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Cowboys, Creatures and Classics: The Story of Republic Pictures.
The most influential woman at Republic Pictures from the early 1940s to the studio’s demise in the early 1960s, was Vera Hruba. Born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, on July 12, 1919, the blonde beauty caught Republic Picture’s president Herbert Yates’ attention in 1939 when she toured the United States with an ice-skating show called Ice Vanities.
Vera was an exceptional ice skater, having placed 17th in the 1936 Olympics behind figure skater Sonja Henie. Yates was captivated with Vera’s talent and looks and believed she could be as successful as Ms. Henie who was one of the leading stars at 20th Century Fox. He cast Vera, and the entire company of the Ice Vanities, in a musical film entitled The Ice Capades. Critics called the picture “sheer enchantment on ice.” Vera was mentioned along with five other skaters as “spectacular”. Yates couldn’t have agreed more and in 1943 signed her to a long-term contract with the studio and added Ralston to her name. He added Ralston, a name borrowed from the cereal, because Hruba was difficult for moviegoers to pronounce.
The first movie Vera Hruba Ralston appeared as a star, minus the skates, was Republic Pictures’ 1941 horror film The Lady and the Monster. Her costars were Erich von Stroheim and Richard Arlen. Billed as “a picture from out of this world” the plot involves a millionaire whose brain is preserved after his death, and telepathically begins to take control of those around him. Von Stroheim portrays the diabolical Dr. Mueller who retrieves the brain of a financial genius who crashed to his death in an airplane mishap near the laboratory. The doctor carries out a fiendish plot to put the super brain to work for him. Richard Arlen plays the doctor’s assistant who falls in love with the doctor’s ward, Vera Ralston. The film reviewer for the Havre Daily News referred to Ralston’s debut as a dramatic actress as “the find of the season.”
Most did not agree with the critics who found the foreign ingénue to be a promising star. Many complained that her performance was wooden and that her accent was too thick. Yates ignored every voice but his own and quickly reteamed von Stroheim and Arlen with his discovery in another feature entitled Storm Over Lisbon. In this spy thriller Ralston played an allied operative in Lisbon and Arlen an American newspaper man who she helps get out of Portugal with important information. Audiences found Ralston attractive, but struggled to understand what she was saying.
Yates hired acting instructors and speech coaches for Ralston. While her English and her acting soon improved she could not lose her strong Czech accent. Yates felt that ticket buyers would eventually see how compelling the stunning blonde’s talent truly was and learn to embrace her way of talking in much the same way they did Marlene Dietrich. In order to help Ralston, gain a broader acceptance he paired her with an actor that had mass appeal – John Wayne.
