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, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

, 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 to present experiences of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a Stage (theatre), stage. The performe ...

, and she became a

child actress The term child actor or child actress is generally applied to a child acting on stage, television, or in movies. An adult who began their acting career as a child may also be called a child actor, or a "former child actor". Closely associated te ...

who went on to work in

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment which began in France in the middle of the 19th century. A ''vaudeville'' was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a drama ...

. At age 12, she was the youngest student at

Hollywood High School Hollywood High School is a four-year public secondary school in the Los Angeles Unified School District, located at the intersection of North Highland Avenue and West Sunset Boulevard in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles, California. His ...

, 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 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 whose names ...

. 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 The Kalem Company was an early American film studio founded in New York City in 1907. It was one of the first companies to make films abroad and to set up winter production facilities, first in Florida and then in California. Kalem was sold to V ...

in 1911, becoming the leading actress of their new West Coast studio. 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 The adventure film is a broad genre of film. Some early genre studies found it no different than the Western film or argued that adventure could encompass all Hollywood genres. Commonality was found among historians Brian Taves and Ian Cameron in ...

serial titled '' The Red Circle''. A shrewd businessperson, she established her own

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

, 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 Pathé SAS (; styled as PATHÉ!) is a French major film production and distribution company, owning a number of cinema chains through its subsidiary Pathé Cinémas and television networks across Europe. It is the name of a network of Fren ...

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 Lake Lagunitas is a reservoir on Lagunitas Creek in Marin County, California. Nearby lakes Lake Lagunitas is one of seven reservoirs providing potable water to the Marin Municipal Water District. It is the oldest and smallest lake in the Mount Ta ...

area of

Marin County, California Marin County ( ) is a County (United States), county located in the northwestern part of the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 262,231. Its county seat a ...

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

talkie A sound film is a motion picture with 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 decades passed befo ...

. 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 Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood ...

acting school after they married. They were together until Roland's death. Ruth Roland died of

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving Cell growth#Disorders, abnormal cell growth with the potential to Invasion (cancer), invade or Metastasis, spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Po ...

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 located primarily in the Verdugo Mountains region, with a small portion in the San Fernando Valley, of Los Angeles County, California, United States. It is located about north of downtown Los Angeles. As of 2024, Glendale ha ...

. 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 landmark which consists of 2,813 five-pointed terrazzo-and-brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along 15 blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in the Hollywood, Los Angeles, Hollywood dist ...

at 6220

Hollywood Boulevard Hollywood Boulevard is a major east–west street in Los Angeles, California. It runs through the Hollywood, East Hollywood, Little Armenia, Thai Town, and Los Feliz districts. Its western terminus is at Sunset Plaza Drive in the Hollyw ...

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) * ''A Chance Shot'' (1911) * ''He Who Laughs Last'' (1911) * ''Ruth Roland, the Kalem Girl'' (1912) * ''Pulque Pete and the Opera Troupe'' (1912) * ''The Girl Bandits' Hoodoo'' (1912) * ''The Raiders from Double L Ranch'' (1913) * ''The Sheriff of Stone Gulch'' (1913) * ''Gertie Gets the Cash'' (1914) * '' The Deadly Battle at Hicksville'' (1914) * ''The Pursuit of Pleasure'' (1915) * ''The Girl Detective'' (1915) * ''Who Pays?'' (1915) * '' The Red Circle'' (1915) * ''Comrade John'' (1915) * ''A Matrimonial Martyr'' (1916) * '' The Sultana'' (1916) * '' The Devil's Bait'' (1917) * '' The Neglected Wife'' (1917) * ''The Fringe of Society'' (1917) * '' Hands Up'' (1918) * '' Cupid Angling'' (1918) * '' The Tiger's Trail'' (1919) * ''

The Adventures of Ruth ''The Adventures of Ruth'' is a 1919 American film serial directed by George Marshall (director), George Marshall. It is now considered to be a lost film. The serial was advertised as written, produced and directed by Ruth Roland. Roland was th ...

'' (1919) * '' Ruth of the Rockies'' (1920) * '' The Avenging Arrow'' (1921) * '' White Eagle'' (1922) * '' The Timber Queen'' (1922) * '' Haunted Valley'' (1923) * '' Ruth of the Range'' (1923) * '' Dollar Down'' (1925) * '' Where the Worst Begins'' (1925) * '' The Masked Woman'' (1927) * ''

Reno Reno ( ) is a city in the northwest section of the U.S. state of Nevada, along the Nevada–California border. It is the county seat and most populous city of Washoe County, Nevada, Washoe County. Sitting in the High Eastern Sierra foothills, ...

'' (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
virtual-history.com. Accessed April 2, 2024. {{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 American vaudeville performers Deaths from cancer in California Actresses from the San Francisco Bay Area 20th-century American actresses American women film producers