Claire McDowell — A Portrait of a Lady (1925) 🇺🇸

“A portrait of a lady,” the artist murmured as he surveyed the sketch he was completing of Claire McDowell. Dark hair simply coined, eves friendly with a glint of humor in them, the drawing suggested the quality of ladyship which is Miss McDowell’s main characteristic.

Were it not for a charming appreciation of humor, she would be one of those colorless persons who are such perfect ladies that they give out nothing of exceptional interest about themselves to one who would write of them. Always reserved, she is never conspicuous or voluble. She is paid the sincere tribute of her coworkers’ admiration.

Perhaps it is because she is so thoroughly schooled in the art of acting that she has learned the acme of its skill — naturalness. Educated in New York, the city of her nativity, she sought stage fame during her childhood, playing in The Clansman, Herod, and, for five years, in Way Down East.

Her first motion-picture work was with Biograph in 1911. There, under Griffith’s [D. W. Griffith] guidance, she was one of the first stars. In the years since she has played under practically every film banner, most recently in “Thy Name Is Woman” and “Secrets.” She is now in Italy working in Ben-Hur.

She is married to Charles Mailes, character actor, and claims as her only hobby her two sons.

Of recent years she has been cast almost continually as the sad, neglected mother, a type which is so easily stereotyped into saccharine sentimentality. Usually, however, she gives to her portrayals the saving grace of naturalness; seldom does she stress the hokum aspects of her emotional scenes. She makes her mothers charmingly human because she is such a charming human being herself!

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Photo by: Melbourne Spurr

Collection: Picture Play Magazine, March 1925