Alma Rubens
Acting
Biography
From Wikipedia Alma Rubens (February 19, 1897 – January 22, 1931) was an American film actress and stage performer. Rubens began her career in the mid 1910s. She quickly rose to stardom in 1916 after appearing opposite Douglas Fairbanks in The Half Breed. For the remainder of the decade, she appeared in supporting roles in comedies and drama. In the 1920s. Her first stage opportunity came when a chorus girl in a musical comedy theater troupe became ill. Rubens was chosen to take her place and joined the troupe as a regular performer. There she met Franklyn Farnum who was also a member. He later convinced Rubens to leave the troupe and try her hand at film acting. Her breakthrough performance was in 1916 in the movie Reggie Mixes In. She made six more films in that same year. In 1917 she starred in The Firefly of Tough Luck, which was a big success. She gained fame when she became Douglas Fairbanks's leading lady in The Half Breed (1916), and supported Fairbanks and Bessie Love in the cocaine comedy The Mystery of the Leaping Fish later that same year. In 1918, Alma announced that she was changing the spelling of her last name of Rueben to "Rubens" because it caused too much confusion in the movie industry and in publications. She later told Photoplay magazine, "As a matter of fact my name is not the same [spelling] as the painter's. It's either Reubens or Ruebens-I forget which. I never could spell it. Couldn't remember where the 'e' came. So I let it go Rubens." In 1920, she completed The World and His Wife, opposite Montague Love which further solidified her popularity. In 1924, she starred in The Price She Paid and Cytherea. Rubens developed a drug addiction which eventually ended her career. She died of pneumonia shortly after being arrested on narcotics charge in January 1931. A funeral service was held on January 24 at the Little Church of the Flowers at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale. Her body was then shipped to Fresno where a second service was held at the Christian Science Church on January 26. She was interred in Ararat Massis Armenian Cemetery in Fresno. For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Alma Rubens has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame located at 6409 Hollywood Blvd.
Known For
Two families, abolitionist Northerners the Stonemans and Southern landowners the Camerons, intertwine. When Confederate colonel Ben Cameron is captured in battle, nurse Elsie Stoneman petitions for his pardon. In Reconstruction-era South Carolina, Cameron founds the Ku Klux Klan, battling Elsie's congressman father and his African-American protégé, Silas Lynch.
The Birth of a Nation
The story of a poor young woman, separated by prejudice from her husband and baby, is interwoven with tales of intolerance from throughout history.
Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages
A young woman disguises herself as a man and follows her fiancéé into the trenches during World War I to find out what war is really like.
She Goes to War
Vintage Hollywood themed shockumentary.
Death Scenes
Young Tony, unable to make a living in crowded and fast-paced London, goes to South America in search of his fortune. He soon becomes the owner of a saloon and dance hall. One of the dancers in his place, Maxine, falls in love with him, but Tony is still in love with his childhood sweetheart Una, although Una is now a "party girl" back in London and has forgotten about Tony. However, Tony comes into an unexpected inheritance, along with a title, and returns to London for Una. Although disappointed with Una's current lifestyle, he asks her to marry him despite her "indiscretions". However, the night before they are to be married Una confesses a deep, dark secret to Tony that could change their lives forever.
The Dancers
This whodunit bears no relation to the 1918 picture of the same name, but both films coincidentally had the same director, Tom Terriss. When sleazy theatrical agent Maurice Beiner (Arthur Donaldson) is found stabbed to death in his office, just about everybody is a suspect -- there's aspiring actress Clancy Deane (Eileen Huban), who was one of the last people to see him alive, and Sophie Carey (Alma Rubens) who knows he has some love letters she wrote to Judge Walbrough (George MacQuarrie) before she married her alcoholic husband, Don (Henry Sedley). Or is it Marc Weber (Norman Kerry), who had a falling out with Beiner, or Weber's devoted wife, Fay (Ethel Duray)?
Find the Woman
A young man is tasked by the powerful Cardinal Richelieu to capture one of the cardinal's enemies but falls in love with his target's sister. The film marks the last motion picture appearance by stage actor Robert B. Mantell who plays Cardinal Richelieu and the only silent screen performance of opera singer John Charles Thomas.
Under the Red Robe
Coke Ennyday, the scientific detective, divides his time into periods of "Sleep", "Eat", "Dope" and "Drinks". In fact, he overcomes every situation with drugs: consuming cocaine to increase his energy or injecting it in his opponents to incapacitate them. To help the police, he tracks down a contraband of opium (which he eagerly tastes) transported within "leaping fishes", saving a "fish-blower" girl from blackmail along the way.
