Ruby Blaine (1920s Starlet)

Ruby Blaine was born on August 27, 1903, in Hutchinson, Kansas. When she was a child her family moved to Colorado. She loved riding horses and competed in a rodeo when she was sixteen. After winning a beauty contest she moved to New York City to become an actress. Ruby made her film debut in the 1925 drama The Midnight Girl. Although her part was small she got positive reviews. Mutual Film Company announced she would star in the The Bobbed Hair Bandit but the film was never made. Producer D.W. Griffith cast Ruby in The Sorrow Of Satan and helped her get a contract at Paramount. For a brief time she was engaged to her agent Frank Orsatti.  

 Ruby appeared in the movies The Great Gatsby and Bitter Apples but she never became a major star. Many magazine writers said Ruby resembled actress Norma Shearer. She hoped that dying her hair blonde would help her career. In 1928 she began working at Hal Roach's studio. She appeared in three comedy shorts including Two Tars with Laurel and Hardy. Ruby made her last film at the age of twenty-five. She married stockbroker Irving Weinberg but they divorced in 1933. Irving would later marry actress Betty Compson. Ruby continued to live in Manhattan where she worked as a commercial model. She spent her later years out of the spotlight and eventually moved to White Plains, New York. She passed away in May of 1976 at the age of seventy-two. ~ Original biography by Elizabeth Ann 2015 

 

 Oliver Hardy, Ruby and Thelma Hill

 

Mildred June (Mack Sennett Bathing Beauty)

 "All you have to do is put on a cute little bathing suit and skip along a beach until Mr. Turpin or some one sees you and starts to chase you, then you fall down and that's all there is to it." ~ Mildred

Mildred June was born on December 23, 1903, in St Louis, Missouri. When she was a child her family moved to Kansas and eventually settled in California. She attended Hollywood high school and took dancing lessons. At the age of fifteen Mildred was discovered by producer Mack Sennett. She became one his bathing beauties and worked as an extra in his films. Mildred appeared in dozens of short films including Dog Shy with Charley Chase and Hook and Ladder with Hoot Gibson. She also starred in a series of two reel comedies with Billy Bevan. Although she enjoyed making comedies she dreamed of becoming a dramatic actress. Mildred married Herbert Edward Capps, a twenty-five year old dentist, in 1922. The following year she was given the lead in the drama The Greatest Menace.

She was signed by Universal studios but her career never took off. Mildred returned to Mack Sennett's studio and appeared in the 1927 comedy Crazy To Act. She divorced her husband and had a brief romance with with real estate executive Jimmy Houston. Unfortunately by 1928 she was unemployed and battling a serious alcohol problem. Mildred married her second husband, Bud Sheehan, in 1930. Sadly he passed away a few years later. In 1936 she had a bit part in the Laurel and Hardy film Our Relations. It would her last acting role. On June 19, 1940 Mildred passed away from cirrhosis of the liver caused by her alcoholism. She was only thirty-six years old. Mildred was cremated and her ashes were buried at Hollywood Forever cemetery in Hollywood, California.

~ Original biography by Elizabeth Ann 2015

 With Billy Bevan