Alma Rubens

Alma Rubens

  • Birthday: 1897-02-17
  • Deathday: 1931-01-22
  • Place of birth: San Francisco, California, USA
  • Also know as: Alma Genevieve Reubens

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

The Rejected Woman

1924

As Diane Du Prez

Find the Woman

1922

As Sophie Carey

East Lynne

1925

As Lady Isabel

Marriage License?

1926

As Wanda Heriot

The Heart of Salome

1927

As Helene

The Winding Stair

1925

As Marguerite

A Man's Country

1919

As Kate Carewe

Is Love Everything?

1924

As Virginia Carter

Siberia

1926

As Sonia Vronsky

The Masks of the Devil

1928

As Countess Zellner

The Half-Breed

1916

As Teresa

The Americano

1916

As Juana de Castalar

The Dancers

1925

As Maxine

Under the Red Robe

1923

As Renee de Cocheforet

Enemies of Women

1923

As The Duchess de Lille

Truthful Tulliver

1917

As Grace Burton

She Goes to War

1929

As Rosie

Humoresque

1920

As Gina Berg (formerly Minnie Ginsberg)

The Children Pay

1916

As Editha, the Girls' Stepmother

Fine Clothes

1925

As Paula

Cytherea

1924

As Savina Grove

Diane of the Green Van

1919

As Diane Westfall

The Mystery of the Leaping Fish

1916

As Wealthy Gent's Female Confederate

Show Boat

1929

As Julie Dozier

Reggie Mixes In

1916

As Lemona Reighley

The Cold Deck

1917

As Coralie

A Woman's Awakening

1917

As Cousin Kate (as Alma Rueben)

The Birth of a Nation

1915

As Belle of 1861

Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages

1916

As Girl at the Marriage Market (uncredited)

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