Ina Claire

A comedienne on vaudeville in pre-World War I days, Ina Claire made only a few films during the silent era (beginning with The Puppet Crown, 1915), instead concentrating on her stage work. She was featured in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1915 and 1916, appeared for two years as the star of The Gold Diggers, and developed into a Broadway favorite in the '20s. On Broadway she was the "queen of high comedy," a sophisticated blonde with verve and panache. She returned to the screen shortly after the advent of sound in The Awful Truth (1929). Her bubbly comedic style was employed in a handful of other movies in the '30s and '40s; her last appearance was as Dorothy McGuire's courageous, doomed mother in Claudia (1943). She retired from the stage in 1954. She was married to screen idol John Gilbert from 1929-31.