Ruby Romaine

Ruby Romaine is a fictional character portrayed by Tracey Ullman on her show Tracey Takes On.... The character became so popular that HBO greenlit a pilot for a potential Ruby Romaine spin-off series; the result was the one-off special, Tracey Ullman in the Trailer Tales in 2003. Ruby is a self-professed "star maker".[1]

Ruby Romaine
Tracey Takes On... character
First appearance	"Tracey Takes On...Charity"
Last appearance	"Tracey Ullman in the Trailer Tales"
Created by	Tracey Ullman
Portrayed by	Tracey Ullman
In-universe information
Nickname	Rube Little Girl Friday
Gender	Female
Occupation	Makeup artist
Family	Shep (uncle, also Buddy's father) Rosco (uncle)
Spouse	Tubby Lapels (Divorced)
Significant other	Senator Joe McCarthy (briefly)
Children	Buddy Romaine Desirée Romaine
Relatives	Karen (granddaughter) Wayne (grandson) Whitney (great-granddaughter)
Nationality	American

Biography

Ruby's family originally hails from Wisconsin. When her family moved out to North Hollywood, they lived in a trailer. Her parents were extremely obese: "I don't think I ever saw them put anything in their mouths that didn't have milk, butter, and cheese in it." Ruby's space in the trailer was whatever was left over after they sat down.[2] Ruby was an early bloomer; she developed triple D-cup breasts and "hair in all four locations." Sometime before age 15, Ruby's uncle Rosco lost his job as a mule skinner and came to live with her family. Rosco made sexual advances towards Ruby, for which he stood trial. The judge made him join the navy and sent him to Guam where he died. "God rest his sweaty paws," says Ruby.[3] According to the book Tracey Takes On, Ruby had a short-lived marriage to entertainer Tubby Lapels, "chairman emeritus of the Hermosa Beach Friars Club." This produced her daughter Desirée.[4] However, according to the episode "Tracey Takes On... America," Desirée was actually the product of a secret affair between Ruby and Senator Joseph McCarthy.[5] "He was the first guy I did it with in a blimp."

Aide from Desirée, Ruby also as a son, Buddy.[6] Ruby gave birth to her children six months apart. "That way I could spend a lot of time with them and make sure that they were growing up right," she explains.[6] Desirée steals things from the morgue where she works and Buddy runs around the streets in Ruby's bathroom screaming, "Stop the noise!".[7] Buddy was the product of incest.[8] Ruby had an affair with her uncle, Shep. She was able to conceal her pregnancy by telling her mother that she was nursing kids for the county. Buddy didn't meet his "Uncle Daddy" until he was an adult competing in a car show contest. Shep took the car Buddy won and disappeared from his life yet again.[8]

Buddy was a child star. He was the "Tasty Bread Boy" in television commercials.[9] When he was seventeen, Buddy decided that he wanted to fight in the Vietnam war.[9] Buddy returned a shell-shocked veteran.[9] He lives with Ruby to this very day. Despite his harrowing experience, Buddy still misses Vietnam. To fill the void, Buddy adopted a pot bellied pig, Oinky.[10][11] Ruby makes sure that Buddy takes his anti-psychotic medication[7] daily, although he seemingly has lapses. Buddy acted as Secretary of State for the secessionist group, Army of Armageddon.[12] The group called for their mobile home to be declared a separate state. Buddy has a history of selling his body parts. He used part of the money to send away for a "slender Filipino fiance".[12] Buddy proposed marriage as was contractually mandatory. However, upon his fiance's arrival, Buddy was held up with the Armageddon group. His fiance ultimately decided to marry the sergeant who was awaiting Buddy's surrender.[12]

Desirée's daughter, Karen, Ruby's niece, married and had a child with an African-American man. They named the child Whitney. Ruby never knew of the child. She also didn't attend the wedding. Ruby met her great-grandchild for the first when she bumped into Desirée in a supermarket. This mini-reunion resulted in reconciliation between mother and daughter, and a bonding session between great-grandmother and great-grandchild. Ruby decides that Whitney may be of some use to her; she takes her to the Department of Motor Vehicles and uses her to get out of jams when she's caught making off-color remarks to store employees.[7]

