Fontaine La Rue

Acting

Biography

Matilda Fernández, stage name Fontaine La Rue (July 18, 1890 in Hermosillo, Mexico – September 13, 1964) was an American silent film actress appearing in films from 1918 to 1929. Her career ended with the advent of talkies. She was one of seven children born to Diego and Carlotta Monreal Fernandez. After immigrating to the United States in 1907, Matilda married Victor Garcia Rojas. The couple had three children, Victor Paul, Matilda Garcia, and Victoria Grace. After the couple divorced, Matilda entered show business. She got her start on stage as a toe dancer and in musical comedy. She toured with the Trimble Musical Comedy Company in 1914 before breaking into films the following year in comedy shorts for Keystone. She first used the name Dora Rodgers, but reinvented herself with the name Fontaine La Rue, tiring of playing vamps. On occasions she would switch between the names. Notably she appeared in the lost film, A Blind Bargain with Lon Chaney. After a lengthy love affair with actor Nelson McDowell, Fontaine married real estate broker Wayne Hancock and retired from the screen. The Keystone Vamp died of Acute Myelogenous Leukemia on September 13, 1964, at UCLA Medical Center.

Filmography Movies

Acting

MOVIE

Borrowed Clothes

A pretty but poor girl leaves the young boy who loves her for a rich playboy who she believes will take care of her, but the wealthy cad has other plans for her.

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Borrowed Clothes

Rita Morris (as Fontine La Rue)

MOVIE

Cactus Nell

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Cactus Nell

The Gent's Accomplice

MOVIE

Unseen Hands

10.0(0.0K)

A wealthy mine owner's wife gets him to hire Jean Scholast, a footloose adventurer, as a reward for saving her. Unbeknown to the wife, Scholast is a fortune hunter and soon poisons the husband and marries the wife.

Human Stuff

10.0(0.0K)

An Eastern boy is sent to the West to run the family's sheep ranch. The presence of sheep anger nearby cattlemen, who don't want to share their cattle's grazing lands with them, and their leader has no compunctions about resorting to drastic measures to protect his interests.

Flyin' Thru

8.0(0.0K)

Lieutenant Willis returns home from France, where he was an aviation ace, to find that his father has been falsely jailed for the murder of Judson Blair.

The Bear Cat

9.0(0.0K)

The Bearcat, alias The Singin' Kid, crosses the Rio Grande into Three Pines, singing bloodthirsty verses, but in spite of these, he makes friends with Sheriff Bill Garfield and likewise with Alys May, daughter of cattle rancher John P. May, by saving her from a runaway. As a reward, he gets a job on the ranch and falls in love with Alys, though warned she is engaged to Aitken, her brother's college chum.

Stolen Magic

A Keystone comedy short starring Mabel Normand

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Stolen Magic

Secondary Supporting Role

MOVIE

An Adventuress

7.0(0.0K)

Filmed by Fred J. Balshofer in 1918 as the anti-German war drama Over the Rhine, the project was reshaped and released in 1920 as An Adventuress—a cross-dressing caper set in the fictional republic of Alpania and headlined by female-impersonation star Julian Eltinge, with early appearances by Rudolph Valentino and Virginia Rappe. The film was later re-edited and reissued in 1922 as The Isle of Love.

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An Adventuress

Droppington's Family TreeMOVIE

MOVIE

Droppington's Family Tree

5.0(0.0K)

Pa Droppington sneaks out of the house to go to the theatre. Amid comic capers he is smitten by a dancer. Meanwhile his son is telling Ma that he's in love with a dancer! She is not happy but he takes her to the theatre (for her birthday). She sees hubby and chases him around, he's also chased by another performer. The son calls a clergyman, Pa saves the girl and they marry at the end.

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Droppington's Family Tree

Cabaret Dancer