Clare Boothe Luce: Legendary Playwright, Politician & Social Seductress - Biography (1997)

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Clare Boothe Luce (March 10, 1903 -- October 9, 1987) was the first American woman appointed to a major ambassadorial post abroad. A versatile author, she is best known for her 1936 hit play The Women, which had an all-female cast. Her writings extended from drama and screen scenarios to fiction, journalism, and war reportage. She was the wife of Henry Luce, publisher of Time, Life, and Fortune. Politically, Luce was a Republican, who became steadily more conservative in later life. In her youth, however, she briefly aligned herself with the Democratic liberalism of Franklin D. Roosevelt, as a protege of Bernard Baruch. Although she was a strong supporter of the Anglo-American alliance in World War II, she remained outspokenly critical of the British presence in India. A charismatic and forceful public speaker, especially after her conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1946, she campaigned for every Republican presidential candidate from Wendell Willkie to Ronald Reagan. Luce was born Ann Clare Boothe in New York City on March 10, 1903, the second child of Anna Clara Schneider (aka Ann Snyder Murphy; aka Ann Boothe, aka Ann Clare Austin) and William Franklin Boothe (aka "John J. Murphy"; aka "Jord Murfe"). Her parents were not married and would separate in 1912. Her father, a sophisticated man and a brilliant violinist, instilled in his daughter a love of literature, if not of music. But William Boothe had trouble holding down any job, and spent years as a travelling salesman. Parts of young Clare's childhood were spent in Memphis and Nashville, Tennessee, Chicago, Illinois, and Union City, New Jersey as well as New York City. Clare Boothe had an elder brother, David Franklin Boothe. She attended the Cathedral schools in Garden City and Tarrytown, New York, graduating first in her class in 1919 at the age of 16. [Source: Clare Boothe Luce, Author and Diplomat, by Joseph Lyons, Chelsey House Publisher, 1989, p 26] . Her ambitious mother's initial plan for her was to become an actress. Clare understudied Mary Pickford on Broadway at age 10, and had a small part in Thomas Edison's 1915 movie, The Heart of a Waif.[8] After a tour of Europe with her mother and stepfather, Dr. Albert E. Austin, whom Ann Boothe married in 1919, she became interested in the women's suffrage movement, and was hired by Alva Belmont to work for the National Woman's Party in Washington, D.C. and Seneca Falls, N.Y.[9] Highly intelligent, ambitious, and blessed with a deceptively fragile blonde beauty, the young Clare Boothe soon abandoned ideological feminism to pursue other interests. She wed George Tuttle Brokaw, millionaire heir to a New York clothing fortune, on August 10, 1923, at the age of 20. They had one daughter, Ann Clare Brokaw (August 22, 1924 -- January 11, 1944). According to Boothe, Brokaw was a hopeless alcoholic, and the marriage ended in divorce in 1929.[10] On November 23, 1935, Clare Boothe married Henry Robinson Luce, the publisher of Time, Life, and Fortune. She thereafter called herself Clare Boothe Luce, a frequently-misspelled name that was often confused with that of her exact contemporary Claire Luce, a stage and film actress. As a professional writer, Luce continued to use her maiden name. On January 11, 1944, her daughter and only child Ann Clare Brokaw, a senior at Stanford University, was killed in an automobile accident. As a result of this tragedy, Luce explored psychotherapy and religion, joining the Roman Catholic Church in 1946.[11] She became an ardent essayist and lecturer in celebration of her faith, and was ultimately honored by being named a Dame of Malta. The marriage between Clare and Henry was a happy one. Henry Luce was by any standard an extremely successful man, but his physical awkwardness, lack of humor, and newsman's discomfort with any conversation that was not strictly factual put him in awe of his beautiful wife's social poise, wit, and fertile imagination.[12] Clare's years as managing editor of "Vanity Fair" left her with an avid interest in journalism (she suggested the idea of "Life" magazine to her husband before it was developed internally).[13] Henry Luce himself was generous in encouraging her to write for "Life," but the question of how much coverage she should be accorded in "Time," as she grew more famous, was always a careful balancing act for Henry, since he did not want to be accused of nepotism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clare_Boothe_Luce