Claire Luce — Hollywood’s ‘Gone’ on the Luce! (1931) 🇺🇸

All Gaullywood is divided into three parts. Faith, hope and blondes.

by Merle Carver

And the most numerous of these, are blondes! But now a new blonde has made a ripple in Cinema Lake. A meteor descended from Broadway. A comet arrived from Paris. Fox has just sent her “Up the River” in that original story by Maurine Watkins of “Chicago” fame — and her return trip, so they gossip — will be in “Luxury.” Then the fans will, no doubt, all turn gentlemen — and fame again play fast and Luce. Claire Luce.

She’s a girl who knew what she wanted. An adopted daughter of Terpsichore, the fickle dancing muse. A girl who looked through the picket fence, who lived on the wrong side of the railroad tracks, snubbed by the girls who wore nice clothes and did nice things. A tomboy who wore knickers and decided at a tender, age she’d ‘show ‘em.’ And she’s showed them in more than one show!

She’s danced in the Music Box Revue in New York, in Ziegfeld’s Follies. Did bits in Eddie Cantor’s show on Broadway. She took Mistinguette’s place as premiere danseuse of the Paris Follies. She played the feminine lead in Burlesque in London. She starred in Scarlet Pages in New York.

Everything has worked out the way she wanted it. She decided she would dance. She did. She planned to go on the stage. She did. She determined to do specialty dancing for Ziegfeld. She did. She wanted to see Paris. She did that, too. She longed to do dramatic parts. Burlesque and Scarlet Pages were her answer. Her only surprise, she will tell you, was the talkies. She hadn’t thought of that. That was practically Fox’s own idea. But she is heartily in favor of it.

It all sounds like an Alger book! The raggedy waif, adopted by a dancing instructress, who rose to fame and wealth and married the millionaire’s son. She looks like Little Eva inspired by Aubrey Beardsley, and like Topsy ‘she just grew.’

Born in Syracuse, New York, if that matters, she moved around from town to town until she was eleven. She was poor. Her family was poor. Then she came to Rochester. She wanted to learn to dance. That would be the gateway to having things like the other girls. She had to have thirty dollars to join the Denishawn school there, so between school periods she worked, running errands, minding the baby, picking berries until she had enough. Then Mrs. Florence Colbrook Powers, who had charge of the Denishawn school, took an interest in her and adopted her. After that her main interest was dancing. She planned to be a famous high stepper.

Impatient for fortune, she ran away at thirteen with a Russian Grand Opera Troupe. It sounded wonderful to be billed as ‘premiere danseuse.’ She got as far as Cleveland with the troupe and then was brought back. Content this time to study until the ripe old age of sixteen or so, with the help of ‘Mimi,’ as she called her dancing mother, she made her debut on Broadway in Little Jesse James.

She gratefully eulogizes ‘Mimi’ as the one “I owe all to.” Tells of how she helped her through the first tight places, sent her money to tide her over. Now she has a wealthy and devoted husband, Clifford Smith — and a contract with Fox.

She’s a trifle bewildered by the talkies. She finds them very different. “It isn’t like the stage,” she says. “There every night you can do your part better than the time before. But in the movies you never know which scene they are going to use. And once it’s in the can, it’s just too bad! You do the scene several times, that’s true, but not until the preview do you know which ones are on the cutting room floor. And when you do see it,” she wails, “you think ‘if I’d only done this and hadn’t done that! If I had only known this was to be the scene.’ But it’s too late then!”

She’d like to do ingenue leads. She was disappointed in Up The River, for this, although it was originally intended as one of those series of prison stories which everyone is doing now, turned out to be almost a farce, and anyway, it’s a man’s picture, directed by a man’s director, John Ford. She has more hope of Luxury, which will be directed by Guthrie McClintic, whom she designates as a woman’s director. He understands women! Isn’t Katherine Cornell, the gorgeous, Mrs. McClintic? — and the story is about a woman who sold her soul for a gown or something like that.

Miss Luce likes to divide her time between dramatic work and dancing. Terpsichore was her first love. She’ll never lose her interest in waltzes and ballets. Why, when she was traveling in Budapest she spent her time looking up some interesting old Hungarian dances and choosing the most beautiful of costumes for them. She adores Paris and likes New York but hates to live there. Hollywood is almost too beautiful. It’s like having your cake — all the time, and eating it, too. It’s too much — for all of the time! She likes London, likes to travel.

She wants to keep up her study of dancing. She’d like to give a ballet and dance recital at The Music Box Theater. She loves to work out beautiful dance effects. Nothing is too much trouble. She studied hours with Michio Ito before doing her famous cat dance to get the sinuous arm movements just right. She wanted to do an ‘ostrich dance’ in the Ziegfeld Follies, she remembers, with gorgeous ostrich feather fans. At ‘Mimi’s’ suggestion she planned to have a trained ostrich carry her on the stage. Poor Ziggy was days tearing his hair, combing the town for a trained ostrich, but he finally found one.

She has a home in Beverly Hills, like everyone else, Spanish, with a patio. She has a pair of wire-haired terriers, General Crack and Diamond Lil. But she’d like to name Lil, ‘Greta Garbo,’ because of her long eyelashes and Cupid’s bow mouth (that is, Lil’s, of course). Lil and the General are a happily married couple and everyone is all agog to know what the next generation will look like.

She likes outdoor sports, tennis and horseback riding — and for indoor sports — she’s intrigued with a new game which she and her husband are trying to introduce to Hollywood, called ‘Navy Chess.’ She’s crazy about flying and hopes to get a license.

A new blonde has made a ripple in the cinema lake. Claire Luce, one of Ziggy’s girls, star of the Paris Follies, and the dramatic heroine of “Burlesque,” wins a place in talking pictures.

A smile that was felt around the world — Maurice Chevalier and his famous Gallic grin.

Raymond Hatton and Joel McCrea, glad to be back home from Alaska, where they made “The Silver Horde.”

Collection: Screenland Magazine, January 1931