Ina Claire

Ina Fagan was born October 15, 1893, in Washington, D.C. After the death of her father, Claire began doing imitations of fellow boarders in the boarding house where she and her mother, Cora, and brother, Allen,1900 United States Federal Census were forced to live. Claire's mother took her out of school in the eighth grade, and she used her mother's maiden name when she began her career appearing in vaudeville.{{cite news|last1=Flint|first1=Peter B.|title=Ina Claire, 92, Who Brought Comic Artistry To Stage Roles|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1985/02/23/arts/ina-claire-92-who-brought-comic-artistry-to-stage-roles.html|newspaper=The New York Times|date=23 February 1985|access-date=13 December 2016}} In 1906, she gave a recitation as the grand finale of a program presented by Miss Cora B. Shreve's pupils in Washington, D.C. She was identified in a newspaper article as Ina Claire Fagan.{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/25375660/ina_claire/|title=End of May Carnival|date=May 24, 1906|work=Evening Star|page=19|via = Newspapers.com|access-date = November 13, 2018}} {{Open access}}

Claire made her professional stage debut in October 1907 in Elmira, New York. She played Florie in a production of The Fatal Flower — the beginning of a two-year contract.{{cite news |title='The Fatal Flower' Distinct Surprise |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/25376045/stargazette/ |work=Star-Gazette |date=October 22, 1907 |location=New York, Elmira |page=3|via = Newspapers.com|access-date = November 13, 2018}} {{Open access}}

In 1909, she appeared in a vaudeville act entitled "Dainty Mimic", which included an imitation of actor Harry Lauder. A booking agent described this act as "one of the best single Acts" he had seen that season and remarked that "She possesses a great deal of magnatism [sic] and is a big hit."Ohio State University, Theater Research Institute, Scrapbook #172, n.p.

Image:Ina claire movie card.jpgShe performed on Broadway in the musicals Jumping Jupiter, The Quaker Girl (both 1911), and Lady Luxury (1914-1915). Claire was in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1915 and 1916. She later 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 Fatal Weakness.

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| access-date = March 17, 2024

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File:Ina-Claire-by-Manuel-Rosenberg.jpg 1924]]

File:Ina Claire in The Greeks Had a Word for Them 2.jpg publicity still for The Greeks Had a Word for Them (1932), lying in her nightgown in a seductive pose, which provoked outrage from civic and religious leaders.]]

Claire later became 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 his comedies: "Her readings were translucent, her stage presence encompassing. The flick of an intonation deflated pomposity. She never missed a nuance."S. N. Behrman, People in a Diary (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1972), 196. Critic J. Brooks Atkinson praised Claire for her, "refulgent comic intelligence".J. Brooks Atkinson, "Americans Stopping in London", The New York Times, February 21, 1928, p. 18

Claire was retired from the stage for five years in the early 1940s, living with her husband in San Francisco. She returned to perform in the comedy The Fatal Weakness.{{cite news |title=Ina Claire here in Kelly comedy |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/76622863/ina-claire/ |access-date=April 28, 2021 |work=St. Louis Post-Dispatch |date=March 30, 1947 |page=61|via = Newspapers.com}} Her last stage appearance was as Lady Elizabeth Mulhammer in T. S. Eliot's The Confidential Clerk (1954).

She made her film debut in Cecil B. DeMille's The Wild Goose Chase (1915).{{cite web |url=https://www.silentera.com/PSFL/data/W/WildGooseChase1915.html |title=Progressive Silent Film List: The Wild Goose Chase |access-date=2011-04-25|work=Silent Era}} She is best remembered today for her role as the Grand Duchess Swana in the romantic comedy Ninotchka (1939), directed by Ernst Lubitsch and starring Greta Garbo.

Ina Claire died on February 21, 1985, in San Francisco, California after suffering a heart attack. She was 91 years old. She is buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery located in Salt Lake City. She was an inductee in the American Theater Hall of Fame and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Image:Ina Claire in Ninotchka trailer.JPG (1939)]]

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• {{IMDb name|0163257}}
• {{IBDB name}}
• {{Find a Grave|6590678}}
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20080303102607/http://silentladies.com/BClaireI.html Ina Claire] at Silent Ladies & Gents
• [https://www.virtual-history.com/movie/person/11663/ina-claire Ina Claire] at Virtual History

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Category:1893 births

Category:1985 deaths

Category:20th-century American actresses

Category:Actresses from San Francisco

Category:Actresses from Washington, D.C.

Category:American film actresses

Category:American stage actresses

Category:American silent film actresses

Category:Ziegfeld girls