four-volume biography Lincoln the President (1945-55), historian James G. Randall included an appendix entitled "Sifting the Ann Rutledge Evidence," which cast doubt on the nature of her and Lincoln's relationship. Biographer Stephen B. Oates flatly denied a Lincoln-Rutledge romance, writing in 1977 that "there is no evidence that Ann and Lincoln ever had anything more than a platonic relationship." The story of a Lincoln-Rutledge romance was not taken seriously by most Lincoln scholars after the mid-1940s, with the "agnostic" position (that a romance between Lincoln and Rutledge is not impossible, but that there is not enough evidence to affirm that it happened) predominant. However, scholarly interest in and support for the supposed romance underwent a revival in the 1990s, which saw the publication of new defenses of the "traditional" narrative of Lincoln and Rutledge's romance by scholars such as John Y. Simon, Douglas L. Wilson, and John Evangelist Walsh. Since then, the matter has once again been in dispute, with the romance narrative being accepted by some Lincoln scholars and biographers, such as Michael Burlingame and Doris Kearns Goodwin, but rejected by skeptics such as Lewis Gannett and David Herbert Donald. Gannett wrote in 2005 that "Nearly sixty years after James G. Randall delivered a seeming coup de grâce to the Ann Rutledge legend, the legend may be nearing a second death," but in 2010 conceded that "One might conclude that Wilson's interpretation is unassailable," noting continuing scholarly support for the thesis. Increasing academic interest in Lincoln and Rutledge's relationship has, however, been inversely paralleled by diminishing popular interest and investment, reflecting shifting ideological concerns and conceptions of Lincoln, and Ann Rutledge, and the controversy over her mooted romance with Lincoln, are today relatively obscure. In popular culture The 1930 D. W. Griffith film Abraham Lincoln features Rutledge as a main character, played by Una Merkel. Actress Pauline Moore plays Ann Rutledge in John Ford's 1939 film Young Mr. Lincoln. Following Ann's death, Lincoln (Henry Fonda) visits her graveside and makes the fateful decision to leave home and pursue a law practice in Springfield. Actress Mary Howard played Ann Rutledge in John Cromwell's 1940 film Abe Lincoln in Illinois. The film was adaptation of a play where Rutledge was played on Broadway by Adele Longmire. It was revived on Broadway in 1993–94 with Rutledge portrayed by Marissa Chibas. The Lincoln-Rutledge relationship plays an important part in the growth of Lincoln