
Alma Rubens
Personal Info
Known for
Acting
Gender
Female
Birthday
1897-02-17
Day of Death
1931-01-22 (33 years old)
Place of Birth
San Francisco, California, USA
Alma Rubens
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.
Known For
Acting
(1929)
Show Boat
as Julie Dozier
(1929)
She Goes to War
as Rosie
(1928)
The Masks of the Devil
as Countess Zellner
(1927)
The Heart of Salome
as Helene
(1926)
Siberia
as Sonia Vronsky
(1926)
Marriage License?
as Wanda Heriot
(1926)
The Gilded Butterfly
as Linda Haverhill
(1925)
Fine Clothes
as Paula
(1925)
East Lynne
as Lady Isabel
(1925)
The Dancers
as Maxine
(1925)
The Winding Stair
as Marguerite
(1924)
Cytherea
as Savina Grove
(1924)
The Rejected Woman
as Diane Du Prez
(1924)
Is Love Everything?
as Virginia Carter
(1924)
The Price She Paid
as Mildred Gower
(1923)
Enemies of Women
as The Duchess de Lille
(1923)
Under the Red Robe
as Renee de Cocheforet
(1922)
(1922)
Find the Woman
as Sophie Carey
(1920)
Humoresque
as Gina Berg (formerly Minnie Ginsberg)
(1920)
The World and His Wife
as Teodora
(1919)
A Man's Country
as Kate Carewe
(1919)
Diane of the Green Van
as Diane Westfall
(1918)
(1917)
Truthful Tulliver
as Grace Burton
(1917)
(1917)
A Woman's Awakening
as Cousin Kate (as Alma Rueben)
(1917)
The Cold Deck
as Coralie
(1917)
(1917)
Master of His Home
as Millicent Drake
(1916)
The Half-Breed
as Teresa
(1916)
Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages
as Girl at the Marriage Market (uncredited)
(1916)
The Mystery of the Leaping Fish
as Wealthy Gent's Female Confederate
(1916)
The Children Pay
as Editha, the Girls' Stepmother
(1916)
Reggie Mixes In
as Lemona Reighley
(1916)
The Americano
as Juana de Castalar
(1915)
The Birth of a Nation
as Belle of 1861 (uncredited)
(1914)