Esther Ralston - 1926
photo: Photoplay Magazine
Today, September 17, is the birthday of Esther Ralston, a silent film star whose most prominent sound picture was To the Last Man in 1933. The film also starred Randolph Scott, Noah Beery Sr., Buster Crabbe, Shirley Temple and John Carradine.
Ralston was born in Bar Harbor, Maine, in 1902. She began her career as a child actress in a family vaudeville act which was billed as "The Ralston Family with Baby Esther, America's Youngest Juliet".
Ralston later gained attention as Mrs. Darling in the 1924 film version of Peter Pan,
the first film adaptation of the 1904 play by J. M. Barrie. It was directed by Herbert Brenon and starred Betty Bronson as Peter Pan, Ernest Torrence as Captain Hook, Mary Brian as Wendy, Virginia Browne Faire as Tinker Bell, Esther Ralston as Mrs. Darling, and Anna May Wong as the Native American princess Tiger Lily. The film was seen by Walt Disney, and inspired him to create his company's 1953 animated adaptation.
Over the next six years she made 24 films and became one of Hollywood's highest-paid actresses. She was in the director James Cruze film, Old Ironsides (1926), an epic concerning the fight between 19th-century sailing ships and pirates, which starred Charles Farrell, with minor roles by Wallace Beery and Boris Karloff, and filmed in the early large-screen process Magnascope.
One of the writers of the film was Dorothy Arzner, who made her directorial debut with Fashions For Women
(1927), a comedy starring Ralston in the dual role of an ageing society
woman and the cigarette-girl who takes her place while she has a secret
facelift.
On January 14, 1994, Ralston died of a heart attack at age 91 in her home in Ventura, California.
Viewfinder links:
Net links:
Bizarre Los Angeles ~ Esther Ralston photos & quotes
Chicago Film Society ~ Magnascope
Esther Ralston ~ I Looked In Your Eyes
Styrous® ~ Wednesday, September 6, 2023
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