Jack Leon Ruby (c. March 25, 1911 - January 3, 1967) was an Jewish-American nightclub owner in Texas and an alleged mob affiliate, who shot and killed Lee Harvey Oswald on November 24, 1963, two days after Oswald supposedly assassinated President John F. Kennedy.
Biography[]
Early Life[]
Jack Ruby was born as Jacob Leon Rubenstein on or around March 25, 1911 in the Maxwell Street area of Chicago, Illinois. He was the son of Joseph "Joe" Rubenstein and Fannie Turek Rutkowski (or Rokowsky), both Polish-born Orthodox Jews. Ruby was the fifth of his parents' 10 surviving children. While he was growing up, his parents were often violent towards each other and frequently separated; Ruby's mother was eventually committed to a mental hospital. His troubled childhood and adolescence were marked by juvenile delinquency with time being spent in foster homes. He was arrested at the age of 11 for truancy. Ruby eventually skipped school so often that he had to spend time at the Institute for Juvenile Research. He sold horse-racing tip sheets and various novelties, then acted as a business agent for a local refuse collectors union that later became part of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
Early on in his life, Ruby acquired the nickname "Sparky" - the account vary on the exact origin of said nickname; his sister, Eva Grant, claims that he got this nickname due to resemblence to "Sparky Plug" (or just "Sparky"), a horse from the comic strip Barney Google, while others claim that he instead, he got this nickname do to his quick temper. In any case, Ruby did not like the nickname and was quick to fight anyone who called him that.
In the 1940's, Ruby often frequented race tracks in Illinois and California, and was drafted to U.S Army Air Forces in 1943 and served during the World War II, working as an aircraft mechanic at U.S. bases until 1946. He had an honorable record and was promoted to Private First Class. He served four years and, upon discharge, in 1946, Ruby returned to Chicago.
In 1947, Ruby moved to Dallas, purportedly because of the failure of merchandise deals in Chicago and to help operate his sister's nightclub. Soon afterward he and his brothers shortened their surnames from Rubenstein to Ruby - the stated reason for the name change was that the name "Rubenstein" was too long and that he was "well known" as Jack Ruby. Ruby later went on to manage various nightclubs, strip clubs, and dance halls in Dallas. He developed close ties to many Dallas police officers who frequented his nightclubs, where he provided them with free liquor, prostitutes, and other favors. Ruby's nightclubs were also frequented by Buck Owens, who discovered Lulu Roman—then working as bawdy comic relief at one of Ruby's clubs—and hired Roman to join the cast of Hee Haw.
Ruby never married and had no children. At the time of the assassination, Ruby was living with George Senator, who referred to Ruby as "my boyfriend" during the Warren Commission hearing, although he denied the two were homosexual lovers. Warren Commission lawyer Burt Griffin later told author Gerald Posner: "I'm not sure if Senator was honest with us about his relationship with Ruby. People did not advertise their homosexuality in 1963".