Clare Boothe Luce

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Ann Clare Boothe Luce (March 10, 1903–October 9, 1987) was an American author and politician, U.S. Ambassador and public conservative figure.

She was the first American woman to be given a foreign ambassadorial position.

She is best known for her 1936 hit play The Women, which had an all-female cast.

Her writings ranged from drama and screenplay to literature, journalism, and war reportage.

Henry Luce, the editor of Time, Life, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated, was her spouse. Luce, a leading conservative in later life, was renowned for her anti-communism.

She briefly identified herself with President Franklin Roosevelt's liberalism as a protégé of Bernard Baruch, but she later became a vocal critic of Roosevelt.

Though she was a vocal promoter of the Anglo-American alliance in World War II, she was also a vocal critic of British colonialism in India, especially after her conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1946.

Early life

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 they would separate in 1912. Her father, a gifted man and a gifted violinist, instilled in his daughter a love of literature, if not of music, but she had a difficult time holding a job and spent years as a traveling salesman. Young Clare's childhood was spent in Memphis and Nashville, Tennessee, Chicago, Illinois, and Union City, New Jersey, as well as New York City. David Franklin Boothe, Clare Boothe's elder brother, was his uncle.

She attended the cathedral schools in Garden City and Tarrytown, New York, graduating first in her class in 1919 at 16 years old. Her ardent mother's first wish for her was to become an actress. Clare understudied Mary Pickford on Broadway at the age of ten and made her Broadway debut in Mrs. Henry B. Harris' production of "The Dummy" in 1914, a detective comedy. She appeared in Thomas Edison's 1915 film The Heart of a Waif. She became interested in the women's suffrage movement after a tour of Europe with her mother and stepfather, Dr. Albert E. Austin, who Ann Boothe married in 1919, and Alva Belmont recruited her to work with the National Women's Party in Washington, D.C. and Seneca Falls, New York.

On August 10, 1923, she wed George Tuttle Brokaw, millionaire heir to a New York clothing empire, at the age of 20. Ann Clare Brokaw (1924–1944), one of their one daughter, was killed in a car accident. Brokaw was a hopeless alcoholic, according to Boothe, and their union ended in divorce on May 20, 1929.

Henry Luce, the publisher of Time, Life, and Fortune, married her on November 23, 1935. Clare Boothe Luce, a frequently misspelled name that was often confused with that of her exact contemporary Claire Luce, a stage and film actress, was later identified as a tenacious actress. Luce began using her maiden name as a writer.

Frida Kahlo was hired by her mother to paint a portrait of Dorothy Hale in 1939. The Suicide Of Dorothy Hale was created by Kahlo. Luce was appalled and almost destroyed it; Isamu Nobunchi dissuaded her: the painting is now on display at the Phoenix Art Museum. Per Luce's direction, No. Chichi made several changes to Kahlo's painting, but Luce hid the frightening painting for decades. Pamela Hamilton, a former NBC News producer, tracked Dorothy Hale, Clare Boothe Luce, and Frida Kahlo's work for more than 20 years, and she wrote about them in the multi-award-winning book Lady Be Well. Lady Be Good, who was born in 2021 to critical acclaim and praised for its meticulous study, tells the tale of Luce and Hale, their friendship, and the painting, which spans the period of 1920 to 1989, 1988, and the 1990s.

Ann Clare Brokaw, a 19-year-old senior at Stanford University, was killed in a car crash on January 11, 1944. Luce's interest in the tragedy led to psychotherapy and faith. In 1946, she was welcomed into the Roman Catholic Church after grief counseling with Bishop Fulton Sheen. She became an ardent essayist and lecturer in honor of her faith, and she was honoured when she was named Dame of Malta. Beginning in 1949, she funded the establishment of a Catholic church in Palo Alto for use by the Stanford campus ministry as a remembrance of her daughter. In 1951, the new Saint Ann Chapel was dedicated. It was sold by the diocese in 1998 and became a church of the Anglican Province of Christ the King in 2003.

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Writing career

Luce, a writer with a rich tradition of invention and wit, first published Stuffed Shirts, a collection of short stories, in 1931. The work was compared to Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies for its hysterical humor, according to Scribner's Magazine. The New York Times was found to be superficial, but it praised its "lovely festoons of epigrams" and beguiling style: "What malice there may be in these pages has a felinity that is the purest Angoran." The book's device of characters was based on Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio (1919), but Andre Maurois, who begged Luce's permission to imitate it, was enthralled. Luce has also published numerous journal papers. She was still a natural performer, but as a playwright.