The Mystery of the Leaping Fish
In France, a romantic young woman named Germaine is shocked and disheartened to discover that, for financial reasons, her parents have arranged a marriage for her with Lucien D'Artois, a wealthy man of rough manners who loves his horses and dogs more than evening clothes. Germaine makes her distaste known to her new husband, and Lucien goes to Paris to make himself over. Before Lucien can return to Germaine, however, she writes him a letter saying they can never be happy together. Lucien becomes despondent and dissipates his entire fortune in reckless living. André Delandal ingratiates himself with Germaine and leads her to falsely believe that Lucien has been unfaithful. Germaine goes to Paris to ask Lucien for her freedom, then discovers that he has become a polished gentleman. She belatedly declares her love for Lucien.
She Wolves
Doug is an American mining engineer. Pres. Valdez of Paragonia wants him to reopen the country's mines. Doug is not interested ... until he sees the President's beautiful daughter, Juana. Valdez returns to Paragonia, but is deposed by Generals Sanchez and Garcia and locked in San Mateo Prison. The Americano arrives...
The Americano
Frank Trent, raised by his father with an old-fashioned reverence for women, goes to the city where he obtains a job as an aide to corrupt politician Senator Briggs. Learning that Briggs, who is supporting the incumbent mayor, plans to smear his opponent, Mrs. Burke, by stirring up charges that her adopted daughter Margaret is actually her illegitimate child, Frank quits his job and determines to prove Mrs. Burke's innocence. A lost film
An Old Fashioned Young Man
In an attempt to brand himself as a serious actor, the smiling swashbuckler Douglas Fairbanks starred in THE HALF-BREED (1916), a Western melodrama written by Anita Loos and directed with flair by Allan Dwan. Fairbanks stars as Lo Dorman, who has been ostracized from society because of this mixed ethnicity - his Native American mother was abandoned by his white father. When Lo catches the eye of the rich white debutante Nellie (Jewel Carmen), he becomes a target for the racist Sheriff Dunn (Sam De Grasse), who wants to break them up and take Nelli for his own. This love triangle becomes a quadrangle with the arrival of Teresa (Alma Rubens), who is on the run from the law. Through fire and fury Lo must decide who and what he truly loves.
The Half-Breed
Paul is a fearless French Foreign Legion officer. Ordered to quell a native uprising at a far-away outpost, he discovers that the revolt is actually a subterfuge hatched by the Arabs, so that the city under Paul's command will be left unguarded and defenseless.
The Winding Stair
Elderly Spanish nobleman Don Julian is happily married to Teodora, a beautiful young girl, when his protégé, young poet Ernesto, comes to live with them. Vicious gossip spreads false rumors of a love affair between the two young people and the evil Don Alvarez, the most bitter slanderer of all, goads Ernesto into challenging him to a duel. Don Julian, realizing that the youth is no match for one of the best swordsmen in Spain, forces the slanderer into a fight in which Don Alvarez is slain and Don Julian gravely wounded. Ernesto calls upon the dying Don Julian to convince him of his wife's innocence. Misled by his brother Severo, Don Julian believes the youth has come to visit Teodora, denouncing them both before dying, ironically driving Ernesto and Teodora from the house to face the world together.
The World and His Wife
Lee Randon, weary of business duties and a conventional home life, acquires a long-lost sense of excitement and romance with young flapper Claire Morris. When he meets her married aunt, Savina Grove, she appears to be the woman he imagines whenever he gazes at a doll he has christened Cytherea, goddess of love -----Cytherea features two dream sequences filmed in an early version of the Technicolor color film process.
Cytherea
This film sticks very closely to the Edna Ferber novel, rather than the musical based on the novel. There are only two major changes from Ferber's book : *Julie in this version is a white woman, not a racially mixed one; therefore she and her husband are not unlawfully married. * Ravenal returns at the end, instead of dying as in the novel
Show Boat
In order to save her extravagant mother from bankruptcy, shame and scandal, young society girl Mildred Gower is forced to accept the proposal of Lemuel Siddall, a wealthy man she loathes.
The Price She Paid
Left penniless after the death of her reprobate father Linda Haverhill procures a loan from John Converse, who is smitten with her. She squanders the money in an attempt to maintain her social position by going abroad. During the journey Linda falls in love with Army Captain Brian Anestry of the United States Army, but foolishly burns her possessions planning to file an insurance claim to tide her over. Arrested, she is involved in a wreck which just might provide an escape for both Linda and Brian from their troubles.
The Gilded Butterfly
When English nobleman Marcus Heriot marries the young Canadian Wanda his family, especially his mother, reject her because of her outsider status. Lady Heriot engineers a scandal that ruins their marriage and after has Wanda’s child declared illegitimate. Years pass during which Wanda and her son Robin rebuild their lives through toil. Now grown Robin enters the military, and Marcus reenters their lives wanting to give the young man his name.
Marriage License?
The hunter becomes the hunted, an officer of the Royal Mounted, fleeing, fighting for his life. Guided to a secret valley in the frozen North by a hot-blooded French-Canadian beauty, with a secret of her own...