Ruth Sobotka and "Eyes Wide Shut"

"Ruth Sobotka danced with the New York City Ballet, but defied the stereotype of the stringy, angular danseuse. Dark and voluptuous, with excellent legs, she radiated vivacity and sensuality. Three years older than Kubrick, she's come to New York as a child in the thirties from Vienna." ---Vincent Lobrutto.

"She was a very European-looking woman. Quite striking face and body. She was closer to the sort of person who made some kind of sense with Stanley. She was part of the artist's world"---Alex Singer

"She was an extraordinarily generous person. She took in waifs and strays. She had intense and sometimes brief relationships with men who were not yet established in whatever artistic endeavour they were involved in ... Her relationship with Stanley came to an end when he became a prominent director ... Ruth really wanted to be his collaborator, not just his girlfriend or wife. In some ways Ruth was in tune with an aspect of Stanley's personality. She was the kind of person that anything she undertook she would become the best at it ----David Vaughan

"[I]She was wearing a ravishing bathrobe, which was red and full-length and with a fur collar. She looked like something out of "Anna Karenina". She was incredibly beautiful ... She was interested in everything and was always open to the occasion and never tempered by any kind of rules or form." ---Valda Setterfield


These are just some rudimentary notes and observations from recent research about both Ruth Sobotka (Kubrick's second wife; met in 1952 and divorced first wife Toba Metz, married in 1955, separated in 1956, divorced in 1961) and her relation to, and spectral influence on "Eyes Wide Shut", the film's themes and complexities enigmatically mirroring, inverting, and resonating with Kubrick's past marriages and relationships with women.

Photos of Sobotka (some with Kubrick):

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ru/f/fb/Ruth_Sobotka.jpg
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http://www.balletto.net/redazione/immagini/2378A.jpg
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http://www.foundagrave.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/ruth.jpg

1. Sobotka, a core member of New York's avant garde in the 1940s/50s, an actress, ballet dancer, costume designer, painter and art director, she met Kubrick in 1952 while he was editing and struggling with "Fear and Desire" (1953), and introduced him to New York's bohemian-thesbian world, to Greenwich Village, and the avant Garde, including introducing him to Viennese writer and author of "Traumnovelle" Arthur Schnitzler and his work, as Sobotka was born in Vienna. Kubrick moved into her Greenwich Village apartment soon after they met.

2. Kubrick and Sobotka married in January 1955 just after Sobotka acted in a small role as the ballet dancer, Iris, in "Killer's Kiss" (1955). She was also the film's art director and would subsequently be the art director for "The Killing" (1956). What is unusual is that the star actress in that film was Irene Kane (who later changed her name to Chris Chase and became a writer), who plays the part, as Gloria, of Sobotka's sister Iris in the film, and though she had no previous acting experience, but a model appearing in "Vogue" magazine, Kubrick insisted that she play the role of the lead, of the heroine Gloria.

3. Ruth died in June, 1967, in hospital, in the Flower and Fifth Avenue Hospital in Manhattan in somewhat mysterious circumstances. According to some reports it was due to a drug overdose, and so a possible suicide. But according to others it was the result of fatal complications resulting from taking a then newly introduced Pill, the birth-control drug. She was 42 years old. In "Killer's Kiss", the ballet dancer Iris played by Sobotka had also committed suicide. Just after Ruth's death Kubrick stopped flying and read Traumnovelle, a novel he first wanted to adapt for the screen after the Napoleon project collapsed in 1969 (warner Bros even announced it as Kubrick's next film project after "A Clockwork Orange"). Just after Ruth's death Kubrick settled permanently in London, his family vacating their Manhattan apartment and joining him in London (Kubrick sold both of his apartments in Manhattan, one in Central Park West - the apartment that was the basis for the Harford's apartment in "Eyes Wide Shut" - that he had been using as his production offices, and the second one off Fifth Avenue, the family home), purchasing a large house in 1967, Abbots Mead, close to the film studios at Elstree and Borehamwood where he was working on "2001".

