Clara Morris

Clara Morris (born March 17, 1848, Toronto, Ont., Can.—died Nov. 20, 1925, New Canaan, Conn., U.S.) was an American actress and writer, known chiefly for her realistic portrayals of unfortunate women in melodrama.

Morris was the eldest child of a bigamous marriage. When she was three her father was exposed, and her mother fled with her to Cleveland, Ohio, where they adopted her grandmother’s name, Morrison. Clara received only scanty schooling. About 1860 she became a dancer in the resident ballet company of the Cleveland Academy of Music and shortened her name to Morris. After nine years of training with that company, she played a season as leading lady at Wood’s Theatre, Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1869.

Morris made her New York debut in September 1870 as Anne Sylvester in Wilkie Collins’s Man and Wife. The role had come to her by chance, but Morris made such an impression that she was featured in a series of highly emotional roles over the next three years, in No Name, Jezebel, and Madeleine Morel, among others. Over the next few years she had great successes in Camille (1874); The New Leah (1875); Miss Multon (1876), an American version of a French translation of East Lynne and her most popular role; Jane Eyre (1877); and The New Magdalen (1882). She also toured extensively, especially in the 1880s, and everywhere impressed audiences with her emotional power. Although neither a great beauty nor a great artist, Morris had an instinctive genius for portraying the impassioned and often suffering heroines of French melodrama. The passing of the vogue for that sort of theatre, together with her uncertain health, brought her career to a close in the 1890s.

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In retirement in Riverdale, New York, Morris contributed articles on acting to various magazines, wrote a daily newspaper column for 10 years, and published several books, including many volumes of reminiscences.