European Film Star Postcards: Claire Trevor

19 March 2021

Claire Trevor

American actress Claire Trevor (1910-2000) appeared in 68 feature films from 1933 to 1982. She often played the hard-boiled blonde or another type of shady lady. She won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Key Largo (1948) and received nominations for her roles in Dead End (1937) and The High and the Mighty (1954). But she is now best known for the classic Western Stagecoach (1939) with John Wayne.

British postcard in the Film Partners Series, London, no. P 289. Photo: Walter Wanger. John Wayne and Claire Trevor in Stagecoach (John Ford, 1939).

British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 809. Photo: Fox.

A complex, kicked-around dance hall girl

Claire Trevor was born Claire Wemlinger in 1910 in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. She was the only child of Noel Wemlinger, a Fifth Avenue merchant tailor, and his wife, Benjamina ('Betty'). Claire was raised in New York City and, from 1923, in Larchmont, New York.

For many years, her year of birth was misreported as 1909, a rare instance of an actress actually being younger than her given age, which is why her age at the time of her death was initially given as 91, not 90.

After completing high school, Trevor began her career with six months of art classes at Columbia University and six months at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She made her stage debut in the summer of 1929 with a repertory company in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

In 1930, aged 20, she signed with Warner Bros. Not far from her home in Brooklyn was Vitagraph Studios, the last and best of the early sound process studios, which had been acquired by Warner Bros. and had become Vitaphone in 1925. Trevor appeared in several of the nearly 2000 shorts cranked out by the studio between 1926 and 1930.

She also performed in summer stock theatre. In 1932, she starred on Broadway as the female lead in 'Whistling in the Dark'. The next year, she made her film debut with a leading role in the Western Life in the Raw (Louis King, 1933) opposite George O'Brien.

From 1933 to 1938, Trevor starred in 29 films, often having either the lead role or the role of heroine. In 1937, she was the second lead actress after top-billed Sylvia Sidney in the crime drama Dead End (William Wyler, 1937), with Humphrey Bogart. Her role as a slum girl forced by poverty into prostitution led to her nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

She was well established as a solid leading lady now. Her most memorable performance during this period was the Western Stagecoach (John Ford, 1939) with John Wayne in his breakthrough role. William McPeak at IMDb: "All her abilities to bring complexity to a character showed in her kicked-around dance hall girl "Dallas", one of the great early female roles. She and Wayne were electric, and they were paired in three more films during their careers."

From 1937 to 1940, she appeared with Edward G. Robinson in the popular radio series 'Big Town' while continuing to make films.

German cigarette card by Ross Verlag in the 'Künstler im Film' series for Zigarettenfabrik Monopol, Dresden, Serie 1, image 164 (of 200). Photo: 20th Century Fox.

Distinguished matron and mother roles, and Ma Barker

In the early 1940s, Claire Trevor was a regular on 'The Old Gold Don Ameche Show' on the NBC Red Radio Network, starring with Don Ameche in presentations of plays by Mark Hellinger.

Two of Trevor's most memorable roles were in the Film Noirs Murder, My Sweet (Edward Dmytryk, 1944) opposite Dick Powell, and Born to Kill (Robert Wise, 1947) with Lawrence Tierney.

In Key Largo (John Huston, 1948), Trevor played Gaye Dawn, the washed-up nightclub singer and gangster's moll. For that role, she won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Her third and final Oscar nomination was for her performance in the disaster film The High and the Mighty (William A. Wellman, 1954) with John Wayne.

In 1957, she won an Emmy for her role as the flighty wife of Fredric March in the Producers' Showcase episode entitled Dodsworth (Alex Segal, 1956). As she aged she easily transitioned into 'distinguished matron' and mother roles, one of her most unusual ones being the murderous Ma Barker in The Untouchables: Ma Barker and Her Boys (1959), a notoriously gun-blasting episode of the notorious gun-blasting series.

Her appearances became very rare after the mid-1960s. She played Charlotte, the mother of Kay (Sally Field) in her final film, the romantic comedy Kiss Me Goodbye (Robert Mulligan, 1982). Her final screen role was for the TV film, Norman Rockwell's Breaking Home Ties (1987). Trevor made a guest appearance at the 70th Academy Awards in 1998.

Claire Trevor married Clark Andrews, director of her radio show, in 1938, but they divorced four years later. Her second marriage in 1943 to Navy lieutenant Cylos William Dunsmore produced her only child, son Charles. The marriage ended in divorce in 1947. The next year, Trevor married Milton Bren, a film producer with two sons from a previous marriage, and they moved to Newport Beach, California. In 1978, Trevor's son Charles died in the crash of PSA Flight 182, followed by the death of her husband Milton from a brain tumor in 1979.

Devastated by these losses, she returned to Manhattan for some years, living in a Fifth Avenue apartment and taking a few acting roles amid a busy social life. She eventually returned to California, where she remained for the rest of her life, becoming a generous supporter of the arts. Claire Trevor died of respiratory failure in Newport Beach, California, in 2000, at the age of 90. She was survived by her two stepsons and extended family. For her contribution to the film industry, she has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6933 Hollywood Boulevard.