Roberta Arnold

Minerva Bussenius (September 22, 1896 – August 27, 1966), known professionally as Roberta Arnold, was an American stage and silent film actress. She started in Los Angeles before moving to New York, appeared in leading roles in several Broadway plays and received positive reception.

Roberta Arnold
Born
Minerva Bussenius

(1896-09-22)September 22, 1896
San Francisco, California, U.S.
DiedAugust 27, 1966(1966-08-27) (aged 69)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Other namesMinerva B Willard, Roberta Arnold Willard
OccupationActress

Career
Arnold with Frank Craven in The First Year

She made her professional debut around age 17 in 1910 at the Los Angeles Belasco Theatre, as a non-speaking extra in a production of Forty-five Minutes from Broadway.[1][2][3] She joined Oliver Morosco's stock company, where her productions included Peg o' My Heart and The Bird of Paradise supporting Carlotta Monterey.[4][5] She had a part in Upstairs and Down (1916)[6] which was the most popular Los Angeles play of the season before coming to New York,[7] marking Arnold's Broadway debut.[6]

She had leading roles in Adam and Eva (1916),[5] and in The First Year, opposite Frank Craven who also wrote it.[8] She played her role, Grace Livingston, for more than a year, and said of the character, "Grace Livingston, as created by Mr. Craven, is human and real – a genuine person".[3] Her other roles included in Chicken Feed, and Pig Iron.[2][9] Her role in the 1925 play Pig Iron was said by the San Francisco Examiner to be "the opportunity of her career".[9] She was in the silent film Sands of Life.[10]

Reception

The magazine The Independent wrote that Arnold is a corker and that the "subtle little meanings she makes her lines suggest sets the comedy down in The School for Scandal class."[11] Time wrote of Arnold, "You either like her or you don't. Most people do."[12]

Personal life

Arnold was born Minerva Bussenius in San Francisco, California, and moved to Los Angeles as an infant.[1] Her father was a Southern California businessman and her mother was an officer in the Native Daughters of the Golden West.[13] She took the name Roberta Arnold feeling her original name "too great a handicap on stage" so she used the first name of her father (Robert) and the name of an uncle (Arnold).[2] She wanted to be an actress since she was 7 years old. She spent her childhood with her parents in Los Angeles. Arnold kept a scrapbook of pictures that had to do with theatre when she was a child, with it later becoming an inspiration to her and her "most precious possession". Her parents thought that she was not serious about becoming an actress. When she was 14 years old, Arnold made the announcement that she "was going to be an actress" and her mother burned her scrapbook in a bonfire as a result.[2] Her sister Carolyn also acted briefly under the name Carolyn Arnold, before marrying a French nobleman.[14]

She married actor Herbert Rawlinson on January 1, 1912.[15] In 1922, her husband sued her for desertion and they became divorced.[16] She later married aviator and stunt pilot Frank J. Lynch, whom she divorced in 1927,[17] and in 1929 she married the playwright and screenwriter John Willard.[18][19][20] She died in August 1966, and was interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale.[21]

References
  1. "Three Los Angeles Girls Fill Three Important Places in Three Local Stock Companies. Do You Know Any of Them?". Los Angeles Herald. June 11, 1911. p. 5.
  2. Harding, Allan (March 1924). "It took Roberta Arnold Eight Weeks to Open a Door". The American Magazine. Vol. 97, no. 3. pp. 34, 129–132.
  3. "Roberta and Grace Of 'The First Year' Now Firm Friends". New-York Tribune. December 25, 1921 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. "The Bird of Paradise Interesting and Well-acted Dramatic Novelty". Evening Times-Republican. April 4, 1916.
  5. "The Rise of Roberta". The Washington Herald. March 2, 1919. p. 3.
  6. "Says She Prefers Comedy to Eating: Miss Roberta Arnold Relates Some of Her Experiences". The Sun and the New York Herald. February 2, 1915. p. 9.
  7. "Morosco Offers New Comedy, Upstairs and Down, for Opening of the Belasco". The Washington Herald. September 17, 1916.
  8. "Happy in First Unmarried Role: Miss Roberta Arnold, Leading Woman for Frank Craven, Has Something to Say". The New York Herald. November 21, 1920. p. 6.
  9. "Roberta Arnold Given Star Role". The San Francisco Examiner. October 17, 1925 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. Jean-Jacques Jura; Rodney Norman Bardin II (August 13, 2015). Balboa Films: A History and Filmography of the Silent Film Studio. McFarland. p. 251. ISBN 978-1-4766-0901-0.
  11. The Independent. 1917. p. 3.
  12. "The Tantrum". Time. Time Incorporated. September 15, 1924. p. 16.
  13. "Miss Minerva Bussenius a Bride". San Bernardino Sun. December 30, 1911. p. 6.
  14. "Count D'Oyley, 21, Weds Actress, 23; Son of Marquess and Marchioness D'Oyley of Paris, Marries Carolyn Arnold". The New York Times. March 9, 1922.
  15. "News concerning the state". The Grizzly Bear. Vol. 10, no. 4. February 1912. p. 17.
  16. "Petite Dorothy Clark, Center Of Mother's Strange $200,000 Action Against Herbert Rawlinson, Anxious To Clear Name". The Washington Times. April 30, 1922 – via Newspapers.com.
  17. "Frank J. Lynch, Film Stunt Flier, Killed in Crash". Daily News. New York. December 5, 1932. p. 46.
  18. "Tony Marteletti and Fern Henry are Wed". Las Vegas Age. July 6, 1929. p. 6. John Willard and Minerva B. Lynch, both of New York City
  19. "Roberta Arnold in Play". The Los Angeles Times. January 8, 1930. p. 33.
  20. Parker, John, ed. (1939). Who's Who in the Theatre (9th ed.). New York: Pitman Publishing Corporation. p. 1548. OCLC 1036973910.
  21. "Willard, Minerva B." The Los Angeles Times. August 30, 1966. p. 25.
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