Ruth Roland (August 26, 1892 – September 22, 1937) was an American stage and film actress and film producer.

Early life and career

Roland was born in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

, California to Elizabeth Lillian Hauser and Jack Roland. Her father managed a

theatre Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perfor ...

, and she became a child actress who went on to work in

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic compositio ...

. At age 12, she was the youngest student at Hollywood High School, having attended the school around 1904 or 1905 (there is debate on this date). Roland was Hollywood High School's first homegrown

movie star A movie star (also known as a film star or cinema star) is an actor or actress who is famous for their starring, or leading, roles in movies. The term is used for performers who are marketable stars as they become popular household names and ...

. She was hired by director Sidney Olcott who had seen her on stage in New York City. She appeared in her first film, ''A Chance Shot'', for Kalem Studios in 1911, becoming the leading actress of their new West Coast studio. After Gene Gauntier's departure from Kalem, she became billed as the new "Kalem Girl." She eventually became

overseer Overseer may refer to: Professions *Supervisor or superintendent; one who keeps watch over and directs the work of others * Plantation overseer, often in the context of forced labor or slavery * Overseer of the poor, an official who administered ...

of "Kalem House" where all the actors lived. Roland left Kalem and went on to even more fame at Balboa Films, where she was under contract from 1914 to 1917. In 1915 she appeared in a 14-episode

adventure film An adventure film is a form of adventure fiction, and is a genre of film. Subgenres of adventure films include swashbuckler films, pirate films, and survival films. Adventure films may also be combined with other film genres such as action, a ...

serial titled ''

The Red Circle ''Le Cercle Rouge'' (, "The Red Circle") is a 1970 France, Franco-Italy, Italian crime film set mostly in Paris. It was directed by Jean-Pierre Melville and stars Alain Delon, Andre Bourvil, Gian Maria Volonté, François Périer and Yves Montan ...

''. A shrewd businessperson, she established her own

production company A production company, production house, production studio, or a production team is a studio that creates works in the fields of performing arts, new media art, film, television, radio, comics, interactive arts, video games, websites, music, a ...

, Ruth Roland Serials, and signed a

distribution Distribution may refer to: Mathematics *Distribution (mathematics), generalized functions used to formulate solutions of partial differential equations *Probability distribution, the probability of a particular value or value range of a varia ...

deal with Pathé to make seven new multi-episode serials that proved very successful. Between 1909 and 1927, Roland appeared in more than 200 films. She appeared in an early color feature film '' Cupid Angling'' (1918) made in the Natural Color process invented by Leon F. Douglass, and filmed in the Lake Lagunitas area of

Marin County, California Marin County is a county located in the northwestern part of the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 262,231. Its county seat and largest city is San Rafael. Marin County is across ...

. Roland worked the film business until 1930 when she made her first

talkie A sound film is a motion picture with synchronization, synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decad ...

. 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 1936.

Personal life and death

Roland was married to Lionel T. Kent on May 16, 1917. The marriage was short-lived: they separated on September 2, 1918, and divorced on April 2, 1919. On February 14, 1929 she married fellow actor Ben Bard, who also had a stage acting background, and ran a Hollywood

acting school A drama school, stage school or theatre school is an undergraduate and/or graduate school or department at a college or university; or a free-standing institution (such as the Drama section at the Juilliard School); which specializes in the pre ...

after they married. They were together until the end of Roland's life. Ruth Roland died of

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal bl ...

in 1937, aged 45, in Hollywood and is interred near her husband in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in

Glendale, California Glendale is a city in the San Fernando Valley and Verdugo Mountains regions of Los Angeles County, California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents ac ...

. For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Ruth Roland received a star on the

Hollywood Walk of Fame The Hollywood Walk of Fame is a historic landmark which consists of more than 2,700 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along 15 blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, Calif ...

at 6220

Hollywood Boulevard Hollywood Boulevard is a major east–west street in Los Angeles, California. It begins in the east at Sunset Boulevard in the Los Feliz district and proceeds to the west as a major thoroughfare through Little Armenia and Thai Town, Hollywo ...

on February 8, 1960. In 1979, a concrete box containing Roland's personal film collection was discovered buried in the backyard of Roland's house, and donated to the UCLA Film Archives by her heirs in 1980.