She quickly followed up with The Women after the failure of her first stage performance, Abide With Me (1935). In 1936, it became a Broadway smash and, three years later, a well-known Hollywood movie starring a cast of no fewer than 40 actors who spoke often in a common language, the only female cast. Luce said that for half a century, she had steadily earned royalties from her creations of The Women, which had appeared throughout the world. She wrote two more popular, but less durable scripts in the 1930s, as well as two for Error's Kiss the Boys. The new work "presented an all-out assault on the Nazis' racial ideology." Albert Einstein and Thomas Mann attended it's first night in Princeton, New Jersey, on October 14, 1939. Both the Broadway production and screen adaptations were directed and starring Otto Preminger.

Much of Luce's sarcastic wit ("No good deed goes unpunished") can be traced back to the days when she was a wealthy young divorcee in the 1930s and then as the acting editor and managing editor of Vanity Fair. She not only edited the works of such renowned comedians as P. G. Wodehouse and Corey Ford but also created numerous comic books of her own, signed and unsigned. Clare's humor, which she maintained well into old age, was one of the main pillars of his character.

War journalism was another area of Luce's literary career. In 1939–1940 as a correspondent for Life magazine, Europe in the Spring was the culmination of a four-month tour of Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, and France. "A world where men have chosen to die together because they are unable to find a way to live together," the aging battleground of World War II was describing it as "a world where men have decided to die together."

Luce and her husband went to China in 1941 and reported on the country's status and the war with Japan. On December 8, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and General Douglas MacArthur was on the front page of Life. Luce toured military installations in Africa, India, China, and Burma after the US entered the war, compiling a new series of Life articles. General Harold Alexander, the commander of British troops in the Middle East, Chiang Kai-shek, Jawaharlal Nehru, and General Stilwell, the commander of American troops in the China-Burma-India theater, appeared in interviews.

Her lifelong passion for being in the right place at the right time and easy access to top strategists made her a leading figure on both directions of the Atlantic. She fought in Europe and the Far East through bombing attacks and other dangers. In a tone that recalled the barbs of her best playwriting, she did not hesitate to condemn the unwarlike lifestyle of General Sir Claude Auchinleck's Middle East Command. As she passed through Trinidad in April 1942, one draft article for Life, noting that the general lived far from the Egyptian front in a houseboat and mocking RAF pilots as "flying fairies," was discovered by British Customs. It caused such Allied indignation that she was briefly house arrest for a brief period of time. Auchinleck was fired by Winston Churchill a few months later, coincidentally or not. Following her election to the House Military Affairs Committee in 1942, her diverse experiences in all the major war theaters qualified her for a seat on the House Military Affairs Committee the following year.

Luce never wrote an autobiography, but the Library of Congress will have her extensive collection of personal papers.

Political career

Luce obtained a Republican seat in the United States House of Representatives representing Fairfield County, Connecticut, Connecticut, in the 4th congressional district in 1942. "One, to win the war," she based her campaign on three fronts. Two of us, as Republicans, will prosecute the conflict as loyally and effectively as Republicans. Three of the three groups are working to ensure a safe environment and a stable environment, with special emphasis on post-war reconstruction and domestic jobs. Dr. Albert Austin, her late stepfather, has occupied the seat that was previously held by her late stepfather. Luce, a vocal critic of Roosevelt's foreign policy, was endorsed by isolationists and centrists in Congress, and she was appointed early to the prestigious House Military Affairs Committee. Although she was not the only female representative on the floor by any means, her beauty, wealth, and penchant for slashing witticisms caused her to be treated patronizingly by colleagues of both sexes. In her debut speech, she made a dramatic debut, coining the word "globaloney" to disparage Vice President Henry Wallace's call for airlines around the world to be given free access to US airports. She pressed for the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act, comparing the "doctrine of race theology" to Adolf Hitler's, advocated for war victims in Afghanistan and supported the government on issues including infant-care and maternity appropriations for enlisted men. Nonetheless, Roosevelt took a dislike to her and ran in 1944 to try to prevent her from re-election, publicly calling her "a sharp-tongued glamor girl of forty." Roosevelt was convicted of being "the only American president who ever lied to us in war because he didn't have the political confidence to lead us into it," he retaliated by accusing him of being "the only American president who ever lied us into war."

Luce was instrumental in the establishment of the Atomic Energy Commission during her second term, but she fought for more funding of what she considered to be America's forgotten army in Italy over the course of two tours of warfronts in Europe. She was present at several Nazi concentration camps liberation camps in April 1945, and after V-E Day, she began to warn against increasing international Communism as another form of totalitarianism, likely to result in World War III.

In 1946, she was the co-author of the Luce–Celler Act, which allowed Indians and Filipinos to immigrate to the United States by giving them a quota of 100 immigrants from each country and allowing them to become naturalized citizens.

In 1946, Luce did not run for re-election.

