The Real Ruth Roland (1926) 🇺🇸

To “interview” Ruth Roland would strike me as ridiculous, unless I should do it in burlesque vein. One can’t condense four years of close friendship into a few pages. So I am going to pick up at random snatches of this association which has been so dear — though it would never occur to either of us to gush over it. Like little pictures in a photo-slide, one by one, I will slip a few into the stereopticon holder for you to view.

by Myrtle Gebhart

“Ruth Roland’s through.” Certain jealous cats in Hollywood have gloated over flinging that remark about. My shrewd, practical, clever Ruth — licked? Ha! That hands me a laugh. She’ll be in pictures when she’s fifty, if she wants to. She started fifteen years ago, when she was fourteen or fifteen; and she has been one of our most consistent stars. Now after a year’s absence, she is staging a comeback, on which I am willing to bet my last nickel.

There are several Ruths, personalities that unfold in layers.

The public knows best, Ruth, the serial queen. Though occasionally she used doubles, she performed many of those hazardous stunts herself — riding at break-neck speed, being mauled by villains in realistic fights, diving into ice-cold seas.

Ruth the athlete keeps in trim by a program of sports — her favorites are riding and swimming — because she regards health as an asset to be cherished and because she gets a keen enjoyment out of them.

One incident of her return to the screen is characteristic of the thoroughness with which she does everything. In The Masked Woman she plays a snappy American chorus girl. For theater sequences, the Marion Morgan Dancers were engaged and tediously rehearsed. Ruth, as one of the chorines, danced with them.

She had only three days for preparation; but eight hours of each were devoted to strenuous practice. She did tumbles and cartwheels, she was “stretched at the bar” — ballet students will know the excruciating pain this causes the stubborn muscles unaccustomed to the plastic elasticity of the professional. Her arms and limbs were black and blue. But when the director called “Action!” her every step and kick and pirouette were in closest harmony to the others.

Two years ago she determined to “roll her own” feature productions. Though the effort was not a failure — she realized her money out of the two pictures, but with a scant margin of profit due to too much expenditure and releasing difficulties — she learned that the combination jobs of producer and star were too much for one girl.

Stage offers and movie contracts were submitted. She hesitated, for it was so hard to choose. Even a Ruth Roland, not being infallible, may make mistakes. A trip East was followed by a visit to Denver, as guest of the Rotarians. She returned at two o’clock in the afternoon. At seven, having made a characteristically sudden decision in favor of the First National offer, she signed. And now she is determined to stay, to fight if need be for the place to which her experience and her capability and her popularity with her loyal fans entitle her.

The wise-crackers don’t know the sentimental Ruth as I do. They see only the crisp, cool, public Ruth.

The mementos so carefully cherished — pictures of her mother — hundreds of snaps — odds and ends of trivial treasures. Every billet-doux in romantic vein that she has ever received, from the very first school-kid scrawl, all tucked into a cedar box. Bits of each Christmas’ mistletoe — the faded wild flower that she picked to commemorate the starting day of each serial, wilted good-luck omens. Every greeting card she has ever received, and every tiny card attached to each birthday or Christmas gift — a ribbon from every bouquet — her first doll, a lopsided brunet beauty that gladdened her heart at the age of six.

Since 1910 she has kept a diary. Records of joys and of sorrows — of successes and of failures — of loves and of hurts. The first little book, flaunting its brave red leather, was given her by a schoolboy crush. It is loads of fun to glance over the pages of that array of books and read of her doings and her candid impressions of people.

August 5, 1912, bears this notation: “Reported at the studio but couldn’t work because there wasn’t any film. Alice Joyce came to dinner and stayed all night with me. Talked until three, wondering if we’d ever amount to anything.”

One day in 1912 has this notable remark: “Bought a pair of bronze slippers — my first high heels; feel grand but uncomfortable.”

Another one: “Washed my SILK underwear.”

One New Year’s Day passed without a diary gift, so the fly-leaf inscription reads: “Given to myself by myself. May this be a happy and prosperous year. — Ruth Roland.”

The little things she does so casually, which mean so much, have endeared her to her friends. From New York she brought me two gifts, unobtrusively laid beside my plate. One was a green comb with my initial set in sapphires, and the other a wee jeweler’s box in which reposed a precious token. I don’t know how she knew how much I had wanted this particular thing. But that’s Ruth. She finds some chance remark — and always gives you what you want the most.

When there is illness or trouble, Ruth is the first to come — practical, calm Ruth. Her sympathy is too deep for sentimental expression. She just takes care of you, and sees that things are done. Common sense, service.

“Look at that man climb that telegraph pole!” a friend exclaimed one day, as a line-man was at work in the alley.

“You’ve grown soft, Ruth. Double dare! Bet you a box of candy you can’t.”

“Is that so? Wait till I change into my khaki pants.” A moment later Ruth shinned up the pole and alertly swung, hand over hand, down the guy wire. And then, true to her business instinct, demanded the candy.

Ruth very gorgeously arrayed at picture premières and parties. I don’t like the ostrich trimming she often affects, but that’s her affair, not mine.

