Ross Alexander

• Name — Ross Alexander • Birth Name — Alexander Ross Smith, Jr. • Born — 27 July 1907 • Birthplace — Brooklyn, New York, U.S. • Died — 2 January 1937 • Place of death — Los Angeles, California, U.S. • Occupation — Actor • Years Active — 1924–1937

Alexander was born Alexander Ross Smith. Jr. in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Maud Adelle (nee Cohen) and Alexander Ross Smith. Alexander attended Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn until he and his family moved to upstate Rochester, New York. He attended high school there, but dropped out before graduating. Alexander claimed in interviews that the high-school principal recommended to his parents that the student should follow the acting profession. When he was 17, he went to New York City and studied acting at the Packard Theatrical Agency.

Alexander began his acting career with the Henry Jewett Players in Boston, debuting in Enter Madame. By 1926, he was regarded as a promising leading man with good looks and an easy, charming style, and began appearing in more substantial roles. His Broadway credits include Enter Madame (1920), The Ladder (1926), Let Us Be Gay (1928), That's Gratitude (1930), After Tomorrow (1931), The Stork Is Dead (1932), Honeymoon (1932), and The Party's Over (1932). Alexander looked back at The Ladder with bemusement because its oilman backer, who had declared that the play would have a record-breaking run, kept his word by keeping the show open—despite audiences of perhaps a dozen people at each performance. Ross Alexander stayed with the ailing show for almost two years.

Alexander married actress Aleta Freel on February 28, 1934, in East Orange, New Jersey. Freel committed suicide on December 7, 1935, shooting herself in the head with a.22 rifle. On September 17, 1936, Alexander married actress Anne Nagel, with whom he had appeared in the films China Clipper and Here Comes Carter (both 1936).

Alexander always had problems with money. According to a studio biography, "He ruefully says that he doesn't know how to save money, and guesses that he'll have to get a business manager. And the only thing he collects is -- not first editions or etchings -- but debts!" By the end of 1936, despite his movie employment, he was deeply in debt. On January 2, 1937, three months after marrying Nagel, with his professional and personal life in disarray, Alexander shot himself in the head with a.22 pistol in the barn behind his home. That was not the same weapon his first wife had used. He is buried in lot 292 of the Sunrise Slope section of Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California.

• Year — Title — Role — Notes • 1932 — The Wiser Sex — Jimmy O'Neill • 1934 — Social Register — Lester Trout • Gentlemen Are Born — Tom Martin • Flirtation Walk — Oskie • 1935 — Maybe It's Love — Rims O'Neil — (starring role) • Going Highbrow — Harley Marsh • We're in the Money — C. Richard Courtney, aka Carter • A Midsummer Night's Dream — Demetrius • Shipmates Forever — Lafayette "Sparks" Brown • Captain Blood — Jeremy Pitt • 1936 — Boulder Dam — Rusty Noonan — (starring role) • Brides Are Like That — Bill McAllister — (starring role) • I Married a Doctor — Erik Valborg • Hot Money — Chick Randall — (starring role) • China Clipper — Tom Collins • Here Comes Carter (working title: The Voice of Scandal) — Kent Carter — (starring role) • 1937 — Ready, Willing, and Able — Barry Granville — |(starring role, released posthumously)