People active in the silent era and people who keep the silent era alive.
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Photograph: Silent Era image collection.
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Alma Rubens
(same as Alma Ruben, Alma Reuben and Alma Reubens)
Born 19 February 1897 in San Francisco, California, USA, as Alma Genevieve Reubens.
Died 22 January 1931 in Los Angeles, California, USA,
of lobar pneumonia and bronchitis (with complications from drug addiction).
Married actor Franklyn Farnum, June 1918; separated [?] August? 1918; divorced, December 1919.
Married writer Daniel Carson Goodman, November 1923; separated late 1924; divorced 1925.
Married actor Ricardo Cortez, 30 January 1926 in Riverside, California (invalid because her previous marriage was not yet finalized); remarried 6 February 1926; separated mid-1930; until Alma’s death, 22 January 1931.
Alma Rubens began her motion picture career at the urging of Franklyn Farnum, signing with Triangle Film Corporation and appearing in Reggie Mixes In (1916) and starring in The Half-Breed (1916) and The Americano (1917) with Douglas Fairbanks. She supported William S. Hart in two films in 1917, and starred in The Ghost Flower (1918) with Frank Borzage directing. In the course of the ensuing years, Rubens would star in many of her films for Winsome Stars Corporation (1919), Cosmopolitan Productions (1920-1923), Samuel Goldwyn, Incorporated (1924), Columbia Pictures Corporation (1924) and Fox Film Corporation (1924).
Rubens starred in Week End Husbands (1924) written and produced by her second husband Daniel Carson Goodman for his own company. However, about this time, Rubens became addicted to cocaine to which she may have been introduced by friends, studio staff or drug dealers. She hid her habit at first, continuing her work without detection for Louis B. Mayer Productions (1925), Universal Pictures Corporation (1926), Fox Film Corporation (1925-1927) and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Corporation (1928). Privately, her third husband and Alma struggled in their marriage, with Ricardo attempting a number of times in 1929 to place her into professional hands to break her drug addiction. Some biographers state that her drugs of choice were cocaine and heroin, although there may not be enough documentation to support the heroin claims.
With her addiction now known in the film industry and by the general public, and with her personal life still spinning out-of-control, Alma Rubens made her final two film appearances in 1929: Show Boat (1929) and She Goes to War (1929), in which she was reduced to a supporting player in tacked-on sound sequences added to the otherwise silent film. Her erratic, addictive behavior led to her commitment by her husband and her mother into a state mental institution in California to attempt to keep her from drug suppliers while she cleaned up. With no more film roles being offered to her, in early 1930 Rubens appeared in a Los Angeles theatre production and soon made a go at vaudeville — as many former film stars who were abandoned by studios and their fans did to make ends meet — but for whatever reason the move was fruitless. Rubens wrote her autobiography in 1930, which was serialized in newspapers, presumably for a fast buck in lean times.
On 5 January 1931, Rubens was arrested by Federal officers in San Diego. California, for cocaine possession and conspiracy to smuggle morphine into the United States from Mexico. She was released on bail and appeared at a preliminary hearing in the second week of the month. In her stressed and addiction-weakened condition, Alma caught a severe case of pneumonia and subsequently collapsed into a coma at the Los Angeles home of friend Dr. Charles J. Pflueger. Rubens was taken to a hospital but never awakened and, later in the month, she passed away. Alma Rubens was 33 years old.
References: Website-IMDb; Website-Wikipedia.
[Excerpt from a newspaper story by United Press writer Duane Hennessy, published 17 May 1929]
They took Alma Rubens to Patton state insane asylum today, a pitiful, once beautiful woman ravaged by drugs. / The dark-eyed star a movie public favored so long was removed from the psychopathic ward at general hospital, where she had been put at midnight, a raving, clawing creature who battled deputy sheriffs and screamed threats of suicide and murder. / From some undisclosed source she had obtained supplies of narcotics and fallen back completely into the habit from which her mother and her husband have been attempting to free her. / She is not insane, but relatives and doctors hope that in Patton she will be outside the reach of the ring which has been giving her drugs. Her confinement was ordered by Ricardo Cortez, her screen star husband, and Mrs. Theresa Rubens, her mother. / Meanwhile, the sheriff’s office opened a vigorous narcotics drive in Hollywood and assigned additional investigators to search for the dope ring. The actresses’ source of narcotics is clever beyond belief, deputy sheriffs said. Watched closely by guards, nurses and her family, she nevertheless has been able to obtain the cocaine which has pulled her down from stardom. / The story of Alma Rubens is a Hollywood tragedy — stark and real. It is that of the rise of a beautiful young girl to place in the film world which so many seek in vain, and her helpless fall. / Alma Rubens first came to film attention about 10 years ago. Beautiful and successful she was a leading figure in the film colony’s social life. Then, four years ago, she became addicted to narcotics. Four months ago her secret became public when she attempted to knife a physician on Hollywood boulevard.
[Excerpt from a newspaper story published 27 July 1929]
Alma Rubens, Hollywood screen star, failed in an attempt to escape from the Southern California state hospital at Patton Tuesday night. / Reports that Miss Rubens had succeeded in her effort to escape and was absent from the hospital for two days was denied last night by Dr. G.M. Webster, superintendant of the hospital. / Details of the effort at escape, however, will not be made public unless they are announced by the department of institutions at Sacramento. Dr. Webster said that state institutions are not permitted to discuss matters concerning narcotics patients. / It is understood at Patton, however, that Miss Rubens attempted to elude attendants but did not succeed in leaving the hospital grounds. She was detected in her effort and was immediately overtaken. / Miss Rubens was committed to the state hospital nearly three months ago after a hectic career as a drug addict, once attempting to attack a physician and again escaping from a sanitorium near Pomona, where she was a patient for several weeks. She also figured in a number of escapades in Los Angeles in recent months.
[Excerpt from an interview published in The Los Angeles Examiner toward the end of her life]
As long as my money held out I could get drugs. I was afraid to tell my mother, my best friends. My only desire was to get drugs and take them in secrecy. If only I could get on my knees before the police or before a judge and beg them to make stiffer laws so that men will refuse to take any dirty dollars from the murderers who sell this poison and who escape punishment when caught by buying their way out.
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