Claire Wilbur
Encyclopedia
Claire Wilbur, also known as Catt Wilbur (June 8, 1933 – May 20, 2004) was an American actress of stage and screen as well as an Academy Award-winning producer of short films. Arguably, she is best known for her performance as the seductive, swinging housewife Elvira in the Radley Metzger
film Score
(1973).
Wilbur was a member of the original off-Broadway
cast of Score, which was later adapted into Metzger's film. She played Elvira for 23 performances from October 28 to November 15, 1970, at the Martinique Theatre in New York City, and was the sole performer to make the transition from the stage play to the film. After Score, Wilbur appeared in the sexploitation
film Teenage Hitchhikers.
According to newspaper articles published by Margaret Caldwell, Wilbur's longtime close friend, the actress only accepted the part in the film version of Score to make enough money to produce a documentary short written and directed by her friend Robin Lehman. Wilbur also co-produced Lehman's shorts The End of the Game
(1975) and Nightlife
(1976), earning an Academy Award nomination for the latter and winning an Oscar for the former in 1976.
In later years, she worked as a dedicated animal rights activist and wrote two unpublished books of verse about the Mankei Neko, a porcelain Japanese feline commonly known as "The Beckoning Cat": Mankei Neko: The Japanese Legend Of The Beckoning Cat and The Japanese Legend of the Cat and the Crone.
Wilbur was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2003 and died peacefully in her Upper East Side apartment in Manhattan on May 20, 2004.
Radley Metzger
Radley Metzger is an American filmmaker and distributor. He is also credited under the pseudonym Henry Paris, a name he adopted in the 1970s when he began to direct hardcore pornography....
film Score
Score (film)
Score is the name of a sexploitation film directed by Radley Metzger that was one of the first films to explore bisexual relationships. It was part of the brief porn chic fad in the early 1970s that also included The Devil in Miss Jones and Deep Throat...
(1973).
Wilbur was a member of the original off-Broadway
Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...
cast of Score, which was later adapted into Metzger's film. She played Elvira for 23 performances from October 28 to November 15, 1970, at the Martinique Theatre in New York City, and was the sole performer to make the transition from the stage play to the film. After Score, Wilbur appeared in the sexploitation
Sexploitation
Sexploitation, or "sex-exploitation", describes a class of independently produced, low-budget feature films generally associated with the 1960s and serving largely as a vehicle for the exhibition of non-explicit sexual situations and gratuitous nudity. The genre is a subgenre of exploitation films...
film Teenage Hitchhikers.
According to newspaper articles published by Margaret Caldwell, Wilbur's longtime close friend, the actress only accepted the part in the film version of Score to make enough money to produce a documentary short written and directed by her friend Robin Lehman. Wilbur also co-produced Lehman's shorts The End of the Game
The End of the Game (film)
The End of the Game is a 1975 short documentary film directed by Robin Lehman. It won an Academy Award in 1976 for Documentary Short Subject.-External links:...
(1975) and Nightlife
Nightlife
Nightlife is the collective term for any entertainment that is available and more popular from the late evening into the early hours of the morning...
(1976), earning an Academy Award nomination for the latter and winning an Oscar for the former in 1976.
In later years, she worked as a dedicated animal rights activist and wrote two unpublished books of verse about the Mankei Neko, a porcelain Japanese feline commonly known as "The Beckoning Cat": Mankei Neko: The Japanese Legend Of The Beckoning Cat and The Japanese Legend of the Cat and the Crone.
Wilbur was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2003 and died peacefully in her Upper East Side apartment in Manhattan on May 20, 2004.