German-born actress and writer with hazel eyes and dark brown hair; her name has also been spelled Alita Cruze. Her parents were Olga (née von Duysenberg, later m. Covey, 1877-1949) and Henry Kruse (d. before 1912). Her siblings were actress Lottie Kruse (Charlotte [Kruse] Burghard, 1895-1984), Irene (Kruse) McClelland (1898-1966), and film cameraman Warner Cruze (1902-1950); widowed Olga and the four kids immigrated to the United States in 1912, arriving at the port of Boston, Massachusetts, on 25 July. Per her 1935 petition for citizenship, Alida had been living in Los Angeles County since September 1922. Alida filed two declarations of intention to become a U.S. citizen, one in April 1928 and another in March 1935. A month after filing the second declaration, she filed her petition for citizenship, which was approved in September; she used this opportunity to legally change the spelling of her surname from Kruse to Cruze.
Alida, who reportedly was to marry actor Robert Ames around 1926 after his divorce from actress/singer Vivienne Segal (it didn't happen), has also been noted as a motion picture writer in some articles (notably some after a 1931 car accident). She later became a film reader and script analyst; her 1928 and 1935 naturalization records give her occupation as "reader," while a later 1947 article mentions her as a "script analyst formerly with Warner Brothers," and the 1950 U.S. Census gives her profession as "screen story analyst" in motion pictures. Interestingly, the 1940 U.S. Census in between places her as an "inmate" at the Los Angeles headquarters of the Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) -- the organization founded in 1920 by Paramahansa Yogananda, renowned Indian guru and author of "Autobiography of a Yogi" -- with her occupation given as "lesson writer" for the religious institute. Alida, who appears to have never married, is interred at Eternal Hills Memorial Park in Oceanside, California.
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