Alma Rubens | WatchedThis
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.
Filmography Movies
Acting
The Winding Stair
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.
Master of His Home
Unhappy with her daughter's choice to marry a miner instead of her choice, a man of wealth, a mother tries to convince her daughter to get an abortion.
A Man's Country
Dance-hall queen Kate Carewe is the toast of the gold-mining camp of Huxley's Gulch. One day a minister, Ralph Bowen, arrives to "clean up" the town. He is scorned by the miners, gamblers and "loose women" of the place, especially Kate, who resents that Bowen calls her a "scarlet woman".
Is Love Everything?
Virginia Carter accedes to her family's pressures and marries Jordan Southwick, who comes from a wealthy and socially prominent family. However, she soon regrets her actions because she still loves her ex-boyfriend, Robert Whitney. Due to the instigation of his jealous brother Boyd, Jordan suspects Virginia of being unfaithful with Whitney.
Siberia
Officer in the Imperial Russian Army, Petroff, is in love with Sonia, a schoolteacher who casts her lot with revolutionaries. During a time of suppression, she is exiled with her brother to Siberia. There Petroff is sent in the discharge of his official duties and secretly renews their romance. When the Bolsheviki overthrow the government, Sonia is freed and aids in the escape of Petroff, who incurs the enmity of Egor, the revolutionary leader, because he is a royalist. Together they escape across the frozen wastes in a sledge, pursued by wolves and Egor, who has used patriotism as a cloak to conceal personal ambitions.
The Gangsters and the Girl
Molly Ashley, a child of the slums, is charged with being an accomplice to a shoplifter. Although innocent, she is convicted of shoplifting and sentenced to two years' imprisonment. Jim Tracy, the leader of a band of gangsters, rescues Molly. The following morning Detective Stone is assigned the task of locating and running down Jim Tracy's gang. In order to secure evidence against the gang, he disguises himself as one of the gangsters, runs into their place and pretends that the "cops" are after him. Tracy and the gang take him in. Molly falls in love with Stone and discovers his true identity. One of the crooks gets sore at Jim Tracy and betrays them to the police. Jim accuses Molly of betraying them. Stone resents his accusation.
The Cold Deck
Gambler "On-the Level" Leigh (William S. Hart) is forced to leave his high rolling lifestyle to move his ailing sister Alice (Mildred Harris) to the healing climate the mountains. Financial strain compels him to resume his favored vocation. Unfortunately for Level, the dance hall girl Coralie (Alma Rubens) doesn't take rejection well and convinces the dealer to clean him out with a "cold deck". A desperate robbery ensues, leading to Level wanted for murder!
The Masks of the Devil
Baron Reiner, a charming though unscrupulous Viennese aristocrat, becomes infatuated with Virginia, an innocent schoolgirl who is engaged to his best friend, Manfred. In order to seduce the girl, Reiner finances an oceanographic expedition for Manfred that takes him away for months (TCM).
The Half-Breed
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.
Cytherea
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.
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