Ruby stocked up on what she calls "vintage dinners" – frozen TV dinners that were taken off the market when health experts discovered that some of the additives were causing cancer. She still serves them on special occasions like Thanksgiving for her family.[13]

Neighborhood

Ruby resides in East Hollywood, Los Angeles, California (North Hollywood according to Ruby herself in a home shopping call in[14]). Her address is 264 1/2 Fernando Venezuela Boulevard, (formally Appleby), Hollywood, California, 90036.[15] She dubs her neighborhood "Boomshakalaka Town".[4] The majority of Ruby's neighbors are Hispanic. "It used to be a real elegant neighborhood, but now all the babies have earrings and you can smell the rice and beans in the air."[16]

Ruby's relationship with her neighbors is nothing short of tumultuous. Ruby was raped by her neighbor's dog, Raging Bull. Taking matters into her own hands, Ruby had her friend Dean castrate the dog with bricks to prevent another attack.[17]

Mexican Jehovah's Witnesses frequently turn up on Ruby's doorstep. She quickly turns them away. Ruby is not a religious person.[18]

Frozen blocks of urine have crashed through Ruby's bathroom ceilings from space shuttles.[19]

Hollywood makeup career

Ruby's makeup career began when a motion picture came to her hometown called "Pirate of the Plains" starring actor Errol Flynn. Flynn took a liking to an 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.[20] She is the oldest working Hollywood Makeup Union member. "I've been working here fifty years, hell, I'm almost out of rouge!"[21] Ruby chooses to make her makeup the old-fashioned way: in a blender. She has over 720 film and television shows to her credit.

Ruby has worked on such stars as Barbara Eden, Bette Davis, Clark Gable[22] (Mogambo), Debbie Reynolds, Debra Paget and Dennis Weaver (in Seven Angry Men, they didn't have the budget for twelve[22]), Humphrey Bogart, Jane Kaczmarek, Jane Seymour, Jane Wyman (who never said more than a few words to her), Katharine Hepburn, Kirk Douglas (The Vikings), Maureen O'Hara, Mickey Rooney (she cut out fresh orange peel teeth for him for his Japanese character I.Y. Yunioshi in Breakfast At Tiffany's), Nick Nolte, Ronald Reagan ('powered his nose' for his Chesterfield cigarette ads), Rose Marie, Spencer Tracy, the cast of Bonanza, and has applied putty to Candice Bergen's neck.[21] She also worked for legendary actress, Joan Crawford.[21] "My job was to draw her eyebrows in five minutes before the alarm went off."[21] Crawford's two adopted children begged 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".[21]

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.[8]

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.[16]

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?"[23]

Ruby worked on The Greatest Story Ever Told (which was the closet thing she ever had to a religious experience).[18] Actress Angela Lansbury accused her of drinking the wine for the Last Supper scene.[18] Ruby was subsequently fired.

Ruby did Burt Reynolds' makeup for Smokey and the Bandit.[24]

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.[25] Ruby has also done makeup in the porn industry. Her work can be seen in "Plymouth Cock."[22] "I never needed a 'beaver brush' when I worked with Minnelli!"[22]

Ruby has had multiple affairs. The list includes: Anthony Quinn, Cornel Wilde,[17] John Garfield,[26] Lawrence Welk,[27] Lorne Greene, Robert Mitchum,[17] John Edgar Hoover,[26] Joe McCarthy.[5] Ruby swears that when she worked with Rock Hudson he was "all hands."[28] Ruby worked on Magnificent Obsession starring Hudson and Jane Wyman.[28]

She has only been arrested once in her life. "It was on one of those low-budget shows. It was all about people turning into rats." A half-pound of cocaine was found in the hair and makeup trailer and Ruby and another woman were taken in for questioning. 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."[29]

Ruby's favorite film is The Lost Weekend. She helped Ray Milland research his role. "[I]t took more than a weekend, I can tell ya!"[30]

