Eileen Percy

This is part of a series showing what the silent stars featured in the 1917 Kromo Gravure Trading Card set were up to at the precise moment in time covered in a 1932 Motion Picture Magazine article, Stars Who Have Vanished by Jack Grant.

I've been using the IMDb, Wikipedia, my physical bookshelf, and especially the NewspaperArchive.com database to search out the rest of the story for each of these old time stars in attempts to see what became of them from 1932 until their deaths.

eileen-percy

Stars Who Have Vanished, 1932: Now a successful columnist for a newspaper syndicate, and as pretty as always. Has just resumed her screen career.

What I Dug Up: I found reference to Percy's writing, but only one article.

A 1934 article named Marion Davies as one of her great friends, who knew she could confide in her without Percy ever saying a word, which I suppose refers to her journalistic career. Percy was also called a confidante to Constance Bennett.

She continued to be periodically referenced in the newspapers throughout her life as her 1936 marriage to songwriter Harry Ruby of Kalmar and Ruby kept her in the Hollywood social circle. In 1950 the film Three Little Words was released with Red Skelton playing Ruby (and Fred Astaire as Kalmar) and featuring Arlene Dahl in the part of Eileen Percy Ruby.

Reports on Percy throughout the years variously had her in both good and ill health: In 1953 she's reported as critically ill in New York; in 1956 Percy is hospitalized after suffering a heart attack; In 1962 the Rubys have dinner at Groucho Marx's; In 1963 Louella Parsons reports that Percy looks very well.

Eileen Percy Ruby died in 1973, age 72. Despite all of the earlier coverage I was unable to locate an obituary for her as either Eileen Percy or Eileen Ruby.

I did see one article as late as 1972 mention Percy and Ruby were still happily married so I think it's safe to assume Ruby was still her husband at the time he survived her. He died about seven months later, in February 1974.