Alma Rubens (February 19, 1897 - January 22, 1931) is an American silent film actress. Born in San Francisco, California, she performed since youth and became a star at the age of 19.

Fast Career Rise and Addiction

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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 The Firefly of Tough Luck which was a big success. She gained notoriety when she became Douglas Fairbanks' lead actress. She continued to work successfully until 1924. In that year she starred in The Price She Paid.

Her career practically ended overnight, as fast as it had began. But she did play the role of Julie in the 1929 part-talkie film version of Show Boat, her next-to-last film, and one of her few sound films, although the sound track for the portion in which she spoke has apparently been lost. She began finding it hard to get roles because of her addiction to heroin. Because of this she started to go in and out of mental institutions until, weakened by her addiction, she died of pneumonia in 1931.

Personal Life

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Rubens married three times. Her first marriage, to actor Franklyn Farnum who was nearly twenty years her senior, lasted only a month. She was also married to Daniel Carson Goodman and at the time of her death she was married to Ricardo Cortez.

External links

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• Alma Rubens, Silent Snowbird: The Complete 1931 Memoir, With a New Biography And Filmography (ISBN 0786424133)

1897 births | 1931 deaths | American actors | American film actors | American silent film actors | Drug-related deaths | Entertainers who died in their 30s | San Franciscans

Alma Rubens