Claire Luce: Broadway's It Girl [The Notes]

The New York Times Article (Sept 4 1989)

Claire Luce, a 1920's Ziegfeld star who left the musical stage for the classical theater, died Thursday at her Gramercy Park home in Manhattan after a lengthy illness. She was 85 years old.

Miss Luce began to study dancing as a child in Ludlow, Mass., and ran away to New York as a teen-ager. She was a star in Florenz Ziegfeld's ''No Foolin'' in 1926 and the ''Ziegfeld Follies'' in 1927, which also starred Eddie Cantor.

Miss Luce was paired with Fred Astaire in ''The Gay Divorce,'' which they played both on Broadway and in London.

Her first dramatic role was in a London production of ''Burlesque.'' She returned to New York in 1938 to play the role of Curley's wife in ''Of Mice and Men'' by John Steinbeck. She was acting that part in London at the outbreak of World War II.

Miss Luce spent the war in Britain, endured the London Blitz and entertained British and American troops. In 1942 she played Katherine in ''The Taming of the Shrew'' in London. She became the first American actress to play leading roles at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-on-Avon. She performed Shakespearean roles extensively after the war.

Miss Luce also put together a one-woman show of characters taken from the plays of Shakespeare and traveled widely performing it.

Miss Luce is survived by a sister, Jeanne Selvin of Brockton, Mass.