Misunderstandings — if she is wrong, she apologizes like a good sport. If it has been my fault, she treats me very coolly until I ‘fess I was at fault. The matter is never referred to again.

They say that she “makes plays for publicity.” Certainly. Why not? Isn’t she a business woman, steering her own career? At least, credit her candor. She isn’t adroit, like the skillful little ingénues who tenaciously get what they want under a pink-and-white naiveté.

The day before Christmas her car is piled high with gifts, and she makes the rounds of the hospitals and the orphanages. She takes the crippled war vets radios and cigarettes and books, and stacks of woolen blankets, and things they need. The)- grin through their pain and call her their “buddy” when she sings for them. The kiddies get clothes and toys, and kisses that brighten each small, wan face.

Christmases at Ruth’s house. A comfy home, not a show place — a gray frame house with arbors sprawling winglike and vines rambling over it. At eleven in the morning the door is opened. Relatives and friends drift in and out all day. One wanders in and makes oneself at home. If the Chinese teakwood chairs and the davenports are occupied, one flings a gay crimson pillow on the floor and sinks upon it. Messenger boys dart in, laden with cheerily wrapped packages. Groups settle for talk, or chatter across the room.

The tree in one corner of the long living room is ablaze with lights, its branches bowed down with colorful decorations. Ruth has stayed up late on the Eve, to fasten upon it each glittering ball, each tiny red globe, to sprinkle over it cascades of imitation snow. Wreaths are in the windows, and Ruth wears a sprig of mistletoe in her hair and is stopped for kisses.

In a soft, sheer afternoon frock, aided by the current cavalier — Ben Bard, last Christmas — she sits on the floor beside the tree and calls the name on each gift, which is distributed by Burnie, her fifteen-year-old cousin. Peggy — a powder jar ornamented with an enameled figurine; Myrtle — a vanity of red cloisonné; Mother Gebhart — a darling gray hand bag. Mother Gebhart won’t be there any more, and I told Ruth the other day that I doubt if I shall feel like coming this Christmas. It was so much a part of Mother Gebhart’s day.

Rod La Rocque stops circulating about to receive a silver cigarette case. Remembrances for Claire Windsor and Bert Lytell; for relatives Ed and Charlie; for Cousin Allie [Allen Q. Thompson], who was her camera man on all of her serials; for Shirley, once her fan and then for several years her secretary.

Wally — a gold knife, a fountain pen. Wally won’t be there any more, either. Auntie — an oblong jewel box. Auntie is rapturous. A bracelet of glittering diamond links. “Ruth, it’s the one — Why, Ruthie!”

“Sure, made her select it herself. Thinking I was buying it for myself, she chose the most beautiful and costly one. If she’d known it was for herself, she’d have picked out a very inexpensive one. Put one over on you that time, didn’t I, Auntie?”

Ruth chortles. Auntie is speechless, and begins to cry her powder off. There were lean days in Ruth’s babyhood, when Auntie scrimped and pinched to care for her sister’s orphaned child. Her recompense comes now, offered more lavishly than she will accept; Ruth must resort to wiles to bestow upon Auntie the luxuries which her love dictates.

Baby Ruth, aged four, her cherubic face wreathed in smiles and chocolate, emerges from a towering pile of dolls, buggies, and toys, and waddles over on fat little legs to receive another mysterious package from her fairy princess-cousin. Bobby, nine, is seeking to control traffic — bicycle and wagons all at once — to the amusement of Jack White and Buddy Post, who double up their long legs out of the way. A great day for the kids!

The family doctor, who brought Ruth into the world and closed her mother’s eyes, comes in, grinning bashfully in response to Ruth’s hail, “Come and kiss me, you flirt, then feed yourself. Punch and sandwiches ‘n’ everything in the breakfast room.” He is very old, and his clothes are rumpled, and the medical bag which he carefully deposits in a corner is shabby. But he knows, from many repetitions of this annual visit, that he is as welcome as Helen Ferguson, who curls up on a lounge to untie the green ribbons that fasten her own tinsel-wrapped gift.

Late in the afternoon Ruth turns to her own, heaped beside her. A diamond-and-emerald bracelet — with a blush, she hides the card and refuses, amid much jocular kidding, to reveal the donor’s name. A radio, bags, fluffy lingerie, odd Parisian dolls, novelties of all kinds, are unsheathed from tissue and held up to view, accompanied by her exclamations.

A wood-carved model of Columbus’ ship, the Santa Maria, from Peggy Hamilton. A flat, inconspicuous package, undone by her quick fingers, reveals hand-embroidered handkerchiefs. The hanky box in her rose-and-gray bedroom is full, but — “from a fan, made them herself — isn’t that sweet?” A saucy powder puff is held up. From another fan. “She had a baby last year, a girl with blue eyes. Husband’s a mechanic.” With her uncanny memory, she recalls verbatim snatches of her fans’ letters, is as pleased — often more so — over their gifts as over those much more costly tendered by personal friends.

