This blonde, smoky-voiced actress from the New York stage made forays to her native Brooklyn to appear in Vitaphone shorts in the early 1930s before making her feature film debut in 1933. Claire Trevor typically toiled as a hardened, but sympathetic victim or gun moll in a host of B productions until she gained recognition and an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress for her fine performance as gangster Humphrey Bogart's prostitute girlfriend in "Dead End" (1937). She offered a variation on the role as the classic, gold-hearted saloon gal in John Ford's landmark Western "Stagecoach" (1939).
In the 1940s and 50s, Trevor played the female lead in several top-quality works, making an especially memorable femme fatale in films noir, particularly as a killer who convinces Burgess Meredith he is wanted for the crime in "Street of Chance" (1942), as the two-faced, wealthy widow in "Murder, My Sweet" (1944) and as a tart-tongued Broadway leading lady in "The Velvet Touch" (1948). But it was perhaps her Oscar-winning performance as Edward G Robinson's humiliated, alcoholic moll in "Key Largo" (1948) that she will be remembered. In one harrowing scene, Robinson taunts her Gaye Dawn to croon the torch song "Moanin' Low" with the promised reward of a much desired drink. After sobbing through a rendition of the tune, Robinson's character cruelly refuses her, claiming her vocal stylings were "rotten".
Trevor continued to alternate between stage and screen, offering fine turns in later films including "Hard, Fast and Beautiful" (1951) and "The High and the Mighty" (1954), for which she earned a third Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination. She reunited with Robinson, cast as his ranting wife in "Two Weeks in Another Town" (1962) and then segued to more maternal parts as in "The Stripper" (1963) and her final feature, "Kiss Me Goodbye" (1982). Trevor also appeared in a number of TV productions, winning an Emmy as the flighty wife of Fredric March's "Dodsworth" (1956) and made her last appearance in that medium, acting in the 1987 ABC movie "Norman Rockwell's Breaking Home Ties" and appearing as a previous winner at the 1999 telecast of the Academy Awards.
- Also Credited As:
Claire Trevor Bren, Claire Wemlinger
- Born:
March 8, 1909 in New York, New York
- Died:
April 8, 2000.
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Job Titles:
Actor
Education
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Columbia University, New York, New York
Milestones
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1931 Acted on Broadway in "Whistling in the Dark"
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1933 Appeared opposite Spencer Tracy in "The Mad Game"
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1933 Feature film debut, "Life in the Raw"
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1934 Cast as Shirley Temple's mother in "Baby Takes a Bow"
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1937 Co-starred with Edward G Robinson in the radio drama "Big Town"
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1937 Breakthough film role, an Oscar-nominated supporting turn as Humphrey Bogart's girlfriend in "Dead End"
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1938 Reteamed with Bogart on "The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse"
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1939 Was top-billed as a hard-bitten woman of questionable virtue in "Stagecoach"; first of four films with John Wayne John Wayne
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1943 Co-starred in "The Desperados"
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1944 Appeared with Dick Powell (as private eye Philip Marlowe) in "Murder, My Sweet", adapted from Raymond Chandler's "Farewell My Lovely"
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1947 Appeared on Broadway in "The Big Two"; show closed after 21 performances
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1948 Offered Oscar-winning turn as Edward G Robinson's alcoholic moll in the crime drama "Key Largo"
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1954 Received Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress for her spunky turn as a passenger on a troubled airplane in "The High and the Mighty"
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1956 Starred opposite Fredric March in TV version of "Dodsworth"; earned Emmy Award
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1958 Co-starred in "Marjorie Morningstar"
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1962 Played Robinson's shrewish wife in "Two Weeks in Another Town"
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1963 Cast as Joanne Woodward's mother in "The Stripper"
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1967 Last film for 15 years, "The Cape Town Affair"
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1982 Final film, playing Sally Field's mother in "Kiss Me Goodbye"
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1987 Final acting role, in the ABC TV-movie "Norman Rockwell's Breaking Home Ties"
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1998 Last TV appearance on the Academy Awards telecast, as part of a salute to previous award winners
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After failure of "The Party's Over", accepted five-year contract offer from Fox
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Began career stage in stock and on Broadway in the late 1920s
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First film appearance in Vitaphone shorts filmed in Brooklyn
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Made TV debut in "Alias Nora Hale", aired as part of Ford Television Theater
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Raised in Larchmont, New York
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Reportedly declined a contract offer from MGM to concentrate on theater
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Returned to Warner Bros. after Daryl Zanuck's lack of faith in her talent became apparent
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Returned to stage to star in touring production of "The Killing of Sister George" in the late 1960s
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Signed to a contract by Warner Bros.; acted in a series of short films; then spent 10 weeks in St Louis performing on stage with other contract players
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Starred in the Broadway production of "Dark Victory"