Ina Claire
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Ina Claire
Biography
A comedienne on vaudeville in pre-World War I days, Ina Claire made only a few films during the silent era (beginning with The Puppet Crown, 1915), instead concentrating on her stage work. She was featured in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1915 and 1916, appeared for two years as the star of The Gold Diggers, and developed into a Broadway favorite in the '20s. On Broadway she was the "queen of high comedy," a sophisticated blonde with verve and panache. She returned to the screen shortly after the advent of sound in The Awful Truth (1929). Her bubbly comedic style was employed in a handful of other movies in the '30s and '40s; her last appearance was as Dorothy McGuire's courageous, doomed mother in Claudia (1943). She retired from the stage in 1954. She was married to screen idol John Gilbert from 1929-31. ~ RoviFilmography:
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Ina Claire
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Ina Claire
This article is about the American actress. For the British actress, see Ina Clare.
| Ina Claire | |
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| Born | Ina Fagan October 15, 1893 Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Died | February 21, 1985 (aged 91) San Francisco, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1910–1954 (stage) 1915–1943 (film) |
| Spouse | James Whittaker (1919-1925) John Gilbert (1929-1931) William R. Wallace (1939-1976) |
Ina Claire (October 15, 1893 – February 21, 1985) was an American stage and film actress.
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Career
Born Ina Fagan in 1893[1] in Washington, D.C., Claire began her career appearing in vaudeville. She performed on Broadway in the musicals Jumping Jupiter and The Quaker Girl (both 1911) and Lady Luxury, and starred on Broadway in plays by some of the leading comic dramatists of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, including the roles of Jerry Lamarr in Avery Hopwood's The Gold Diggers (1919), Mrs. Cheyney in Frederick Lonsdale's The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (1925), Lady George Grayston in W. Somerset Maugham's Our Betters (1928), and Enid Fuller in George Kelly's The Fatal Weakness.
Her last stage appearance was as Lady Elizabeth Mulhammer in T. S. Eliot's The Confidential Clerk (1954). She was particularly identified with the high comedies of S. N. Behrman, and created the female leads in three of his plays: Biography (1934), End of Summer (1936), and The Talley Method (1941). Behrman wrote of Claire's performance in one of Behrman's comedies: "Her readings were translucent, her stage presence encompassing. The flick of an intonation deflated pomposity. She never missed a nuance."[2] Critic J. Brooks Atkinson praised Claire for her "refulgent comic intelligence.[3] In films, she is best known as the Grand Duchess in the 1939 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer comedy, political satire Ninotchka.
She made her onscreen debut in the Cecil B. DeMille film The Wild Goose Chase in 1915.[4]
Family
Claire's second husband was screen actor John Gilbert.
Death
Ina Claire died February 21, 1985 in San Francisco, California, aged 91 due to an heart attack. She is buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery located in Salt Lake City, Utah. She was an inductee in the American Theatre Hall of Fame and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Filmography
- The Wild Goose Chase (1915)
- The Puppet Crown (1915)
- National Red Cross Pageant (1917)
- Polly with a Past (1920)
- The Awful Truth (1929)
- The Royal Family of Broadway (1930)
- Rebound (1931)
- The Greeks Had a Word for Them (1932)
- Ninotchka (1939)
- Claudia (1943)
References
- ^ Born in 1893, not 1892 as per the Social Security Death Index under the name INA CLAIRE and her gravestone
- ^ S. N. Behrman, People in a Diary (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1972), 196.
- ^ J. Brooks Atkinson, "Americans Stopping in London", The New York Times, February 21, 1928, p. 18
- ^ "Progressive Silent Film List: The Wild Goose Chase". Silent Era. http://www.silentera.com/PSFL/data/W/WildGooseChase1915.html. Retrieved 2011-04-25.
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Ina Claire |
- Ina Claire at the Internet Movie Database
- Ina Claire at the Internet Broadway Database
- Ina Claire at AllRovi
- Ina Claire at Find a Grave
- Ina Claire at the TCM Movie Database
- Ina Claire at Silent Ladies & Gents
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Mentioned in
The Awful Truth
(1929 Comedy Film)
Polly with a Past
(1920 Film)
Guy Kingsford
(Actor, Drama/Adventure)
Claudia
(1943 Comedy Drama Film)
The Puppet Crown
(1915 Fantasy Film)
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