Claire Trevor

At 90 years old, Claire Trevor has this physical status:

Claire Trevor (born Claire Wemlinger; 1910 – April 8, 2000) was an American actress. She appeared in 68 feature films from 1933 to 1982 (per IMDB), receiving the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Key Largo (1948), and Dead End (1937).

She was billed first for Stagecoach (1939); her fame was better than John Wayne at the time.

Early life

Trevor was born in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York City, on March 8, 1910, the only child of Noel Wemlinger, a French born but German ancestry tailor, and his partner, Benjamina ("Betty"), was of Irish descent. She was born in New York City and died in Larchmont, New York, 1923. Her year of birth was misrepresented as 1909 for many years, which is why her death date was set as 91, not 90.

Personal life and death

In 1938, Trevor married Clark Andrews, the show's producer, and they divorced four years later. In 1943, she married Navy Lieutenant Cylos William Dunsmore. Charles was their only son. In 1947, the couple divorced. Trevor Bren, a film director with two sons from a previous marriage, and his family relocated to Newport Beach, California, for the next year.

Charles Trevor's son died in the crash of PSA Flight 182, and she was immediately followed by 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 doing some odd roles in the midst of a tumultuous social life. She returned to California, where she lived for the remainder of her life, to be a generous promoter of the arts.

In the 1944 United States presidential election, Trevor Dewey favored Thomas Dewey.

Trevor died at a hospital in Newport Beach, California, on April 8, 2000. She is a member of the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6933 Hollywood Boulevard, in honor of her contributions to the motion picture industry.

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Career

According to her biography on the website of Claire Trevor School of the Arts, "Trevor's acting career spanned more than seven decades and included successes in stage, radio, television, and film...[She] often played the hard-boiled blonde, and every conceivable type of 'bad girl' role."

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. She subsequently returned to New York, where she appeared in a number of Brooklyn-filmed Vitaphone short films and performed in summer stock theatre. In 1932, she starred on Broadway as the female lead in Whistling in the Dark.

Trevor made her film debut in Jimmy and Sally (1933), a film originally written for the popular screen duo of James Dunn and Sally Eilers. When Eilers declined the role, Trevor was cast in her place. 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 Dead End, with Humphrey Bogart, which led to her nomination for Best Supporting Actress. From 1937 to 1940, she appeared with Edward G. Robinson in the popular radio series Big Town, while continuing to make movies. In the early 1940s, she also was a regular on The Old Gold Don Ameche Show on the NBC Red Radio Network, starring with Ameche in presentations of plays by Mark Hellinger. In 1939, she was well established as a solid leading lady. Some of her more memorable performances during this period include the Western Stagecoach (1939).

Two of Trevor's most memorable roles were opposite Dick Powell in Murder, My Sweet (1944) and with Lawrence Tierney in Born to Kill (1947). In Key Largo (1948), Trevor played Gaye Dawn, the washed-up nightclub singer and gangster's moll. For that role, she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Her third and final Oscar nomination was for her performance in The High and the Mighty (1954). In 1957, she won an Emmy for her role in the Producers' Showcase episode entitled "Dodsworth". Trevor moved into supporting roles in the 1950s, with her appearances becoming very rare after the mid-1960s. She played Charlotte, the mother of Kay (Sally Field) in Kiss Me Goodbye (1982). Her final television role was for the 1987 television film, Norman Rockwell's Breaking Home Ties. Trevor made a guest appearance at the 70th Academy Awards in 1998.

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