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Clarissa Kaye

{{short description|Australian actress (1931–1994)}}

{{Moresources|date=September 2021}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2014}}

{{Use Australian English|date=February 2014}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Clarissa Kaye

| image =

| caption =

| birth_name = Clarissa Knipe

| birth_date = 2 August 1931{{cite web |title=Clarissa Kaye Knipe Mason (1931-1994) |url=https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/177694417/clarissa-kaye-mason |website=Find a Grave Memorial |access-date=3 September 2021}}

| birth_place = Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

| death_date = {{Death date and age|1994|07|21|1931|08|02|df=y}}

| death_place = Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

| other_names = Clarissa Kaye-Mason

| occupation = Actress

| years_active =

| spouse = {{marriage|James Mason
|1971|1984|end=died}}

}}

Clarissa Kaye (2 August 1931 – 21 July 1994) was an Australian stage, film and television actress. She was the second wife (1971–1984) of the British actor James Mason. After her marriage, she was often known as Clarissa Kaye-Mason.

Biography

Clarissa Kaye was born as Clarissa Knipe in Sydney in 1931. In 1958 she became one of a class of informal students of Hayes Gordon, who taught "The Method" (the group included Reg Livermore and Jon Ewing). Their first public performances were a series of one-act plays by Tennessee Williams. The group later became the Ensemble Theatre, Sydney's first theatre in the round and its longest established professional theatre company.{{cite web|url=http://www.liveperformance.com.au/halloffame/hayesgordon2.html|title=Hayes Gordon OBE AO 1920-1999|work=liveperformance.com.au|access-date=26 July 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091112051416/http://www.liveperformance.com.au/halloffame/hayesgordon2.html|archive-date=12 November 2009|url-status=dead}}{{cite web| url=http://www.ensemblestudios.com.au/pages/history/history.html| title=Hayes Gordon AO OBE & The Ensemble Acting Studios| accessdate=3 March 2015| archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20091013210639/http://www.ensemblestudios.com.au/pages/history/history.html| archivedate=13 October 2009}}

In 1968, the Australian Broadcasting Commission produced a 45-minute location-filmed adaptation of the Henry Lawson short story of The Drover's Wife, directed by Gian Carlo Manara and featuring Kaye in the titular role.{{cite news|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article46186452|title=The Bush for Rolf – section: Killing a snake with conviction|author=Nan Musgrove|work=The Australian Women's Weekly|volume=36|issue=16|date=18 September 1968|accessdate=7 May 2019|page=15|via=Trove, National Library of Australia}} She also appeared in an episode of Adventure Unlimited.{{Cite magazine |last=Vagg |first=Stephen |date=2023-05-06 |title=Forgotten Australian TV Series: Adventure Unlimited |url=https://www.filmink.com.au/forgotten-australian-tv-series-adventure-unlimited/ |access-date=2023-07-23 |magazine=FilmInk}}

Her first feature film role was as Meg in Age of Consent (1969), in which she appeared in scenes with James Mason, including a sex scene that was censored from Columbia Pictures' UK and U.S. releases.{{cite web| url=http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/cteq/05/36/age_of_consent.html| title=Age of Consent| accessdate=3 March 2015|website= Senses of Cinema |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20101015120624/http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/cteq/05/36/age_of_consent.html| archivedate=15 October 2010}} The following year she played the mother to Mick Jagger's Ned Kelly.

Kaye was attracted to Mason and later tracked him down. She wrote to Mason reminding him of their meeting and their sex scene in Age of Consent, and he wrote back. A correspondence between the two followed, and Kaye fuelled the relationship by travelling long distance to meet him.{{cn|date=July 2021}}

Marriage

Mason and Kaye were married on 8 August 1971{{cite web| url=http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/participant.jsp?spid=124243| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090202052647/http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/participant.jsp?spid=124243| url-status=dead| archive-date=2 February 2009| title=Biography for James Mason| accessdate=3 March 2015}} in Corseaux-sur-Vevey, Switzerland, and remained together until his death in 1984. (It has been reported that it was her second marriage.)"[https://web.archive.org/web/20081221215118/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,943883,00.html Milestones, Sep. 6, 1971]". 6 September 1971. Time magazine. Retrieved 3 November 2014 {{subscription required}} Kaye reportedly was willing to put her career on hold, but Mason regularly insisted that she be given roles in his films.{{cite web|url=http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/64/64jamesmason.html|archive-url=https://archive.today/20120721211630/http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/64/64jamesmason.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=2012-07-21|title=James Mason: Odd Man Out|work=Bright Lights Film Journal}} They shared scenes in Frankenstein: The True Story (1973); they also both appeared in Salem's Lot (1979), but did not share any scenes.

They appeared on Broadway in April 1979 in Brian Friel's play Faith Healer," T. E. Kalem (16 April 1979) [https://web.archive.org/web/20101015214429/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,912429,00.html Theater: Touch and Go]". Time magazine, Retrieved 3 November 2014 {{subscription required}} but were never on stage together (the play is constructed as four monologues by three characters). Her involvement in Faith Healer was also largely at Mason's request, but she struggled with both the role and José Quintero's direction. Ed Flanders eventually left the play, refusing to work with Kaye, and the production ended after only 17 days.{{cite book|author=Christopher Murray|title=The Theatre of Brian Friel: Tradition and Modernity|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MijLAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA80|date=24 April 2014|publisher=A&C Black|isbn=978-1-4081-5451-9|pages=80–}}

Death

James Mason died in 1984. Clarissa Kaye died a decade later, aged 62, on 21 July 1994 from cancer. Before Mason remarried, his children Portland{{cite web| url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/27/arts/portland-mason-schuyler-55-child-actor.html |title=Portland Mason Schuyler, 55, Child Actor |agency=Associated Press |work=The New York Times |date=27 May 2004 |accessdate=29 January 2018}} and Morgan (both from his first marriage to Pamela Mason) were to be the beneficiaries of his large estate, valued at £15 million. Mason changed his will to leave Clarissa Kaye as the sole beneficiary, but the children understood from a letter that Mason wrote to them that they would still ultimately receive the proceeds after their stepmother's death. However, she was on such bad terms with them to the point of pathological jealousy that she cut them out of all photos with Mason.

Disregarding Mason's letter saying the children would get his money after Kaye's death, Kaye left Mason's entire estate to an unidentified trust rumoured to be on behalf of the Sathya Sai Organization, run by devotees of the Indian guru Sathya Sai Baba. The organization, based in an ashram near Bangalore, neither confirmed nor denied this.{{cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1375863/James-Masons-ashes-finally-laid-to-rest.html | title=James Mason's ashes finally laid to rest |first=Caroline |last=Davies |work=The Daily Telegraph |date=25 November 2000 |accessdate=29 January 2018}}

Mason's ashes were also the subject of controversy. Kaye initially had them in an urn in her home, never telling Mason's children she had them. She later deposited them in a Geneva bank vault, again to hide them. They tracked them down after Kaye's death, and took legal action to retrieve and inter them, and through court order by the judge who declared that his children deserved the right to choose the wording on their father's gravestone.{{cn|date=July 2021}}

Filmography

=Film=

=Television=

References

{{Reflist}}

External links

  • {{IMDb name|id=0443420}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kaye, Clarissa}}

Category:1994 deaths

Category:1931 births

Category:Deaths from cancer in Australia

Category:Australian stage actresses

Category:Australian film actresses

Category:Australian television actresses

Category:Actresses from Sydney

Category:James Mason family