Picture-Play Magazine (Sep 1926 - Feb 1927)

52 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. The Real Ruth Roland Success and wealth can so often change a person, but one who knows Ruth Roland perhaps better than any one else finds in her the same unspoiled girl who came to Hollywood penniless. By Myrtle Gebhart 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. "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'