Ruth Roland
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Ruth Roland (August 26, 1892 - September 22, 1937) was an American stage and film actress and film producer.
Born in San Francisco, California, her father managed a theatre and she became a child actress who went on to work in vaudeville. Hired by director Sidney Olcott who had seen her on stage in New York City, she appeared in her first film for Kalem Studios in 1909 and along with Gene Gauntier was soon billed as a "Kalem Girl." Roland was eventually sent to Kalem's West Coast studio where she was the lead actress and overseer of "Kalem House" where all the actors lived. At 12 years old, Roland was the youngest student at Hollywood High School.[1]
Ruth Roland left Kalem and went on to even more fame when in 1915 she appeared in a 14-episode adventure film serial titled "The Red Circle." A shrewd businessperson, she established her own production company and signed a distribution deal with Pathé to make six new multi-episode serials that proved very successful.
Ruth Roland Serials, Inc.: (each 15 episodes)
- The Adventures of Ruth (1919)
- Ruth of the Rockies (1920)
- White Eagle (1922)
- The Timber Queen (1922)
- The Haunted Valley (1923)
- Ruth of the Range (1923)
Between 1909 and 1927 Ruth Roland appeared in more than 190 films and more than 100 serial episodes. She appeared in an early color film Cupid Angling (1918) made in the Naturalcolor process invented by Leon F. Douglass (1869-1940), and filmed in the Lake Lagunitas area of Marin County, California.
Roland left the film business until 1930 when she made her first talkie. Although her voice worked well enough on screen, now entering her forties she returned to performing in live theatre, making only one more film appearance in 1935.
Roland married actor Ben Bard in 1929. Bard also had stage acting in common and ran a Hollywood acting school after they married. They were together until the end of Roland's life.
Ruth Roland died of cancer in 1937, aged 45, in Hollywood and was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.
For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Ruth Roland has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6220 Hollywood Blvd.
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Categories: 1892 births | 1937 deaths | American child actors | American film actors | American film producers | American silent film actors | American stage actors | Forest Lawn Memorial-Parks & Mortuaries | Cancer deaths | Hollywood Walk of Fame | People from San Francisco | Stunt performers | Vaudeville performers
