Ruby Myers

Ruby Myers, whose stage name was Sulochana, was an Indian film actress. She worked in silent films in the Bollywood Film Industry. She has Jewish ancestry and has descended from the community of the Baghdadi Jews in India. She was born in 1907, in Pune, Bombay Presidency, under British India.

She died on the 10th of October 1983 in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. Myers was a highly paid actress of the silent film era. She was wildly successful despite her background. She was not born with the looks of a movie-star. She was working as a telephone operator when the head of Kohinoor Film Company offered her to work as an actress. Initially, she had turned him down as the society then still did not consider acting as a very respectable job and certainly not for a lady.

On Mohan Bhavani’s persistence, the head of the Kohinoor Film Company, she took a chance and became a movie star. Later, she signed with the Imperial Film Company, and she went on to become the highest paid actress in the industry. Her best movies include Typist Girl (1926), Balidaan (1927), and Wildcat of Bombay (1927).In Wildcat of Bombay, she portrays eight roles and showed off her acting prowess. Among her superhit, romantic films were Madhuri (1928), Anarkali (1928) and Indira B.A. (1929).R.S. Chaudhari directed all these movies.

These were the peak years of her career. Her fame spread far and wide and everywhere her dance forms and acting were famous. With the inclusion of sounds in the movies, her career came to a standstill as she was not fluent in Hindi which was the preferred language for the films. She took a gap year to learn the language and came back with the talking version of some of her hit movies.

After coming back with a bang, she was earning a salary more than that of the governor of Bombay, and she owned a sleek Chevrolet 1935. D. Billimoria, one of the biggest film stars of the silent films soon became her lover and her partner in the movies. They had a whirlwind romance on and off screen, but their careers came to an end as their love waned. Soon, younger, more proficient actresses replaced Sulochana.

Her efforts to make a comeback were all in vain. She had also established her film studio called Ruby Pics, in the 1930s. She had received the Dada Saheb Phalke Award for her lifetime contribution to the Indian Cinema. Despite being one of the top-billed and most famous actresses of her time, Ruby died alone and forgotten in her flat in Mumbai.