Comments (Famous Bearer Only)
Surname of the musician Jhariah (Jhariah Clare)
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Clare Devlin is one of the main characters on Derry Girls.
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Clare was the name of Max's sister in Where the Wild Things Are, the 2009 movie. Pepita Emmerichs played this character.
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If the name Clare Boothe Luce is unfamiliar to you, then perhaps you're familiar with one of her most prominent acolytes: Ann Coulter.
The parallels between the two women are imperfect, to be sure. Yet it was TIME Magazine, a magazine significant in Clare Boothe Luce's personal history, that drew the comparison in a 2005 profile of Coulter. The comparison drew sharp rebukes from observers of all political persuasions; most argued that the comparison unjustly elevated Coulter and diminished Luce. Nonetheless, for those unfamiliar with Clare Boothe Luce's life and career, it's an interesting starting point.
Clare Boothe was born in 1903 in New York City to two parents intimately involved with New York's theatre scene. Boothe's family moved to Memphis for a time but she returned with her mother and brother to New York after her parents' divorce. As a young girl, Boothe helped pay her family bills by starring in stage productions. Because of this, she didn't attend school until she was nearly a teenager.
Boothe's initial introduction to politics came in the form of a new stepfather. Her mother married Albert E. Austin, a practicing physician and of Republican politics. He served two nonconsecutive terms in the Connecticut House of Representatives, from 1917 to 1919 and 1921 to 1923. He eventually served a term in the US House of Representatives, from 1939 to 1941.
In 1923, Clare Boothe married George Brokaw. Brokaw was 24 years Boothe's senior, and the scion of a series of clothing stores. Boothe would charge later that Brokaw was abusive and an alcoholic. The pair had a daughter, Ann Clare Brokaw, in 1924. The marriage ended in divorce in 1929.
Boothe initially planned a career as a writer. She was hired to work for Vogue, initially as a caption writer, and then served as managing editor of Vanity Fair. She published a volume of short stories, titled "Stuffed Shirts," in 1931 that received positive reviews. (Scriber's Magazine compared the work favorably to Evelyn Waugh.) She served as a war correspondent for Life Magazine, publishing "Europe in the Spring" after her travels.
Of her writing career, it is probably her work as a playwright that is best remembered. An unsuccessful drama, "Abide With Me," premiered in 1935.
The next year, though, her next play "The Women," a biting satirical comedy featuring a cast of some 40 actresses, debuted and proved a major success. The play was adapted into a 1939 film, starring Joan Crawford, Joan Fontaine, Norma Shearer, Hedda Hopper, and a slew of other notable actresses. A 2008 remake, starring Meg Ryan, Jada Pinkett Smith, Bette Midler, and Debra Messing, among others, was less successful.
In 1935, Boothe married Henry Luce, the publisher of TIME Magazine, Life Magazine, and Fortune Magazine. She adopted the name Clare Boothe Luce. (A stage/screen actress named Claire Luce was active during the same period; the name similarity often confused observers.) The relationship was complicated. As Luce's celebrity grew, her husband often questioned how much coverage his magazines should provide. Two two also had complex personal dynamics, including extensive affairs on the part of both.
Luce's own political philosophy and involvement developed during the Great Depression. Beginning in 1932, she worked as the executive secretary for the National Party, an effort to unique conservatives with moderate liberals to rescue to the faltering economy. For a brief period of time, Boothe supported the policies of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, but eventually became opposed to the New Deal.
Luce identity as a Republican began when she became an active supporter of Wendell Willkie's 1940 presidential campaign. Her travels as a war correspondent for Life Magazine played a significant impact in her political evolution as well: she became deeply critical of Roosevelt's foreign policy.
