Ruby Romaine - Hollywood Makeup Career

Hollywood Makeup Career

Ruby's makeup career began when a motion picture came to her hometown called "Pirates of the Plaines" starring actor Errol Flynn. Flynn took a liking to underage Romaine and slept with her. Ruby, threatening to make a scandal out of the affair, was offered a job doing makeup which kicked started her fifty year career. She is the oldest working Hollywood Makeup Union member. "I've been working here fifty years, hell, I'm almost out of rouge!"

Ruby has worked on such stars as Bette Davis, Maureen O'Hara, Katharine Hepburn, Jane Wyman (who never said than more than a few words to her), Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Kirk Douglas, Humphrey Bogart, Mickey Rooney, Ronald Reagan, Debbie Reynolds, Dennis Weaver, Rose Marie, Jane Seymour, the cast of Bonanza, and has applied putty to Candice Bergen's neck. She also worked for legendary actress, Joan Crawford. "My job was to draw her eyebrows in five minutes before the alarm went off." Davis' two adopted children implored Ruby to help save them from their mother who was "strapping them to the bed and giving them enemas". Ruby went on the side of the woman who "signed her paychecks".

Ruby has related that she put actor Tony Curtis in a diaper since the director wouldn't let him climb down for bathroom breaks in the movie Trapeze.

Ruby got to make amends with actress Vivian Biltmore, the woman who got her fired off the (film) set claiming that she was drunk. Ruby did Biltmore's makeup for her Oscar-winning performance in Faded Splendor. Ruby reconciled with the star while acting as makeup mortician.

Ruby also worked on actress Jayne Mansfield. "I got to the scene of the accident where Jayne Mansfield's head rolled along the side of that highway. Sad thing was, I had done her roots only three days prior. Can you believe her luck?"

Ruby worked on The Greatest Story Ever Told (which was the closet thing she ever had to a religious experience.). Actress Angela Lansbury accused her of drinking the wine for the Last Supper scene. Ruby was subsequently fired.

Ruby did Burt Reynolds' makeup for Smokey and the Bandit.

She has worked on such motion pictures as Showgirls, doing makeup for actress Elizabeth Berkley. Ruby used ice-cubes on Berkley's nipples before every take. Ruby has also done makeup for the porn industry. Her work can be seen in "Plymouth Cock".

Ruby has had multiple affairs. The list includes: Robert Mitchum, Lawrence Welk, Anthony Quinn, Cornel Wilde, John Garfield, John Edgar Hoover, Joe McCarthy. Ruby swears that when she worked with Rock Hudson he was "all hands".

She has only been arrested once in her life. A half-pound of cocaine was found in the hair and makeup trailer on the set of a B movie Ruby was working on. She was innocent, but years prior she did let a gaffer rub some on one of her nipples and lick it off. "He got a bigger kick out of it than I did. That's for sure."