Rep. Clare Boothe Luce

Note: Luce said throughout her life that she was born April 10, 1903 on tony Riverside Drive in Manhattan. Towards the end of her life, she acknowledged that she was actually born on March 10, 1903 in Spanish Harlem. She explained that she chose April because "people born under the Aries sign are much more lighthearted and gay than those born under Pisces," and because "Mother always said I was born at Easter."

Rep. Clare Booth Luce was an American author, politician, U.S. ambassador, and public conservative figure. 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, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated.

Politically, Luce was a leading conservative in later life and was well known for her anti-communism. In her youth, she briefly aligned herself with the liberalism of President Franklin Roosevelt as a protégé of Bernard Baruch, but later became an outspoken critic of Roosevelt. Although she was a strong supporter of the Anglo-American alliance in World War II, she remained outspokenly critical of British colonialism in India.

Known as 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.

Family

Luce was born Ann Clare Boothe in New York City on March 10, 1903, the second child of Anna Clara Schneider (also known as Ann Snyder Murphy, Ann Boothe, and Ann Clare Austin) and William Franklin Boothe (also known as "John J. Murphy" and "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 had trouble holding a 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 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, Booth's only child, Ann Clare Brokaw (1924–1944). According to Boothe, Brokaw was a hopeless alcoholic, and the marriage ended in divorce in 1929. On January 11, 1944, Ann Clare Brokaw, a 19-year-old senior at Stanford University, was killed in an automobile accident.

On November 23, 1935, she married Henry 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. (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Sources

• "Clare Boothe Luce." Wikipedia, revision of 26 February 2022. < link > Accessed 4 March 2022.
• Woodward, Walter W. "Actor, Socialite, Editor, Playwright, Filmmaker, War Correspondent, Ambassador, & Connecticut's 1st Congresswoman." Today in Connecticut History, published 10 March 2021. < link > Accessed 4 March 2022.
• Reference: MyHeritage Family Trees - SmartCopy: Aug 21 2023, 20:31:01 UTC