Rumpled and wilted, she rises from a mountain of red tissue and green ribbons and bids her last guest farewell. Only relatives, according to annual custom, remain for dinner. But each before leaving — it is an inviolable rule — must write in her autograph album.

Let’s turn its pages and glance at a few comments.

• “The other half of the Charleston” — Priscilla Dean.
• “Up in the air again” — Lieutenant Les Arnold (one of the world fliers).
• “For fifteen years your friendship has never failed me” — Jean Darnell, of Dallas, Texas.
• “No remarks for publication” — Lew Cody.
• “After eating, I’m ready to leave” — Burnie Garven, a very young cousin.
• “Love and kisses, hope I collect” — Cliff Durant.
• “Cat party — nuff said” — Norma Talmadge.
• “Just old Dinty, old but with young ideas.”
• “Not room enough to tell how wonderful Ruth is” — Tom Mix.
• “Hope to see one hundred more like to-day” — John.
• “My favorite Los Angeles address” — Addie Smith, whom Ruth has known since she was seven.
• “Just a crazy Irishman” — Mick Brown — an automobile man.
• “A happy evening with my friend of years” — “Countess” Phyllis Daniels. Ruth named Bebe’s mother “the Countess” in the old Kalem days.

Opposite Rod La Rocque’s signature is a cartoon, showing him begging a lot from haughty Ruth in the doorway of a real-estate office.

Other names bring smiles or the shadow of tears when one recalls the changes the years have brought. Harry Hartz, the racing driver, Al Herman, an Orpheum star, Ollie, Madge. Creighton Hale. Helen de Laine, a musician and a pal for years, Brownie Brownell, whose death two years ago in China is still a sorrow to Ruth.

The business woman Ruth sits at her mahogany desk with its neat array of pencils, pads, its labeled wire trays for correspondence to be answered and filed, and its brass lamp shade. Her office is a plain room with curtains of tan monk’s cloth.

At her big subdivision, Roland Square, an agent and secretaries, working under the directions that she telephones or gives on visits to and from the studio, care for the details of her realty investments. These are enormous. It has been said that she owns most of Los Angeles except the air. I shouldn’t be surprised if she had a mortgage on that.

Her home office, however, is the hub of her business interests. A secretary takes dictation. Each fan letter is read by Ruth personally — I have seen her going through huge stacks of mail. Each request for a photo is complied with. I do not believe any star gives as conscientious attention to her fan mail. Through it, she has built up the largest and most faithful fan following and held it longer than any actress. There are some who have written her since they followed her first serials, and to whom she replies regularly.

The telephone rings. No, her tone is crisp, she won’t consider the investment offered and gives her reasons for her refusal. She will spend several hundred thousand dollars without batting an eyelash, if she deems the property worth it. But I have heard her refuse to take a fifty-dollar ad in a paper — whose circulation figures she had at the tip of her tongue — because she would not receive value for her money.

I have been with her on real estate appraisals. She knows property valuations, and keeps up with their fluctuations. Her judgments are swift and decisive, accompanied by a characteristic mannerism, a snap of her fingers. “Yes” means yes and “No” means no; arguments are superfluous.

The afternoon when she took an option on the big slice of land that now is covered “ with homes and called Roland Square, there was a rapid-fire of questions, discussion of improvements, of hills, of hollows that must be filled in, of drainage, of suburban lines, of footage, of terms. Her eyes narrowed to slits of blue, as they do when her thinking is concentrated on a problem. A snap of those firm white fingers. O. K. papers were signed in the agent’s office — and that was the beginning of a deal that netted her several hundred thousand dollars profit. The subdividing from a big blue print, the pricing of lots, the arrangement of terms to buyers — all these multitudinous details she directed.

Parties at Ruth’s house — chummy, informal affairs of picture people and nonprofessionals. Kathleen Clifford, in a swirl of black chiffon, prattles from a corner. Lilyan Tashman is swept onto the floor by Eddie. The rugs are rolled back, for dancing space. The music upon occasion is furnished by a Hawaiian orchestra that obligingly stops in the middle of one number to play another for which some one has a fancy, but mostly it comes spasmodically over the radio from the Ambassador. And after the wienie roast about the camp fire at night, Ruth’s clear soprano leadingless sure voices from the clatter of modern jazz to the sweet old melodies of yesteryear.

Ruth, whose fortune, earned herself, is estimated at between three and six millions, shopping all afternoon for some particular trinket for which a friend has expressed a fancy.

Ruth hard-boiled in business, but square and honest — and loyal and true to her friends. Ruth with faults, too. yes:

Ruth’s flag again flies in movie land. Long may it wave!

Ruth Roland does everything strenuously, and that includes her rehearsing. If you think it is easy to become one of the Morgan dancers at a moment’s notice iust ask Ruth and Gertrude Short, who appears with her in the group of famous kickers.

A shrewd, capable business woman and one of the most fearless girls on the screen, Ruth Roland has gained rather than lost in feminine charm.

Photo by: Peggy Hamilton Study

The chorus is something new to Ruth, but doesn’t she look as though she had been cavorting in the front line all her life?

Collection: Picture Play Magazine, December 1926