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Vera Hruba was a Czechoslovakian ice skater who started in movies performing her ice skating routines, and her English was so limited she was forced to learn her lines phonetically! After her early ice skating movies, she became the protege of Republic Pictures studio head Herbert Yates, and they married in 1952. He starred her in a series of movies, and gave her an added a last name, "Ralston", making her "Vera Hruba Ralston", and later dropped the "Hruba", just becoming "Vera Ralston", and I guess the idea was to make her sound less "foreign". Her movies were expensive flops (even with John Wayne in some!), partially because she had a VERY thick accent, and Yates was fired from Republic in 1958 (partially because he insisted on starring his wife in movies that lost money), at which point Ralston wisely retired. Yates passed away in 1966 and Ralston inherited $10 million, and she lived until 2003, passing away at the age of 79. Some of her movies include: Timberjack, The Fighting Kentuckian, and Ice-Capades

Important Added Info: Note that this still has been personally autographed (signed) by Vera Ralston! Note that this autographed 8x10 is one of 91 that were consigned to us by a former theater owner. He owned two different major theaters in Louisiana from the 1940s through the 1970s, and he sometimes had premieres of movies at his theaters, at which time some of the celebrities connected to the movies would appear in person (this was often done in the 1950s and 1960s). When celebrities came to his theater, he would have them autograph 8x10 stills for him in person, and that got him started collecting signed stills, so at some point in the 1950s, he began requesting the studios to have them send him stills signed by the stars of movies he had recently shown at his theater when he was holding a special event or having the anniversary of his theater's opening! Over the next decade, he collected 91 signed stills that were sent to him by the studios through the mail, as well as several dozen that he obtained in person. We auctioned those "in person" signed stills in our previous auctions, and now we are auctioning the 91 stills where he obtained the signatures through the mail from the studios.

We know for certain that he received these stills directly from the studios, but we can't say for certain if the stills were signed by the stars or if they were signed by secretaries. But since he owned a major theater, and since many of the stills were personalized to him (or to his theater), we would think it likely that most, if not all, of these 91 stills have genuine signatures that are NOT secretarial signatures. But we suggest that anyone bidding on these stills compare their signatures to other examples of that star's signature, so they can best determine if the signature is from that star.

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