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Clare Boothe Luce was born in New York City on March 10, 1903, she was the child of Anna Clara Schneider and William Franklin Boothe. She had an elder brother named David Franklin Boothe -
Clare's parents were never married, and they ended up separating in 1912. William Franklin Boothe (Father) , left the family when Clare was eight years old. -
Clare understudied at Mary Pickford on Broadway at age 10 and had her Broadway debut in Mrs.Henry B. Harris' production of "The Dummy" in 1914, a detective comedy. -
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She attended the cathedral schools in Garden City and Tarrytown, New York, graduating first in her class in 1919 at 16 -
They wrote the Treaty of Versailles that punished Germany. -
In 1919, her mother married a well-known physician from Greenwich -
At age 20 she married George Brokaw, the wealthy son of a clothing manufacturer and 23 years her senior. -
Clare's first child, Ann Clare Brokaw was born. -
After the birth of one daughter, Clare's marriage ended 6 years later partly because of George’s alcoholism. Despite a generous settlement, she was determined to prove that she was not an idle socialite and went to work for Vogue magazine as a photo caption writer. (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Clare-Boothe-Luce-American-playwright-and-statesman) -
In the early 1930s, she became a caption writer at Vogue and then became an associate editor and managing editor of Vanity Fair. She not only edited the works of such great humorists as P. G. Wodehouse and Corey Ford but also contributed many comic pieces of her own.
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Clare finally published a small volume of humorous short stories called "Stuffed Shirts." -
In 1935 Clare met Henry Luce, a world-renowned publisher of Time and later Life magazine; they married one month after he divorced his wife of 12 years.
( https://www.cwhf.org/inductees/clare-boothe-luce ) -
Clare wrote The Women (1936), a comedy that ran for 657 performances on Broadway where the play's cast is just all women. It soon became a movie three years later. This play was about the struggles of multipole wealthy women living in manhattan. -
Clare made another play, "Kiss The Boys Goodbye" which was about a struggling actress and chorus girl in New York City, which was not as successful as "The Women," however it later became a movie in 1941. -
Clare had a close friend, Dorothy Hale, who was also friends with Frida Kahlo, who took her own life. After her husband was killed in a car accident, her career started failing, this left her in severe financial trouble and she had to live depending on her wealthy friends. Hale ended up jumping from the top window of her luxurious apartment in her favorite black dress with a corsage of small yellow.
( https://www.fridakahlo.org/the-suicide-of-dorothy-hale.jsp) -
Luce made a play called "Margin for Error," which was about the murder of a German consul in the United States and it presented an all-out attack on the Nazis' racist philosophy. The play was soon turned into a movie in 1943 -
After learning about Hale's suicide, Luce in grief commissioned Frida Kahlo to paint a portrait of Hale for remembrance. Kahlo created "The Suicide of Dorothy Hale," which left Clare shocked, and almost made her destroy it. This painting was donated to the Phoenix Art Museum. ( https://www.fridakahlo.org/the-suicide-of-dorothy-hale.jsp) -
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Clare won a Republican seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. She represented Fairfield County, Connecticut the 4th Congressional District.
She was very influential in the Republican party.
( https://www.britannica.com/biography/Clare-Boothe-Luce-American-playwright-and-statesman ) -
Ann Clare Brokaw, Clare's only child, a 19-year-old senior at Stanford University, was killed in an automobile accident.
( https://www.nytimes.com/1944/01/12/archives/ann-brokaw-dies-in-auto-collision-daughter-of-clare-boothe-luce.html ) -
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Clare converted to Roman Catholicism -
Clare served as ambassador for Italy from 1953 to 1956 -
Luce retired from public life in 1964, living in Honolulu, Hawaii until the death of her husband. She then moved back to DC and served as an unpaid member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board under President Nixon.
( https://www.cwhf.org/inductees/clare-boothe-luce ) -
Clare's husband, Henry died of a heart attack when he was only 68 years old. -
In 1981, President Reagan appointed Clare to the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. Clare was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She is remembered for her feisty demeanor and her acid wit.
( https://www.hluce.org/programs/clare-boothe-luce-program/#:~:text=In%201981%2C%20President%20Reagan%20appointed,the%20Presidential%20Medal%20of%20Freedom.) -
Clare Boothe Luce died due to cancer in her home in Washington, D.C., on October 9th, 1987. Luce was only 84 years old at the time.
