Alma Rubens Silent Snowbird

<p> Dark-eyed and distant Alma Rubens was one of the first female stars of the early feature film industry in the 1910s. She was a major star by 1920 but before the decade was over her screen career was marked and marred by cocaine abuse. She died in 1931 at age 33--a Hollywood beauty a casualty of Hollywood snow yet much more. As an actress she was versatile demonstrating a talent that was ahead of its time with her gentle and subtle expressions.</p><p> This book contains Rubens's autobiography a text titled <I>This Bright World Again</I> that was serialized in newspapers in 1931. Ghost-written or not or somewhere in between this long forgotten document deals with Rubens's addiction and despair. In addition a new biography of Rubens takes the reader from her birth in San Francisco through an impoverished upbringing three short-lived marriages and her career in pictures for Triangle Film Cosmopolitan Fox and other production companies. The story of her film career mingles with a tale of desperate drug addiction that led to hospital stays violence and deception. A filmography lists her credits from 1913 to 1929.</p>