I love an Evans mystery and nothing has been more mysterious to me than a group of arcade cards that feature a trio of bathing beauties identified as Lillian Langston, Myrtle Reeves, and Edith Roberts.
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| The trio of Lillian Langston, Myrtle Reeves, and Edith Roberts. Or so it is said... |
The least mysterious, and most well-known, of the three is Myrtle Reeves. Although she had a career typical of many bathing beauties, her claim to fame is as Mrs. Oliver Hardy (they were married in 1921 and divorced in 1937). But what of the other two? There was a silent film actress named Edith Roberts, but she was never part of a group of bathing beauties. Also, she had dark eyes, whereas the Edith in the photo has pale, probably blue, eyes.
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| The real Edith Roberts |
So who is the lady in the photos? She is possibly Clara Roberts, an actress who briefly worked for Triangle-Keystone in 1917-18. This newspaper blurb from November 1917 has Clara as a bathing beauty along with Myrtle Reeves (I've found no other mentions of Dada Holland, but it is a great name) .
Not exactly definitive proof, but I think it's safe to say that Clara is a better candidate than Edith.
So that leaves us with Lillian Langston. Who was she? Searching the usual places brings up nothing. There doesn't seem to have been a actress by that name. There was a Lillian Langdon, a playwright and an actress who appeared in such films as
Intolerance and
Daddy Long-legs. However, that Lillian was about 40 years too old. Fortunately, the clue to this mystery was found in the newspaper clipping above.
In 1915, the Triangle Film Company became the distributor of the films of D. W. Griffith, Thomas Ince, and Mack Sennett (the 3 points of the Triangle). Griffith and Ince soon became unhappy with the arrangement and left the company. In mid-1917, Sennett followed suit, agreeing to leave the Keystone brand with Triangle. Several Sennett Keystone actors, including several bathing beauties, joined Triangle-Keystone (or stayed behind, depending on how you look at it). The new Keystone continued making comedies, but none were successful and the company eventually folded. Their films seem to have been all but forgotten. Also forgotten is their troupe of bathing beauties, the Triangle-Keystone Bathing Brigade. But they have lived on in photographs, usually mistaken as Mack Sennett Bathing Beauties. Besides the ones with Langdon, Reeves, and Roberts, other photos include those with Claire Anderson and Rose Carter as well as Maude Wayne and Peggy Pearce.
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| Some of the Beauty Brigade, including Myrtle Reeves |
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| The Beauty Brigade doing their part for the war effort. |
And it's at Triangle-Keystone that we find Miss Langston. Not Lillian, but Ruth.
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| Ruth Langston second from left, Rose Carter center |
Unlike the non-existent Lillian, Ruth Langston had a short but successful career, moving from comedies to female leads in several serials, including
Daredevil Jack starring boxing champ Jack Dempsey.
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| A publicity photo of Ruth for Daredevil Jack |
For someone who I thought obscure, there turned out to be several newspaper photos of Ruth.
It's difficult to say how Ruth became Lillian, but we do know it happened while she was still active. This arcade card probably dates from around 1920. Perhaps someone got Ruth mixed up with the aforementioned Lillian Landgon. To make it more confusing, Ruth's IMDB listing has her last name as Langdon, but I've been unable to substantiate that claim (there was a stage actress named Ruth Langdon, but she was a different person) as well as the claim that she lived to the age of 101.
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| This is an epic fail of identification |
For some reason, I've always found Miss Langston intriguing, so I'm very pleased to have finally solved the mystery of her identity and correct a century-old mistake.
