Clare Boothe Luce

Clare Boothe (1932)

Clare Boothe Luce (originally: Clare Boothe Brokaw ) (born March 10, 1903 in New York , † October 9, 1987 in Washington, DC ) was an American diplomat , writer , publisher and politician .

biography

The daughter of a musician was inspired by a role in a play she played in 1914 to become a writer , which she began to write after divorcing her first husband because of the severance pay she was awarded.

She also worked as an editor for the magazine "Vogue" . In 1935, Clare Booth Brokaw married the publisher and founder of the magazines “ TIME ” and “ Life ”, Henry Luce .

(from left to right) Admiral Thomas C. Hart , the Philippine President Manuel Quezon and Clare Boothe Luce (October 1941)

Clare Boothe Luce with her second husband Henry Luce (1954)

Her socially critical satire "Die Frauen" , published in 1936, was performed a total of 666 times on Broadway in the 1936/37 theater season and filmed in 1939 under the direction of George Cukor . Then "Kiss the Boys Goodbye" appeared in 1938 and "European Spring" in 1940.

In 1942 she ran for a seat in the United States House of Representatives to represent the Republican Party . After the successful election she was from January 3, 1943 to January 3, 1947 a member of the House of Representatives , where she represented the fourth constituency of the state of Connecticut . After her daughter's death in a car accident, she decided not to run again and converted to Catholicism . John Davis Lodge was his successor as MP .

In an interview with the weekly newspaper " The New Statesman " on November 13, 1943, she stated that Indian independence meant that "the USA had won the greatest world war for democracy" . In 1948 she was one of the founding members and boards of the American Committee for a United Europe , a US organization promoting a “free and united Europe”. But it also promoted the formation of blocs in Western Europe with the aim of European integration against the Eastern bloc .

In 1950 she was nominated for the Oscar for Best Original Story for "Come to the Stable" (" ... and heaven laughs too ") .

In 1952 she returned to politics and was involved in women's organizations for the election of Dwight D. Eisenhower as President of the United States . After being elected US ambassador to Italy in 1953, he was the first woman to be the diplomatic representative of the United States to a major European power . During her tenure, which lasted until 1956, she fell ill with arsenic poisoning due to mold growth in wallpaper. At the height of the Cold War , poisoning by enemy secret agents was initially suspected. Her successor in Rome was James David Zellerbach .

On her return to the United States, she was confirmed by the US Senate on April 28, 1959 as US ambassador to Brazil , but three days later she resigned from that office. From then on she devoted herself to painting as well as writing . Most recently she wrote the book "Mayor" with Ed Koch and William Rauch, which was published in 1984 by Simon & Schuster .

The conservative think tank Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute is named after her.

literature

• Chambers Biographical Dictionary . 2002, ISBN 0-550-10051-2 , p. 190.
• Great women in world history . Neuer Kaiser Verlag 1987, p. 75
• Clare Luce , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 46/1987 of November 2, 1987, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)

Web links

Commons : Clare Boothe Luce  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Wikiquote: Clare Boothe Luce  - Quotes

• Clare Boothe Luce in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)

• Clare Boothe Luce in the database of Find a Grave (English)
• Clare Boothe Luce in the nndb (English)