Hollywood insider

Ruby is adamant that Liberace was not gay. She saw him and Carol Burnett "canoodling" in a restaurant.[31]

She rejects the reported life story of Grace Kelly. "She slept with every leading man she ever worked with."[32]

Ruby tried to cover up the bruises on actress Lana Turner, given to her by abusive boyfriend Johnny Stompanato. "He smacked her around, and she liked it!"[16]

Ruby worked on actress Hedy Lamarr. In response to Orson Welles' The War Of The Worlds radio broadcast, Lamarr and Ruby dove underneath the makeup trailer, "with our kissers in the dirt for six hours [...] Hedy was so mad, she put a gypsy curse on Orson, which is why he got so fat," says Ruby.[19]

Key player

Unbeknownst to the public, Ruby was the "Deep Throat" that brought 1970s actress Linda Granger's career to a halt. This brought an end to both Linda's hit television series VIP Lounge, and to her character Vicki Starr, who was killed off in the program. Ruby leaked that Linda was a drug addict who tried snorting the translucent power from her makeup kit. The last straw for Ruby was when she tried to take it away from her and Linda slapped her.[33] Linda also at some point got Ruby fired from the set of Vegas Vixens.[24]

Back in the 1950s, Ruby had the opportunity to become a secret agent for the FBI. A listening devise was implanted in one of Ruby's back molars to spy on possible communist Hollywood movie stars. While spying on John Garfield, Garfield misinterpreted Ruby's (drunk) facial expressions, and thought she was coming onto him. After a brief liaison, Ruby worked every John Garfield picture.[26] Ruby also took it upon herself to spy on possible communist sympathizers in Hollywood for her then lover, Senator Joseph McCarthy.[5] Being in the Hollywood makeup business, she had prime access to spy on the stars.

Alien abduction

Driving home after a day of doing makeup on a George Schlatter comedy show, Ruby was startled when her Buick began shaking violently. Ruby jumped out of her car thinking it was another California earthquake. Suddenly, she greeted by a beam of bright light. A green figure emerged from a metallic mobile home-shaped spacecraft. The creature led Ruby aboard. There she drank and danced with the creature she called "Mayor of the Moon" and "the top alien back home." She was then probed by the creature. Later, she was led back to her car which had been washed and simonized. Ruby went to the FBI to tell them of her encounter.[27]

Alcoholism, smoking, and overall health

Ruby's brand of cigarette choice is Pall Mall.[34] She began smoking as early as seven years old.[23] She has what many would describe as an alcohol problem, but Ruby would never admit to this. She sometimes refers to her alcohol as "medication",[35] or a purifier.[12] She is not one to refrain from drinking alcohol with medication after her artificial hip was put in backwards.[36] She is keen on not missing Happy Hour at Smog Cutters,[22] which she frequently drives to in her blue Buick. She enjoys champagne music[27] and wine tasting.[4] Ruby is known to call into The Family Spending Channel, a home shopping network, when she's had "a few too many."[14]

Ruby only gets mammograms to ensure that she doesn't get dropped from her union's health insurance program. "Even if I get a lump out here on the Matterhorn, by the time it gets to base camp, I'll be 105."[37]

Ruby has had a hysterectomy.[35]

Character inspiration

Tracey Ullman describes Romaine as "pure Hollywood white trash."[38] She was based on many of the Hollywood union makeup artists sent to make her up over the years.[39] Romaine's look was inspired by Romaine Greene, a hairstylist who worked on many of Woody Allen's films.[40] The voice was inspired by Florence Aadland, mother to actress Beverly Aadland, who at 15 had an affair with a 48-year-old Errol Flynn. Ullman played Florence in the 1991 one-woman Broadway show The Big Love based on the 1961 book of the same name. She spent hours listening to audio recordings of the late Florence dictating her memoir to writer Tedd Thomey.[41] There are parallels between Ruby Romaine's early days in Hollywood and that of Beverly Aadland's, specifically Aadland's affair with Erroll Flynn.

