter Desiree (Melinda Dillon).

[4] However, according to the episode "Tracey Takes On... America", Desiree was actually the product of a secret love affair with then-Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Desiree steals things from the morgue where she works and Buddy frequently runs around the streets in Ruby's bathroom screaming, "Stop the noise!".

[13] Her makeup career began with the film Pirate of the Plains starring actor Errol Flynn.

Some of the famous faces Ruby's made up include Barbara Eden,[16] Bette Davis,[17] Clark Gable,[18] Debbie Reynolds,[10] Debra Paget and Dennis Weaver (in Seven Angry Men, they didn't have the budget for twelve),[18] Humphrey Bogart,[5] Jane Kaczmarek,[10] Jane Seymour,[15] Jane Wyman (who never said more than a few words to her), Katharine Hepburn,[18] Kirk Douglas,[18] Maureen O'Hara,[7] Mickey Rooney,[19] Ronald Reagan (for his Chesterfield cigarette ads),[20] Rose Marie,[10] Spencer Tracy,[18] the cast of Bonanza,[21] and Candice Bergen.

"[15] Ruby was fired from the film The Greatest Story Ever Told (which was the closet thing she ever had to a religious experience) after actress Angela Lansbury accused her of drinking some of the wine meant for the Last Supper scene.

The list includes Anthony Quinn, Cornel Wilde,[23] Lawrence Welk,[24] and Robert Mitchum.

[23] Ruby swears that when she worked on the film Magnificent Obsession with actor Rock Hudson he was "all hands.

[28] She is not keen on missing Happy Hour at Smog Cutters,[18] which she frequently drives to in her blue Buick.

[17] The following is a partial list of real or non-fictionalized films and television show titles The following is a partial list of fictional films and television show titles (year unknown) Tracey Ullman describes Romaine as "pure Hollywood white trash.

Ullman played Florence in the 1991 one-woman Broadway show The Big Love based on the 1961 book of the same name.

She spent hours listening to audio recordings of the late Florence dictating her memoir to writer Tedd Thomey.