In 1942, Connecticut Republican leaders sought to convince Luce to run for the House of Representatives from a Connecticut political district, the same district her stepfather Albert Austin had represented from 1939 to 1941. Luce had a home in the wealthy town of Greenwich, in her proposed congressional district, though it wasn't her primary residence. Luce wasn't overly thrilled with the prospect, believing she would be a poor fit for politics, but she did agree. Opponents during the primary attacked her as a carpetbagger (not without merit), but she did prevail.
Luce's experiences abroad gave her campaign an internationalist bent, versus the isolationism common throughout conservative quarters. Her platform, she delcared, had three goals, each tied to World War II: “One, to win the war. Two, to prosecute that war as loyally and effectively as we can as Republicans. Three, to bring about a better world and a durable peace, with special attention to postwar security and employment here at home.”
In the 1942 general election, she faced Le Roy D. Downs, a first-term Democrat. In 1940, Downs had defeated Bothe Luce's stepfather for the same seat she was now seeking. Luce attracted an interesting mix of support, including Roosevelt backers and 1940 presidential candidate Wendell Willkie. Luce won a narrow victory, earning just 46% of the vote.
Luce initially campaigned for a spot on the Foreign Affairs Committee; she was instead put on the Committee of Military Affairs. Luce was impatient with the process of legislating, so instead, she used her perch on the Military Affairs committee as a soapbox to criticize the Roosevelt administration. Her first floor speech, titled "America in the Postwar Air World," attracted some 200 House members, and included a forceful charge that the US should control global airspace. The speech attracted controversy, including a denouncement from members of the British Parliament. Most, though, believed that was Luce's goal.
Luce's internationalist bent made her an interesting amalgam of forces in American politics. She was in favor of the formation of the United Nations and supported American refugee efforts, both domestically and through the UN.
Her domestic policy were also significant more moderate than her rhetoric often suggested. Though she never claimed feminism as an organizing principle, she supported many of the policy arguments feminists of her era supported. She became a supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment in 1943, three decades before it dominated American feminism. She supported the formation of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps. She supported the creation of the Department of Labor because she wanted to ensure womne and minority workers received equal pay for equal work. Perhaps most surprisingly, she supported heavy taxes on the rich, declaring "those who can afford it, the well-to-do and the rich, must be taxed almost to the constitutional point of confiscation."
In 1944, Luce became the first woman to serve as the keynote speaker at a Republican National Convention. Her speech was a forceful rebuke of the Roosevelt administration. She went on a speaking tour in favor of Republican presidential candidate Thomas E. Dewey. She charged that Roosevelt had "lied us into a war because he did not have the political courage to lead us into it." She also accused him of being "the world's leading isolaitonist and appeaser." She was assailed by critics, and receive an unexpectedly strong challenge in her reelection campaign that fall. Eventually, her Democratic challenger, Margaret E. Connors, Connecticut's 29-year-old Secretary of State, lost by just 1%.
Luce's second term was marked by complicated feelings about foreign policy objectives to the Soviet Union. During her second term, Luce lost her interest in holding political office.
Much of that loss of interest came in the form of tragedy. In January 1944, her 19-year-old daughter, Ann Clare Brokaw, a student at Stanford University, was killed in a car acccident. Luce went on a three-year spiritual sojourn seeking closure. She eventually found solace in Roman Catholicism, converting to the faith in 1946. (She funded the construction of a Catholic church adjacent to Stanford's campus as a memorial to her daughter, intended for use by the university; the church was sold by the diocese in 1998 and is now an Anglican worship space.)
Upon her conversion to Catholicism, her public speaking became even more forceful and commanding.
Nonetheless, she decided to end her career in electoral politics, retiring from Congress after two terms in 1947. She periodically contemplated a return, including possibly for the presidency, but never again entered a political race.
No longer interested in electoral office, she remained extremely active politically. She addressed the 1948 Republican National Convention.
From 1953 to 1957, she served as the United States Ambassador to Italy, the fifth woman to serve as an ambassador in American history and the first to serve as an ambassador to a major economy. She won over Italian conservatives, and became known to many as la Signora, "the Lady," but many regarded her as a foreign meddler. She was the victim of attempted poisoning during her tenure. She became a friend to Pope Pius XII, who had admired her since 1940.