4. In 1968, a year after her death, her parents, Walter Sobotka and Gesela Sobotka, privately published in an extremely Limited Numbered Edition of just 300 copies, a biography of Ruth, simply titled "Ruth".
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Ruth-Sobotka-LTD-ED-of-300-Dancer-designer-actress-artist-2nd-wife-of-S-Kubrick-/162146327824

5. "According to Vaughan, someone had given Kubrick details of a sexual encounter said to have taken place between Ruth and another man during the time she and Vaughan shared the apartment. Though this preceded his relationship with Ruth, Kubrick was furious, and taxed he with it in a letter containing considerable circumstantial detail. They never lived together again."---John Baxter

6. Summary biography of Ruth at http://stanley_kubrick.enacademic.com/197/Sobotka,_Ruth

Ruth Sobotka’s first film appearance was in Hans Richter’s 1947 surrealist film Dreams That Money Can Buy. The film comprised six dream sequences, each written by a different artist—Alexander Calder, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Fernand Leger, Man Ray and Richter. Sobotka appeared in Man Ray’s sequence, “Ruth, Roses, and Revolvers. ” Described by the British Film Institute as an “ambitious attempt to bring the work of the European avant-garde to a wider cinema audience,” Dreams That Money Can Buy was commercially released by Century Films and is generally regarded as the first feature-length avantgarde film.

Ruth Sobotka’s appearance in Richter’s film attests to her active creative and social involvement in New York’s thriving avant-garde art world. Through her, Stanley Kubrick was introduced to a number of important figures in that world. In addition, she also introduced him to Austrian literature, including ARTHUR SCHNITZLER’s TRAUMNOVELLE, which would later form the source material for EYES WIDE SHUT. Likewise, through Kubrick, Sobotka would have the opportunity to further extend her creative talents into feature film work.

Ruth Sobotka met Stanley Kubrick in late 1952, during the production of FEAR AND DESIRE. He moved into her apartment in east Greenwich Village shortly after, and became good friends with her colleague, former roommate, and friend David Vaughan. Kubrick and Sobotka were married on January 15, 1955, in Albany, New York. That same year, United Artists released Kubrick’s film Killer’s Kiss. In formulating the plot for Killer’s Kiss, Kubrick had asked David Vaughan to choreograph a ballet sequence-he wanted Sobotka to be in the film. In the resulting flashback sequence, Sobotka dances alone on stage as the female lead, Gloria (IRENE KANE), narrates a story about her father and her sister Iris, a ballet dancer. (Adjacent photographs of Ruth Sobotka and her father Walter also appear in the scene. ) Sobotka’s contribution to Kubrick’s next film, The Killing, was of a much more collaborative nature-she acted as art director, and she was one of the first women to do so for a Hollywood production. To work with Kubrick in such a manner had been a desire of hers, according to David Vaughan: “Ruth really wanted to be his collaborator, not just his girlfriend or wife. ” Judging by the critical success of the film and its role in swiftly elevating Stanley Kubrick’s directorial status, their collaboration was a successful one. However, their move to Los Angeles and the subsequent advancements in Kubrick’s career did not necessarily bode well for their marriage. In October 1956, David Vaughan visited the couple in Los Angeles, and felt that “things were in a terrible state between them. ” He observed that Kubrick would spend all day at the studio while Sobotka stayed at home, and said that “Ruth really didn’t want to be left at home and have dinner ready for Stanley when he came home—which is what he seemed to want. ” Ruth Sobotka returned to New York in December 1956 and rejoined the New York City Ballet shortly after. She and Stanley Kubrick were legally separated in 1958, and they reached a final divorce settlement in 1961.

Sobotka continued dancing with choreographerdesigner James Waring’s company at the Living Theater and the New York City Ballet until 1961. In the subsequent years leading up to her death, while continuing to work as a costume designer, she fervently pursued her acting interests, working in television and with experimental theater groups, and studying with such prominent figures as Herbert Berghof, Uta Hagen, and Lee Strasberg.

Ruth Sobotka’s sudden death in 1967 cut short a rich, varied, and fruitful artistic career. Her influence on Stanley Kubrick and his films was significant. Despite the ultimately divergent directions of their respective careers, Sobotka and Kubrick shared an intense, perfectionist dedication to artistic craft. According to David Vaughan: “In some ways Ruth was in tune with an aspect of Stanley’s personality. She was the kind of person that anything she undertook she would become the best at it. ”