“While I went up fast in pictures, I had my troubles. When I first arrived I worked as an extra and did bits; I played heroines in western thrillers. This was the life I loved.” — Esther Ralston (1902-1994)
“People work like dogs all their life and sometimes they finally attain success. Everyone does if they believe they will. You truly have to think right, and keep your head up. So many people who aren’t successful blame their fate, or say it wasn’t in the cards, but I do not believe in that. Everyone can get what he wants if he wants it badly enough.” — Esther Ralston
Source: Helen Hurd (1929)
Photo: 1923
Children of Divorce (1927). With Clara Bow.
An exotic but non-politically correct photo still from Fashions for Women (1927)
“I want to believe in something inspirational, that has courage, that you can hang your hat on a star. And you can’t in the restricted films of today. It’s too blatant. There’s nothing courageous or inspirational about them. I just don’t go anymore.” — Esther Ralston
With Fay Wray and Olga Baclanova in 1929.
“The publishers asked me if I had forty lovers. I told them no. They asked me if I was an alcoholic or if I took dope. I said no. You see, they were just looking for trash.” – Esther Ralston, talking about her struggle to find a major label willing to publish her autobiography, Some Day We’ll Laugh. It was eventually published in 1985.
Source: Michael G. Ankerich, Broken Silence, 1998.