She was confirmed to be the United States Ambassador to Brazil in 1959, but a nasty exchange with Senator Wayne Morse (I-OR) led her to resign from the position after just three days.
In 1973, she was appointed to the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board by President Richard Nixon, where she served until the end of the Ford administration. She was reappointed to the board by President Ronald Reagan in 1981 but stepped down in 1983.
Luce died of brain cancer in October 1987, at age 84, in her apartment in the Watergate apartment complex.
Luce was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Ronald Reagan in 1983. She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 2017.
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The parallels between the two women are imperfect, to be sure. Yet it was TIME Magazine, a magazine significant in Clare Boothe Luce's personal history, that drew the comparison in a 2005 profile of Coulter. The comparison drew sharp rebukes from observers of all political persuasions; most argued that the comparison unjustly elevated Coulter and diminished Luce. Nonetheless, for those unfamiliar with Clare Boothe Luce's life and career, it's an interesting starting point.
Clare Boothe was born in 1903 in New York City to two parents intimately involved with New York's theatre scene. Boothe's family moved to Memphis for a time but she returned with her mother and brother to New York after her parents' divorce. As a young girl, Boothe helped pay her family bills by starring in stage productions. Because of this, she didn't attend school until she was nearly a teenager.
Boothe's initial introduction to politics came in the form of a new stepfather. Her mother married Albert E. Austin, a practicing physician and of Republican politics. He served two nonconsecutive terms in the Connecticut House of Representatives, from 1917 to 1919 and 1921 to 1923. He eventually served a term in the US House of Representatives, from 1939 to 1941.
In 1923, Clare Boothe married George Brokaw. Brokaw was 24 years Boothe's senior, and the scion of a series of clothing stores. Boothe would charge later that Brokaw was abusive and an alcoholic. The pair had a daughter, Ann Clare Brokaw, in 1924. The marriage ended in divorce in 1929.
Boothe initially planned a career as a writer. She was hired to work for Vogue, initially as a caption writer, and then served as managing editor of Vanity Fair. She published a volume of short stories, titled "Stuffed Shirts," in 1931 that received positive reviews. (Scriber's Magazine compared the work favorably to Evelyn Waugh.) She served as a war correspondent for Life Magazine, publishing "Europe in the Spring" after her travels.
Of her writing career, it is probably her work as a playwright that is best remembered. An unsuccessful drama, "Abide With Me," premiered in 1935.
The next year, though, her next play "The Women," a biting satirical comedy featuring a cast of some 40 actresses, debuted and proved a major success. The play was adapted into a 1939 film, starring Joan Crawford, Joan Fontaine, Norma Shearer, Hedda Hopper, and a slew of other notable actresses. A 2008 remake, starring Meg Ryan, Jada Pinkett Smith, Bette Midler, and Debra Messing, among others, was less successful.
In 1935, Boothe married Henry Luce, the publisher of TIME Magazine, Life Magazine, and Fortune Magazine. She adopted the name Clare Boothe Luce. (A stage/screen actress named Claire Luce was active during the same period; the name similarity often confused observers.) The relationship was complicated. As Luce's celebrity grew, her husband often questioned how much coverage his magazines should provide. Two two also had complex personal dynamics, including extensive affairs on the part of both.
Luce's own political philosophy and involvement developed during the Great Depression. Beginning in 1932, she worked as the executive secretary for the National Party, an effort to unique conservatives with moderate liberals to rescue to the faltering economy. For a brief period of time, Boothe supported the policies of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, but eventually became opposed to the New Deal.
Luce identity as a Republican began when she became an active supporter of Wendell Willkie's 1940 presidential campaign. Her travels as a war correspondent for Life Magazine played a significant impact in her political evolution as well: she became deeply critical of Roosevelt's foreign policy.