See also

• Tracey Takes On...
• Tracey Ullman in the Trailer Tales
• Tracey Ullman: Live and Exposed
• Tracey Takes On

Notes

1. Ullman, p. 151.
2. Ullman, p. 109.
3. Ullman, pp. 12–13.
4. Ullman, p. xxv.
5. "Tracey Takes On... America". Tracey Takes On. February 24, 1999. HBO.
6. Ullman, p. 59.
7. "Tracey Takes On... Mothers". Tracey Takes On. February 8, 1997. HBO.
8. "Tracey Takes On... Hype". Tracey Takes On. March 3, 1999. HBO.
9. Ullman, p. 203.
10. "Tracey Takes On... Age". Tracey Takes On. February 15, 1998. HBO.
11. "Tracey Ullman in the Trailer Tales". Tracey Ullman in the Trailer Tales. August 3, 2003. HBO.
12. "Tracey Takes On... Marriage". Tracey Takes On. January 4, 1998. HBO.
13. "Tracey Takes On... Food". Tracey Takes On. February 8, 1998. HBO.
14. "Tracey Takes On... Money". Tracey Takes On. April 9, 1997. HBO.
15. Ullman, pp. 164–165.
16. "Tracey Takes On... Death". Tracey Takes On. March 13, 1996. HBO.
17. "Tracey Takes On... Man's Best Friend". Tracey Takes On. February 22, 1998. HBO.
18. "Tracey Takes On... Religion". Tracey Takes On. February 15, 1998. HBO.
19. "Tracey Takes On... The End of the World". Tracey Takes On. March 17, 1999. HBO.
20. "Tracey Takes On... Childhood". Tracey Takes On. March 5, 1997. HBO.
21. "Tracey Takes On... Hollywood". Tracey Takes On. January 11, 1998. HBO.
22. "Tracey Takes On... Sex". Tracey Takes On. January 25, 1997. HBO.
23. "Tracey Takes On... Smoking". Tracey Takes On. January 18, 1998. HBO.
24. "Tracey Takes On... Road Rage". Tracey Takes On. February 17, 1999. HBO.
25. "Tracey Takes On... Vegas". Tracey Takes On. February 17, 1997. HBO.
26. "Tracey Takes On... Agents". Tracey Takes On. February 1, 1998. HBO.
27. "Tracey Takes On... Fantasy". Tracey Takes On. February 2, 1997. HBO.
28. "Tracey Takes On... Obsession". Tracey Takes On. March 10, 1999. HBO.
29. "Tracey Takes On... Crime". Tracey Takes On. March 27, 1997. HBO.
30. Ullman, p. 176.
31. "Tracey Takes On... Lies". Tracey Takes On. January 27, 1999. HBO.
32. "Tracey Takes On... Royalty". Tracey Takes On. February 14, 1996. HBO.
33. "Tracey Takes On... 1976". Tracey Takes On. February 17, 1997. HBO.
34. Ullman, pp. 220–221.
35. "Tracey Takes On... Movies". Tracey Takes On. April 2, 1997. HBO.
36. "Tracey Takes On... Drugs". Tracey Takes On. January 13, 1999. HBO.
37. "Tracey Takes On... Health". Tracey Takes On. March 13, 1996. HBO.
38. Avasthi, Sarubhui (17 January 1997). "Tracey Ullman Defies Characterization". The News Journal. Retrieved 16 March 2018.
39. "Tracey Takes On... The Characters". Tracey Ullman. 28 October 2016. Retrieved 1 January 2018 – via YouTube.
40. "Tracey Ullman is back! Tracy Ullman with Patricia Marx". 92nd Street Y. 21 November 2016. Retrieved 1 January 2018 – via YouTube.
41. De Vries, Hilary (3 March 1991). "Interview : Voice No. 1,001 : Her TV show is history, but Tracey Ullman has found another offbeat American misfit to play, this time on Broadway". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 1 January 2018.

Sources

• Ullman, Tracey (1998). Tracey Takes On. Hyperion. ISBN 978-0-786-86340-2.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)