Vera Ralston

• Name — Vera Ralston • Full Name — Vera Ralston • Other Names — Vera Hrubá Ralston • Birth Name — Věra Helena Hrubá • Born — July 12, 1919 (other sources cite 1920, 1921, and 1923) • Birthplace — Prague, Czechoslovakia (present-day Czech Republic) • Died — February 9, 2003 • Place of death — Santa Barbara, California, U.S.

Ralston was born Věra Helena Hrubá in Prague to a Catholic family with a home on the Berounka River. Her father, Rudolf Hrubý, was a jeweler born at the Huta Bankowa steel mill in Dąbrowa, Będzin County, Piotrków Governorate, Russian Empire (today Dąbrowa Górnicza, Silesian Voivodeship, Poland). Her year of birth has been given as 1919, 1920, 1921, and 1923. Her brother, Rudy Ralston, later became a film producer in the United States.

As a figure skater, she represented Czechoslovakia in competition under her birth name Věra Hrubá. She competed at the 1936 European Figure Skating Championships and placed 15th. Later that season, she competed at the 1936 Winter Olympics, where she placed 17th. During the games, she personally met and reportedly insulted Adolf Hitler. Hitler asked her if she would like to "skate for the swastika." As she later boasted, "I looked him right in the eye, and said that I'd rather skate on the swastika. The Führer was furious." Hrubá competed at the 1937 European Figure Skating Championships and placed 7th. She emigrated to the United States in 1941 and became a naturalized citizen in 1946.

• Event — 1936 — 1937 • Winter Olympics — 17th • European Championships — 15th — 7th • Czechoslovak Championships — 1st — 1st

• Illustration — John Wayne and Vera Ralston in Dakota (1945) Ralston moved to Hollywood with her mother and signed a contract in 1943 with Republic Pictures. During her career she was known as Vera Hrubá Ralston and Vera Hruba Ralston, and, later, simply as Vera Ralston. She normally played an immigrant girl, because of her limited English skills. Among the 26 films Ralston starred in were Storm Over Lisbon with Erich von Stroheim (1944), Dakota (1945) with John Wayne, I, Jane Doe (1947) The Flame,(1948) with John Carroll and Ruth Hussey, The Fighting Kentuckian, also with Wayne (1949), A Perilous Journey with David Brian and Scott Brady (1953), and Fair Wind to Java with Fred MacMurray (1953). She retired from films in 1958. Reportedly only 2 of her 20 films made money. In 1952, Ralston married Republic studio head Herbert Yates. Yates was nearly 40 years her senior, and reportedly left his wife, with whom he had two grown children, to be with Ralston. Yates used his position as the studio's head executive to obtain roles for Ralston; at one point he was sued by two studio shareholders for using company assets for his own gain by promoting his wife's career. It was alleged that 18 of her 20 films had been flops. Yates' and Vera's relatives were pushed out of Republic and the film business in 1959, the same year Republic's board decided to switch emphasis from film production to distribution. Yates died in 1966, leaving half of his estate ($8 million) to Ralston; she suffered a nervous breakdown shortly thereafter. Eventually, she remarried a businessman 11 years her junior and lived quietly in southern California. She died on February 9, 2003, in Santa Barbara, California, after a long battle with cancer. For her work in films, Ralston has a star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

• Year — Title — Role — Notes • 1941 — Ice-Capades — Ice-Capades Skater • 1942 — Ice-Capades Revue — Ice-Capades Skater • 1944 — The Lady and the Monster — Janice Farrell • Storm Over Lisbon — Maria Mazarek, aka Maritza • Lake Placid Serenade — Vera Haschek • 1945 — Dakota — Sandy • 1946 — Murder in the Music Hall — Lila Laughton • Plainsman and the Lady — Ann Arnesen • 1947 — Wyoming — Karen Alderson • Týden v tichém dome — Sieglová • The Flame — Carlotta Duval • 1948 — I, Jane Doe — Annette Dubois / Jane Doe • Angel on the Amazon — Christine Ridgeway • 1949 — The Fighting Kentuckian — Fleurette De Marchand • 1950 — Surrender — Violet Barton • 1951 — Belle Le Grand — Daisy Henshaw / Belle Le Grand • The Wild Blue Yonder — Lt. Helen Landers • 1952 — Hoodlum Empire — Marte Dufour • 1953 — Fair Wind to Java — Kim Kim • A Perilous Journey — Francie Landreaux • 1954 — Jubilee Trail — Florinda Grove, aka Julie Latour • 1955 — Timberjack — Lynne Tilton • 1956 — Accused of Murder — Ilona Vance • 1957 — Spoilers of the Forest — Joan Milna • Gunfire at Indian Gap — Cheel Palmer • 1958 — The Notorious Mr. Monks — Angela Monks • The Man Who Died Twice — Lynn Brennon