In 1942, Connecticut Republican leaders sought to convince Luce to run for the House of Representatives from a Connecticut political district, the same district her stepfather Albert Austin had represented from 1939 to 1941. Luce had a home in the wealthy town of Greenwich, in her proposed congressional district, though it wasn't her primary residence. Luce wasn't overly thrilled with the prospect, believing she would be a poor fit for politics, but she did agree. Opponents during the primary attacked her as a carpetbagger (not without merit), but she did prevail.
Luce's experiences abroad gave her campaign an internationalist bent, versus the isolationism common throughout conservative quarters. Her platform, she delcared, had three goals, each tied to World War II: “One, to win the war. Two, to prosecute that war as loyally and effectively as we can as Republicans. Three, to bring about a better world and a durable peace, with special attention to postwar security and employment here at home.”
In the 1942 general election, she faced Le Roy D. Downs, a first-term Democrat. In 1940, Downs had defeated Bothe Luce's stepfather for the same seat she was now seeking. Luce attracted an interesting mix of support, including Roosevelt backers and 1940 presidential candidate Wendell Willkie. Luce won a narrow victory, earning just 46% of the vote.
Luce initially campaigned for a spot on the Foreign Affairs Committee; she was instead put on the Committee of Military Affairs. Luce was impatient with the process of legislating, so instead, she used her perch on the Military Affairs committee as a soapbox to criticize the Roosevelt administration. Her first floor speech, titled "America in the Postwar Air World," attracted some 200 House members, and included a forceful charge that the US should control global airspace. The speech attracted controversy, including a denouncement from members of the British Parliament. Most, though, believed that was Luce's goal.
Luce's internationalist bent made her an interesting amalgam of forces in American politics. She was in favor of the formation of the United Nations and supported American refugee efforts, both domestically and through the UN.
Her domestic policy were also significant more moderate than her rhetoric often suggested. Though she never claimed feminism as an organizing principle, she supported many of the policy arguments feminists of her era supported. She became a supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment in 1943, three decades before it dominated American feminism. She supported the formation of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps. She supported the creation of the Department of Labor because she wanted to ensure womne and minority workers received equal pay for equal work. Perhaps most surprisingly, she supported heavy taxes on the rich, declaring "those who can afford it, the well-to-do and the rich, must be taxed almost to the constitutional point of confiscation."
In 1944, Luce became the first woman to serve as the keynote speaker at a Republican National Convention. Her speech was a forceful rebuke of the Roosevelt administration. She went on a speaking tour in favor of Republican presidential candidate Thomas E. Dewey. She charged that Roosevelt had "lied us into a war because he did not have the political courage to lead us into it." She also accused him of being "the world's leading isolaitonist and appeaser." She was assailed by critics, and receive an unexpectedly strong challenge in her reelection campaign that fall. Eventually, her Democratic challenger, Margaret E. Connors, Connecticut's 29-year-old Secretary of State, lost by just 1%.
Luce's second term was marked by complicated feelings about foreign policy objectives to the Soviet Union. During her second term, Luce lost her interest in holding political office.
Much of that loss of interest came in the form of tragedy. In January 1944, her 19-year-old daughter, Ann Clare Brokaw, a student at Stanford University, was killed in a car acccident. Luce went on a three-year spiritual sojourn seeking closure. She eventually found solace in Roman Catholicism, converting to the faith in 1946. (She funded the construction of a Catholic church adjacent to Stanford's campus as a memorial to her daughter, intended for use by the university; the church was sold by the diocese in 1998 and is now an Anglican worship space.)
Upon her conversion to Catholicism, her public speaking became even more forceful and commanding.
Nonetheless, she decided to end her career in electoral politics, retiring from Congress after two terms in 1947. She periodically contemplated a return, including possibly for the presidency, but never again entered a political race.
