A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story - ITV's compelling new true-crime drama - explores the last woman hanged in the UK, a story previously and most famously brought to the screen in 1980s film Dance With A Stranger.

Executed in 1955 for the murder of her racing car driver lover David Blakely, Ruth commanded lurid headlines for months around the fatal shooting, subsequent trial, and her consequent fate at the gallows of Holloway Prison.

Thousands across the country backed a campaign to grant her a pardon as she awaited her death. Many more were captivated with the sensational circumstances surrounding former public schoolboy David's shocking demise outside a pub in Hampstead in London - and the background of the platinum blonde nightclub hostess that shot him four times and calmly admitted to doing so when arrested.

With three decades separating the two creative projects, there are notable differences.

The primary source material adapted by writer Kelly Jones for A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story is 2013's A Fine Day for a Hanging: The Real Ruth Ellis Story, written by Carol Ann Lee.

Reflecting on her research, the author has said: "My generation, we were taught to believe that Ruth was this hysterical woman who had ideas above her station; that she got involved with two men and shot one of them because she was jealous that he was going to go off with someone else. Every time you read something about her she comes across as - and it's very anachronistic really - this kind of hard, very tarty woman, that's how she was always portrayed. I hope with my book shows that she was a much, much deeper character than that. She was a quiet person, she really was. It was the men around her who were hysterical. She was always quiet. But the other thing is she was a much more dignified person than I think people realise."

Before A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story came Dance With A Stranger

Carol Ann also referenced Dance With A Stranger when discussing how A Cruel Love came about.

"When it comes to Ruth Ellis, people who grew up in the 80s automatically think of the film Dance With a Stranger," she said. "At the time I really loved it but looking back on it now I can see different things that were not what I would want to see with it. It told the story of Ruth's relationship with David and it ended at the shooting. Whereas this production tells the full story, so we know more about Ruth's background as well which is really important to know why this crime occurred."

Executive producer Antonia Gordon was also eager to ensure A Cruel Love didn't cover the same ground as Dance With A Stranger.

Reflecting on the drama's development, she said: "We had many conversations about how to structure the drama to ensure that we were telling a story that was different to Dance With A Stranger. That film was iconic but it ended with the shooting. Our story, and Carol’s book, both focus more on the before and after."

Who played Ruth Ellis in the film Dance With A Stranger?

Dance With A Stranger was a critical hit in 1985. Directed by Mike Newell (also responsible for helming Four Weddings and a Funeral, Donnie Brasco, Mona Lisa Smile. and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire), and with a screenplay by Shelagh Delaney, the film came with the dramatic tagline: 'It wasn't simply love. It was a case of cold-blooded passion.'

Miranda Richardson won Best Actress at the Evening Standard British Film Awards for her performance as Ruth, while Rupert Everett starred as David. Ian Holm played Desmond, and the cast also included Joanne Whalley, David Troughton, and Lesley Manville.

Who else has played Ruth Ellis in TV or movies?

As well as Miranda Richardson, Ruth has also been portrayed on screens by Georgina Hale (in 1980 ITV drama Lady Killers) and Mary Stockley (opposite Timothy Spall as the hangman in 2005's Pierrepoint), as well as in a 2016 BBC radio play by Maxine Peake.

Ruth has also been the subject of numerous documentaries, and even plays (Follow Me in 2007, The Thrill of Love in 2013), musicals (including 2017's Sinners Club), and opera Entanglement, which was first performed in July 2015 at the Cheltenham Music Festival.

Ruth's case was also re-examined in 2018 BBC Four docu-series The Ruth Ellis Files: A Very British Crime Story, which concluded Desmond may have provided a gun for the shooting.

Books about Ruth Ellis

Perhaps two of the most important accounts of Ruth's early and family life are those written by her sister Muriel Jakubait (Ruth Ellis: My Sister's Secret Life, published in 2005) and her daughter Georgina Ellis (Ruth Ellis, My Mother: A Daughter's Memoir of the Last Woman to be Hanged, published in 1995).

Although Georgina was only three-years-old when Ruth was executed, she made parallels between her mother's bearing and her own, as well as their appearance.

Georgina wrote: "Central to us both was a desire to avoid falling into any rut that was the lot of so many of our contemporaries. From our earliest teens my mother and I were patent non-conformists. Both blessed with a pretty face and an attractive body, we were equally determined to employ our assets for personal benefit."

She also shared memories of Ruth, when reader expectations may have been for them to be faint. Georgina said: "Obviously I was very fond of her although I was looked after by my grandmother and my mother's sister. I remember her - the closeness we all had. I've never had that since. Never. And I've always craved it. It's all I've ever wanted."

Muriel's book, meanwhile, covered in horrifying detail the abuse both she and Ruth endured from their father Arthur. She also included claims said to have been made by Ruth's son Andy who witnessed Desmond Cussen give his mother training in how to use a firearm just days before David was gunned down.

Further biographies include 1990's Ruth Ellis: a Case of Diminished Responsibility? by Laurence Marks and Tony Van Den Bergh, and The Last Woman to be Hanged: The Ruth Ellis Story Paperback by Robert Hancock (published 2020).

Watch A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story on ITV from Wednesday, March 05, 2025 at 9pm. All episodes are available on ITVX now.