Американдық актриса Клэр Уинсор: өмір және мансабы

the Countess of Ulster

American actress (1892–1972)

Claire Windsor (born Clara Viola Cronk; April 14, 1892 – October 24, 1972) was an American film actress of the silent screen era.

Windsor was born Clara Viola Cronk (nicknamed "Ola") in 1892 in Marvin (later known as Glade), Kansas, to parents of Scandinavian descent, George Edwin Cronk and Ella Rose Fearing (later called "Rosella"), who married on October 21, 1885, in Davenport, Iowa. Their first child, a son, died shortly after birth. Her parents later moved to Cawker City, Kansas when she was two years old. At some point, Claire's sister, Nellie, was born. Claire attended Washburn Preparatory Academy in Topeka from 1906 to 1907. After a year at Broadway High School, Seattle, Washington, she returned as a student in the Fine Arts Department at Washburn College. Intent on further refining her daughters' education and position in society, Rosella and her daughters returned to Seattle in the fall of 1910. On July 14, 1913, Claire ("Ola") was chosen for the role of Empress during the lavish musical production of Jappyland. While living in Seattle, Ola met David Willis Bowes and the intense relationship continued by correspondence after Mr. Bowes' return to Denver. Soon a June wedding was planned, but en route back to Kansas, Ola and Bowes wed secretly on May 13, 1914, in Denver, Colorado. The union resulted in the birth of a son, David Willis Bowes Jr., on September 9, 1916, but the couple soon went their separate ways. Bowes officially filed for divorce on September 14, 1920. Ola moved to California to be reunited with her parents who had recently retired. Seeking a way to support herself and baby son, Ola took the advice of a friend and quickly found employment at the movie studios. Initially receiving only bit parts, she was soon spotted by Lois Weber, a highly regarded and influential director and producer of silent films for Paramount Pictures. Weber immediately signed Windsor to a contract.

Claire Windsor's film debut was in the 1920 release of Lois Weber's To Please One Woman which was only a modest success. To promote the nascent starlet, Paramount Pictures often paired Windsor with the newly divorced actor Charlie Chaplin in publicity photographs, leading the tabloid press to give mention to the young actress in print. In 1921, Windsor costarred with Louis Calhern in Weber's The Blot (1921). That same year Claire signed a contract with Goldwyn Pictures Corporation. By the late 1920s, Windsor (like so many of her acting peers) found it difficult to move into talkies. She made several talkies throughout the 1930s but could never recapture the success of her earlier years as a silent screen actress. She had a brief stint on a road tour with Al Jolson in the production of The Wonder Bar and occasionally took stage parts. In 1937 she performed at Harold Lloyd's Beverly Hills Little Theatre for Professionals. In her later years, Windsor devoted herself to painting. (Windsor's age at death was reported as 74 in Sidney D. Kirkpatrick's 1986 book Cast of Killers.) She was buried at Glendale's Forest Lawn Memorial Park cemetery.