Luce returned to politics after the 1952 presidential election: she campaigned on behalf of Republican nominee Dwight Eisenhower, giving more than 100 speeches on his behalf. Her anti-Communist speeches on the stump, radio, and television were highly effective in persuading a large number of traditionally Catholic Catholics to change sides and vote for Eisenhower. Luce was given an ambassador to Italy for her contributions, including 1150 workers, 8 consulates, and nine information centers. She was confirmed by the Senate in March 1953 as the first American woman to hold such a coveted diplomatic position.

The arrival of a female ambassador in Rome was initially suspicious, but Luce soon persuaded those of a moderate and conservative temperament that their culture and faith were on target. "Her admirers in Italy, and she had millions of people, affectionately referred to her as la Signora, or "the lady"." Nonetheless, the country's large Communist minority, who views her as an outsider in Italian affairs.

She was no stranger to Pope Pius XII, who welcomed her as a mentor and faithful acolyte.

Luce had captivated Pius XII as one of the most influential secular preachers of Catholicism in America over the course of several audiences since 1940.

Her main mission as ambassador was to find a nonviolent solution to the Trieste Crisis of 1953-1954, which involved a border dispute between Italy and Yugoslavia that could escalate into a conflict between East and West. She was a member of Giuseppe Pella's Christian Democratic government, and she was influential on Secretary of State John Foster Dulles' Mediterranean agenda, who was another anticommunist. Though Luce regarded the end of the acute phase of the crisis in December 1953 as a triumph for herself, the five main parties' negotiations, which were finalized in October 1954, were held in London by professional representatives of the five countries (Britain, France, Italy, and Yugoslavia).

Luce's ambassador consistently overestimated the likelihood that the Italian left would stage a government coup and turn the country comunist unless the political center was supported with generous American aid. Nurturing an image of her own country as a haven of social stability and prosperity, she vowed to cancel the 1955 Venice Film Festival if the American juvenile delinquent film Blackboard Jungle was shown. She became seriously ill with arsenic poisoning around the same time. Sensational rumors that the ambassador had been exterminated by Soviet Union agents spread around. The poisoning was traced to an arsenate of lead paint dust falling from the stucco that had decorated her bedroom ceiling, according to a medical investigation. The episode debilitated Luce physically and mentally, and she resigned in December 1956. Il Tempo, a Rome-based photographer, wrote, "She has given a good example of how a woman can carry out a political position of shaky confidence."

The University of Notre Dame's Laetare Medal in 1957 was given to her as the most coveted award for American Catholics.

Boothe Luce, the Italian Communist Party's oldest diplomatic service officer, discovered during her time as ambassador, a clandestine funding scheme aimed at weakening the Italian Communist Party's hold on labor unions.

She was a frequent visitor and client of Gattinoni, Ferdinandi, Schuberth, and Sorelle Fontana in Rome, and a great lover of Italian haute couture.

President Eisenhower nominated a recovered Luce to be the US Ambassador to Brazil in April 1959. She began to learn enough Portuguese words in preparation for the job, but a small number of Democratic senators reacted angrily to her appointment. Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon was charged with leading the charge. However, Luce was confirmed by a 79 to 11 vote. Her husband advised her to decline the appointment, claiming that it would be impossible for her to work with Morse, chairing the Senate Subcommittee on Latin American Affairs. Luce gave Eisenhower a letter explaining that her involvement in her employment would compromise her ability to be respected by both her Brazilian and American coworkers. In other words, she never left American soil and never assumed office as ambassador.

Luce and her husband first sponsored anticommunist organisations after Fidel Castro led a revolution in Cuba in 1959. In the early 1960s, Cuban exiles were among the beneficiaries of commando speedboat raids against Cuba. Luce's growing anticommunism, as well as her defense of conservatism, led her to endorse Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater as the Republican nominee for president in 1964. On the Conservative Party ticket, she considered running for the United States Senate from New York, but refused to run for the Senate from New York. Henry Luce's tenure as editor-in-chief of Time took place in the same year, when future friend Ronald Reagan appeared on the political stage. The Luces retired together, in Arizona, establishing a winter home and planning a final move to Hawaii. Henry's husband died in 1967 before the dream could be fulfilled, but she went on with the building of a luxurious beach house in Honolulu, and for some years she lived in Hawaii high society.

President Richard Nixon appointed her to the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board in 1973 (PFIAB). She remained on the board until President Jimmy Carter replaced President Gerald Ford in 1977. By then, she had established roots in Washington, D.C., which would have been permanent in her last years. She was the first female to be warded the Sylvanus Thayer Award by the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1979.

Luce was recalled by President Reagan to PFIAB. She was on the board from 1983 to 1983.

Luce received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement in 1986.

In 1983, President Reagan gave her the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She was the first female member of Congress to be honoured with this award.

Reagan said this of Luce while awarding her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom: "Luce" is a Luce.

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