Claire Trevor
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Claire Trevor | |
 in the film Raw Deal (1948) |
|
| Born | March 8, 1910 Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York, USA |
| Died | April 8, 2000 aged 90 Newport Beach, California, USA |
| Academy Awards | |
|---|---|
| Best Supporting Actress 1948 Key Largo |
|
Claire Trevor (March 8, 1910 - April 8, 2000) was an Academy Award-winning American actress, nicknamed "Queen of Film Noir" because of her many appearances in "bad girl” roles in film noir and other black-and-white thrillers. She appeared in over 60 films.
Contents |
[edit] Early life
Trevor was born as Claire Wemlinger in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York, the only child of a 5th Avenue merchant-tailor and his wife. Her family was of Irish American and French American descent.
[edit] Career
Trevor's acting career spanned more than seven decades and included success in stage, radio, television and film. Trevor often played the hard-boiled blonde, and every conceivable type of "bad girl" role. After attending American Academy of Dramatic Arts, she began her acting career in the late '20s in stock. By 1932 she was starring on Broadway; that same year she began appearing in Brooklyn-filmed Vitaphone shorts. Her feature film debut came in: Jimmy and Sally (1933) as "Sally Johnson".
A three-time Oscar nominee, Claire Trevor earned Oscar nominations for Dead End, a 1937 melodrama in which she played a good girl who grows up to be a prostitute, and for The High and the Mighty, a 1954 airplane disaster epic. She won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress award for her 1948 performance in Key Largo, co-starring with Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson and Lauren Bacall. In Key Largo, Trevor played the mistress to Robinson's sadistic gangster. In one scene, he forces her to sing for a drink she badly wants. Trevor struggles through the song only to be refused the drink by Robinson "because you were rotten."
In 1956, Trevor won an Emmy for Best Live Television Performance by an Actress for Dodsworth, with Fredric March, on NBC's Producer's Showcase.
The Claire Trevor School of the Arts at the University of California, Irvine was named in Trevor's honor. Both her Oscar and Emmy trophies are on display in a plaza at the School of Arts.
[edit] Private life
Trevor married film producer Clark Andrews in 1938, but they divorced four years later. Her second marriage to Cylos William Dunsmoore produced a son, Charles. The marriage ended in divorce in 1947. The next year, Trevor married Milton Bren, another film producer and soon after moved to Newport Beach, California.
In 1978 her only biological child, her son Charles Dunsmoore, died in an airliner crash and her last husband, Milton Bren, died from a brain tumor in 1979. Trevor retired from acting in 1987. She made a special Academy Awards Appearance in 1998 at the 70th Academy Awards.
She died of respiratory failure in Newport Beach, April 8, 2000 at the age of 90, survived by several step-children by her marriage to Bren. Claire Trevor was cremated and her remains were scattered at sea.
Claire Trevor has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
[edit] Awards
Wins:
- 1948 - Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in Key Largo.
Nominations:
- 1937 - Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in Dead End.
- 1954 - Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in The High and the Mighty.
| Awards | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Celeste Holm for Gentleman's Agreement |
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress 1948 for Key Largo |
Succeeded by Mercedes McCambridge for All the King's Men |
[edit] Notable Films
- Dead End (1937)
- Stagecoach (1939)
- Murder, My Sweet (1944)
- The Babe Ruth Story (1948)
- Key Largo (1948) [winning Best Supporting Actress]
- Raw Deal (1948)
- Born to Kill (1947)
- The High and the Mighty (1954)
