Alma Rubens
1897 - 1931Alma 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.
Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages
D. W. Griffith
Lillian Gish, Mae Marsh
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
The Masks of the Devil
Victor Sjöström
John Gilbert, Alma Rubens
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 Masks of the Devil
East Lynne
Emmett J. Flynn
Alma Rubens, Edmund Lowe
This most famous of Victorian melodramas was more than half a century old, and had already been filmed several times when it came to the screen once again in 1925. Director Emmett J. Flynn had an all-star cast and kept close to the original story.
East Lynne
The Ghost Flower
Frank Borzage
Alma Rubens, Charles West
Giulia, a Neapolitan girl, much against her will, becomes the mistress of a wealthy gangster. Her "protector" is stabbed to death by Giulia's hot-headed musician lover Tony (Francis McDonald), whereupon the heroine takes refuge in the villa of French playwright La Farge. Under La Farge's careful tutelage, Giulia develops into a famous actress, capturing the heart of the Duke De Chaumont. Though LaFarge himself has fallen in love with the girl, he does not stand in her way when she accepts the Duke's proposal. But Giulia has not reckoned with Tony, who is still crazy about her and still willing to kill any man who stands in his way. Tony murders LaFarge, then sets his sights on the Duke, intending to kill the poor fellow during the wedding ceremony. Hoping to save the Duke's life, Giulia pretends to have fallen out of love with him and returns to Tony.
The Ghost Flower
Cytherea
George Fitzmaurice
Irene Rich, Lewis Stone
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
The Mystery of the Leaping Fish
John Emerson, Christy Cabanne
Douglas Fairbanks, Bessie Love
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
The Dancers
Emmett J. Flynn
George O’Brien, Alma Rubens
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
The Half-Breed
Allan Dwan
Douglas Fairbanks, Alma Rubens
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
The Valley of Silent Men
Frank Borzage
Alma Rubens, Lew Cody
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...
The Valley of Silent Men
