Trosper, a longtime assistant to the film's director Orson Welles, reportedly died Sunday at her home in New York City

The Last Surviving Cast Member of Citizen Kane, Kathryn Trosper Popper, Dies at 100

The last surviving cast member of Citizen Kane, Kathryn Trosper Popper, has died at 100.

Trosper, a longtime assistant to the film’s director, Orson Welles, died Sunday at her home in New York City, her son, Joe Popper, told The Hollywood Reporter.

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In the classic 1941 film, Trosper played the photographer who asks, “What’s Rosebud?” following Kane’s famous last words.

Recalling her dual roles as actor and assistant, she said in an interview with NewsBeat Social last year, “I would just drop my notebook and run on the set.”

Years later, Trosper defended her old boss after Pauline Kael’s essay “Raising Kane” asserted that Citizen Kane was actually written by Herman J. Mankiewicz.

“Then I’d like to know what was all that stuff I was always typing for Mr. Welles!” she said at the time.

Born in Wyoming on March 18, 1915, Trosper would later relocate with her family to California, where she earned a scholarship to USC, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Her husband, Martin Popper, was the co-chief defense counsel for the Hollywood Ten, defending Dalton Trumbo and John Howard Lawson for their refusal to testify before Congress about communism in the film industry. Popper would later be convicted of the same offense in 1961.

Trosper’s brother, Guy Trosper, also forged a career in show business, writing screenplays for films like Birdman of Alcatraz in 1962 and The Spy Who Came in From the Cold in 1965.