SOUNDTRACKS 1928

Actress Esther Ralston with a shaping machine to create discs that contained soundtracks for talkies

- Bison Archives and HollywoodHistoricPhotos.com

Modeling some piece of technology (called a “shaping machine” by the archives) used in the production of Vitaphone sound discs is the 26 year old Esther Ralston. Born into a family of performers, she had work in silent movies since 1915. Ralston was in a handful of films in the sound era, but also worked in vaudeville venues, never catching on as a big movie star. But she went on to work in TV (from 1952 to 1963), and on radio.

She lived from 1902 to 1994, leaving behind about 70 movie titles in the silent era, and about 33 sound titles between 1929 and 1940.