Ruby Lafayette with her costar, Lon Chaney, during the movie “The Miracle Man”.
While many know Augusta as home to Nick and George Clooney, there was another movie star who lived in the city.
Her name was Ruby Livingston and she was a star in the early 1900s, according to local historian Ron Bailey.
Bailey said Livingston was born in Augusta on July 22, 1844. She began acting on stage in the 1870s while using the stage name of Ruby Lafayette.
“Amazing fact is that her stage career lasted for almost fifty years and then she went on to appear in films during the 1910s. The Augusta native signed and usually worked for Universal Studios in Hollywood,” Bailey said.
Her film debut was in the role of Mrs. Standing in the movie, “Mother O’ Mine” in 1917. She was quickly nicknamed the “grandmother of films”, Bailey said.
“One of the reasons she was referred to as the oldest actress on the screen can be traced by this chain of events in the Augusta native time in Hollywood. At the age of 82, she was seriously hurt as she was hit by a motorist in Hollywood. Being a tough Kentucky woman, she recovered and returned to the screen until she retired at the age of 88,” he said.
She was married to stage actor John T. Curran until his death in 1918. They had one child, Don Curran.
Livingston lived for three more years before passing away at the age of 91.
Some of her movie credits include “Polly of The Storm County”, “The Kaiser, The Beast of Berlin”, “Beauty in Chains”, “The Mounted Men”, “The Yellow Dog”, “The Strange Woman”, “Sue of The South”, “Rustling a Bride”, “Cyclone Smith Plays Trumps”, “In His Brother’s Place”, “The Miracle Man”, “Toby’s Bow”, “Old Lady 31”, “Big Bob”, “Borderland”, “Catch My Smoke”, “The Power of a Lie”, “Hollywood” and many others.