Selected filmography

A Matrimonial Martyr.jpg, ''A Matrimonial Martyr'' (1916) The Sultana.jpg, ''The Sultana'' (1916) The Neglected Wife.jpg, ''The Neglected Wife'' (1917) Hands Up 1918.jpg, ''Hands Up'' (1918) Ruth Roland 1919.jpg, ''The Tiger's Trail'' (1919) RuthRolandTimberQueen1922.jpg, '' The Timber Queen'' (1922) Theredcircle1915-poster

Ruth Roland on the cover of Motion Picture Classic, January 1922, cover by Benjamin Eggleston

* ''A Chance Shot'' (1911) * ''He Who Laughs Last'' (1911) * ''Ruth Roland, the Kalem Girl'' (1912) * ''Pulque Pete and the Opera Troupe'' (1912) * ''The Raiders from Double L Ranch'' (1913) * ''Gertie Gets the Cash'' (1914) * '' The Deadly Battle at Hicksville'' (1914) * ''The Pursuit of Pleasure'' (1915) * ''The Girl Detective'' (1915) * ''Who Pays?'' (1915) * ''

'' (1915) * ''

Comrade John The term ''comrade'' (russian: товарищ, tovarisch) generally means 'mate', 'colleague', or 'ally', and derives from the Spanish and Portuguese, term , literally meaning 'chamber mate', from Latin , meaning 'chamber' or 'room'. It may al ...

'' (1915) * ''

A Matrimonial Martyr A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''ae ...

'' (1916) * '' The Sultana'' (1916) * ''

The Devil's Bait ''The Devil's Bait'' is an extant 1917 dramatic silent feature film starring Ruth Roland, an actress usually associated with serials. It was directed by Harry Harvey and produced by the Balboa Amusement Producing Company. General Film Company ha ...

'' (1917) * ''

The Neglected Wife ''The Neglected Wife'' is a 1917 American drama film serial directed by William Bertram. Cast * Ruth Roland as Margaret Warner * Roland Bottomley as Horace Kennedy * Corinne Grant as Mary Kennedy * Neil Hardin as Edgar Doyle (as Neil C. Hardin ...

'' (1917) * ''The Fringe of Society'' (1917) * '' Hands Up'' (1918) * '' Cupid Angling'' (1918) * '' The Tiger's Trail'' (1919) * '' The Adventures of Ruth'' (1919) * ''

Ruth of the Rockies ''Ruth of the Rockies'' is a 1920 American silent Western film serial directed by George Marshall. Two of the 15 episodes survive in the UCLA Film and Television Archive. Plot As described in a film magazine, in New York City breezy Bab M ...

'' (1920) * '' The Avenging Arrow'' (1921) * ''

White Eagle White Eagle(s) may refer to: History and politics * Coat of arms of Poland, a white eagle * Crusade of Romanianism, or White Eagles, a 1930s far-right movement in Romania * Task Force White Eagle, a Polish military unit during the War in Afghanist ...

'' (1922) * '' The Timber Queen'' (1922) * ''

Haunted Valley ''Haunted Valley'' is a fifteen episode American adventure film serial starring Ruth Roland, in which Ruth Ranger, the president of an engineering firm engaged in a construction project at the Lost River Dam, takes out a three-month million-doll ...

'' (1923) * '' Ruth of the Range'' (1923) * ''

Dollar Down ''Dollar Down'' is a 1925 American silent drama film directed by Tod Browning. A print in the UCLA Film and Television Archive has one of its six reels missing. Filmed in April 1924 at the F.B.O Studios in Santa Monica, California Santa M ...

'' (1925) * '' Where the Worst Begins'' (1925) * ''

The Masked Woman ''The Masked Woman'' is a 1927 American silent melodrama film produced and distributed by First National Pictures. Filmed in France, it was the last screenwriting effort of famed June Mathis, who died in 1927, and was directed by her husband Sil ...

'' (1927) * ''

Reno Reno ( ) is a city in the northwest section of the U.S. state of Nevada, along the Nevada-California border, about north from Lake Tahoe, known as "The Biggest Little City in the World". Known for its casino and tourism industry, Reno is the c ...

'' (1930) * ''From Nine to Nine'' (1936)

References

Bibliography

* ''Balboa Films – A History and Filmography of the Silent Film Studio''

External links

* *
Literature on Ruth Roland
{{DEFAULTSORT:Roland, Ruth 1892 births 1937 deaths American child actresses American film actresses Film producers from California American silent film actresses American stage actresses Film serial actresses Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale) Actresses from San Francisco American stunt performers Vaudeville performers Deaths from cancer in California Actresses from the San Francisco Bay Area 20th-century American actresses American women film producers