No longer interested in electoral office, she remained extremely active politically. She addressed the 1948 Republican National Convention.
From 1953 to 1957, she served as the United States Ambassador to Italy, the fifth woman to serve as an ambassador in American history and the first to serve as an ambassador to a major economy. She won over Italian conservatives, and became known to many as la Signora, "the Lady," but many regarded her as a foreign meddler. She was the victim of attempted poisoning during her tenure. She became a friend to Pope Pius XII, who had admired her since 1940.
She was confirmed to be the United States Ambassador to Brazil in 1959, but a nasty exchange with Senator Wayne Morse (I-OR) led her to resign from the position after just three days.
In 1973, she was appointed to the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board by President Richard Nixon, where she served until the end of the Ford administration. She was reappointed to the board by President Ronald Reagan in 1981 but stepped down in 1983.
Luce died of brain cancer in October 1987, at age 84, in her apartment in the Watergate apartment complex.
Luce was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Ronald Reagan in 1983. She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 2017.
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St. Clare is a great namesake.
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Clare Siobhan is a famous YouTuber who is known for her Sims related content.
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Clare Thomas is a British actress who has appeared in several British films and television series. Some of her highest profile roles have been Aggie, one of the title character's classmates in the film Madeline, and Ingrid Dracula, daughter of the Count, in the children's television series Young Dracula. She also made an appearance in BBC One show Holby City, as the stepdaughter of a male patient.
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A nice middle name.
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Clare Kendry was the catalyst in Nella Larsen's novel Passing (1929).
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Clare Short, famous British politician of Irish ancestry.
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I'm not surprised no one has mentioned her, but I am disappointed; one British singer, Clare Maguire?
I love this spelling of the name more than its variants. I am writing a novel, where a main character has this name. :3
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I love this spelling of the name more than its variants. I am writing a novel, where a main character has this name. :3
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Clare is the central character of Norihiro Yagi's manga Claymore.
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A famous bearer is Clare Oliver, the Australian anti-solarium campaigner that died at the age of 26 from melanoma cancer in September 2007. http://www.clareolivermelanomafund.org
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The University of Cambridge has both a Clare College and a Clare Hall.
The name was also borne as a surname by the English Romantic poet John Clare.
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The name was also borne as a surname by the English Romantic poet John Clare.
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Clare Abshire is a beautiful redhead in the sci-fi romantic novel by Audrey Niffenegger, 'The Time Traveler's Wife'. Just read the novel and you'll love the name even more, trust me it's good.
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Clare Quilty (a man) is a pedophile playwright in the novel Lolita.
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There is a place in Ireland called County Clare.
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There is a song called Clare by Gilbert and Sullivan.
Clare. The moment I met you, I swear.
I felt as if something, somewhere,
had happened to me, which I couldn't see.
And then, the moment I met you, again.
I knew in my heart that we were friends.
It had to be so, it couldn't be no.
But try as hard as I might do, I don't know why.
You get to me in a way I can't describe.
Words mean so little when you look up and smile.
I don't care what people say, to me you're more than a child.
Oh Clare. Clare ...
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Clare. The moment I met you, I swear.
I felt as if something, somewhere,
had happened to me, which I couldn't see.
And then, the moment I met you, again.
I knew in my heart that we were friends.
It had to be so, it couldn't be no.
But try as hard as I might do, I don't know why.
You get to me in a way I can't describe.
Words mean so little when you look up and smile.
I don't care what people say, to me you're more than a child.
Oh Clare. Clare ...
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W. S. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan (19th century librettist and composer, renowned for their comic operettas) are not the same as 20th century singer Gilbert O'Sullivan, who wrote and performed the little Clare song. No doubt his name is a tribute to them.
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There is a Clare, Michigan.
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Clare is one of the main characters in "The Time Traveler's Wife," (one of my favorite books) by Audrey Niffenegger.
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Clare Arnold was a character on Beverly Hills 90210.
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