Clara Blandick

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Clara Blandick (before 1904)

Clara Blandick (born June 4, 1876 in Hong Kong , British Empire as Clara Dickey , † April 15, 1962 in Hollywood , California ) was an American film and stage actress , whose best-known role was Aunt Em in The Wizard of Oz .

Life

Clara Blandick was born as Clara Dickey on the merchant ship Willard Mudget in Hong Kong, on which her father Isaac was employed as captain. Soon after she was born, the family moved to Quincy , Massachusetts. Clara Blandick probably made her acting debut in 1898 in Richard Lovelace near Boston . She made her Broadway debut on New York City three years later in the play If I Were King . By 1929 she was to appear there in around twenty plays, including a leading role in Hatcher Hughes Hell-Bent Fer Heaven , which received a Pulitzer Prize in the theater category in 1924 .

In 1911 she appeared in her first films, but it was not until the beginning of the sound film era that she was to take part regularly. The various film studios used the actress several times as a wife, aunt or neighbor. While she occasionally received larger roles in B-films , she only played minor supporting roles in large-scale productions in many cases. One of her bigger roles was Aunt Polly in the Mark Twain films of Tom Sawyer (1930) and Huckleberry Finn (1931) opposite Jackie Coogan as Tom Sawyer. Blandick also played the film mother of stars like Joan Crawford and Joan Blondell more often . The actress probably played her most famous role as Aunt Emily in the classic film The Wizard of Oz (1939). Blandick shot all of her scenes in just one week and was not mentioned in the opening credits, but her character is the main reason Dorothy desperately wants to return home from Oz.

After her last film in 1950, Blandick moved to the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel . In the 1950s, her health began to deteriorate. She suffered from arthritis and was becoming increasingly blind. After attending a Palm Sunday service, the 85-year-old actress died of suicide with a pill overdose. In her suicide note, she named physical pain as the reason for her voluntary demise. Clara Blanick was married to the mining engineer Staunton Elliot from 1905 until the divorce in 1912, the marriage remained childless.

Clara Blandick was buried in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park actor cemetery in Glendale .

Filmography (selection)

Web links

Commons : Clara Blandick  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Clara Blandick at Allmovie
  2. ↑ Article on Clara Blandick at the Examiner
personal data
SURNAME Blandick, Clara
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Dickey, Clara (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American film and stage actress
DATE OF BIRTH June 4, 1876
PLACE OF BIRTH Hong Kong , British Empire
DATE OF DEATH April 15, 1962
Place of death Hollywood , California , United States