
Alma Rubens
Actor · 1897 – 1931 · San Francisco, California, USA
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.
Movies24
Movie5.9DramaHistoryTwo families, abolitionist Northerners the Stonemans and Southern landowners the Camerons, intertwine. When Confederate colonel Ben Cameron is captured in battle, nurse Elsie Stoneman petitions for his pardon. In Reconstruction-era South Carolina, Cameron founds the Ku Klux Klan, battling Elsie's congressman father and his African-American protégé, Silas Lynch.
The Birth of a Nation
1915 · 616 votes
Movie7.1DramaHistoryThe 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
1916 · 390 votes
Movie5.5DramaJudith Wingate has married for wealth, but desires love, while her friend Marion Gregory has married for love, but longs for wealth. Chester Wingate refuses to grant Judith a divorce, even though he is having an affair and Judith has taken wealthy Oliver Sloan for a lover.
Restless Souls
1919 · 2 votes
Movie9.0DramaGerald Cranston, a successful financier and industrialist who worked his way up through the ranks, enters into a marriage of convenience with Lady Hermione, from which he hopes to gain social prestige; Hermione, for her part, desires financial independence. Gordon Ibbotsleigh attempts to win Hermione's affection, while Hermione's cousin Angela directs her wiles toward Gerald. Both efforts fail, however, and the threat of financial ruin finally and firmly unites the Cranstons.
Gerald Cranston's Lady
1924 · 1 votes
- Movie8.0Drama
Donovan Steele returns to Quebec to be married and finds his fiancée in the arms of another man. This shatters his faith in God and woman alike, and he takes to the wilderness, becoming known as 'the man who denies God."
A Woman's Faith
1925 · 1 votes
MovieMysteryDisgusted when the police department fails to apprehend the murderer of her guardian, Henri Du Bois, Celeste decides to track down the criminal herself. Her only clue is a cuff link dropped near the scene of the crime on which a sphinx is engraved, and with it, she wanders through Paris' tough Moulin Noir district. When she notices a young man wearing a tie pin of identical design, she cultivates his acquaintance and eventually asks him to visit her in her home. His suspicious behavior there convinces Celeste that he is the guilty party, and although she has fallen in love with him, she has him arrested, whereupon she learns that he is Du Bois' missing son, Andre. Further detective work reveals that the real murderer is Celeste's rejected suitor, Raoul Laverne. Upon his confession, Andre is released and eventually marries Celeste.
Madame Sphinx
1918
MovieDramaWestern"Tough Luck" Baxter, returning from a prospecting trip, meets Happy Jack Clarke, a former citizen of Baxter City, a boom town which became a ghost town when the gold petered out. A game of cards decides that Clarke will go back to Baxter City with "Tough Luck" in search of ore. Meanwhile, the Firefly, a New York music hall entertainer out of a job, is ordered by her parasitic husband Bert Wilcox to perform at the dance hall in Baxter City. Upon her arrival, she finds the town deserted and strikes out on the open trail.
Movie6.4WarDramaA young woman disguises herself as a man and follows her fiancéé into the trenches during World War I to find out what war is really like.
She Goes to War
1929 · 7 votes
Movie7.0DramaMynderse Van Dyun, a wealthy old New York aristocrat, has one goal in life, to see his granddaughter Catherine and grandson Pell married; for, although they are cousins, the marriage would perpetuate the family name. Catherine, however, is in love with Paul La Farge and detests her drug-addicted cousin, who seduces and then secretly marries her maid, Nora Duffy.
The Regenerates
1917 · 1 votes
MovieDramaOfficer 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.
Siberia
1926 · 1 votes
Movie9.0DramaElderly Spanish nobleman Don Julian is happily married to Teodora, a beautiful young girl, when his protégé, young poet Ernesto, comes to live with them. Vicious gossip spreads false rumors of a love affair between the two young people and the evil Don Alvarez, the most bitter slanderer of all, goads Ernesto into challenging him to a duel. Don Julian, realizing that the youth is no match for one of the best swordsmen in Spain, forces the slanderer into a fight in which Don Alvarez is slain and Don Julian gravely wounded. Ernesto calls upon the dying Don Julian to convince him of his wife's innocence. Misled by his brother Severo, Don Julian believes the youth has come to visit Teodora, denouncing them both before dying, ironically driving Ernesto and Teodora from the house to face the world together.
The World and His Wife
1920 · 1 votes
Movie8.0DramaBaron 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
1928 · 1 votes
Movie8.0DramaHistoryDance-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".
A Man's Country
1919 · 1 votes
Movie5.9MysteryComedyCoke 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
1916 · 39 votes
Movie5.3DramaRomanceIn order to save her extravagant mother from bankruptcy, shame and scandal, young society girl Mildred Gower is forced to accept the proposal of Lemuel Siddall, a wealthy man she loathes.
The Price She Paid
1924 · 3 votes
Movie9.0DramaAn heiress takes a road trip in a green van. Unbeknownst to her, she has four pursuers.
Diane of the Green Van
1919 · 1 votes
Movie5.8DramaYoung Leon Kanter dreams of being a great violinist. His parents scrape up the money for a violin and for lessons, and Leon rewards them by becoming a great player. But as an adult, Leon finds that people want more from him than just music.
Humoresque
1920 · 12 votes
MovieDramaSocial worker John Warfield meets socialist radical Guido Garcia, and together they establish a refuge in San Francisco for life's unfortunates.
The Answer
1918
Movie6.5WesternIn 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
1916 · 10 votes
Movie6.0HistoryDramaA young man is tasked by the powerful Cardinal Richelieu to capture one of the cardinal's enemies but falls in love with his target's sister. The film marks the last motion picture appearance by stage actor Robert B. Mantell who plays Cardinal Richelieu and the only silent screen performance of opera singer John Charles Thomas.
Under the Red Robe
1923 · 2 votes
Movie6.3DramaRomanceThe 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
1922 · 4 votes
- MovieDrama
Frank Trent, raised by his father with an old-fashioned reverence for women, goes to the city where he obtains a job as an aide to corrupt politician Senator Briggs. Learning that Briggs, who is supporting the incumbent mayor, plans to smear his opponent, Mrs. Burke, by stirring up charges that her adopted daughter Margaret is actually her illegitimate child, Frank quits his job and determines to prove Mrs. Burke's innocence. A lost film
Movie6.8DramaThis film sticks very closely to the Edna Ferber novel, rather than the musical based on the novel. There are only two major changes from Ferber's book : *Julie in this version is a white woman, not a racially mixed one; therefore she and her husband are not unlawfully married. * Ravenal returns at the end, instead of dying as in the novel
Show Boat
1929 · 4 votes
Movie7.0DramaA 1917 film directed by Chester Withey.
A Woman's Awakening
1917 · 1 votes
Series1
TV8.4DocumentaryA 1980 documentary series exploring the establishment and development of the Hollywood studios and its impact on 1920s culture.
Hollywood
1980 · 17 votes