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RUTH ETTING, AMERICAN SONGBIRD EXTRAORDINAIRE. THE CALIFORNIA YEARS (THE EARLY 1930s) AND AFTER, TO 1978

© Joyce E. Eberly

PART THREE. RUTH ETTING, THE CALIFORNIA YEARS (THE EARLY 1930s) AND AFTER TO 1978

Ruth and Moe moved to California in the early 1930s when Ruth decided to start a career in films. In 1933, she appeared with Eddie Cantor in Roman Scandals, but her part was shortened to Olga, a slave girl, with only one song. Subsequently, she made two more films, Hips, Hips, Hooray and Gift of Gab, both in 1934. Each time she made only brief appearances and had few speaking lines. About her acting, Ruth said, "I always thought I might have made it, but they could only see me as a voice. If they had given me some training. I wasn't stupid, I might have made it. There were lots of pretty young things in movies who weren't actresses and who made it big."

She stayed in California, however, and appeared with Jimmy Durante in the weekly radio show, the Chase and Sanborn Hour. Eventually, Moe returned east. His gangster connections may have been helpful early in her career, but he became abusive and "slapped, punched or otherwise threw his weight around," filling Ruth with fear and making her life miserable. By 1937, they were divorced, but it was not the end of Moe Snyder for Ruth. Moe returned to California in 1938 and in a jealous rage shot and wounded Ruth's accompanist and boy friend, Myrl Alderman. Snyder was arrested and tried for kidnapping and attempted murder.

The trial made headlines and was immortalized by the reporter James Lee in the Los Angeles Examiner. Ruth was designated as "The Little Lady," Moe Snyder as "The Gimp," Myrl Alderman as "The Piano Player," and the gun used in the shooting as "The Equalizer." He described Ruth's appearance on the witness stand thus: "She was dressed sedately, but expensively. She wore a knee-length gray jacket of very wooly lamb, a severe, dark blue tailored dress, and blue felt hat that looked like the campaign headgear worn by the Union officers in the War Between the States, only with a good deal more chic, of course." After the trial, which lasted four months and developed into a sordid scandal, Snyder was convicted and sentenced to prison. He appealed, and when Ruth and Alderman refused to appear again in court, Moe was released after serving a year.

After the trial, Ruth and Myrl Alderman were married and lived in seclusion on a small ranch near Colorado Springs. At age fifty, in 1947, she did attempt a comeback, appearing on Rudy Vallee?s radio show and at the Copacabana in New York City. However, she decided to retire when her voice was at its best, realizing that the day of the torch singer had come to an end. She died in Colorado in 1978.

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