Clara Bloodgood
Clara Bloodgood (August 23, 1870 - December 5, 1907 was an American socialite who became a successful Broadway stage actress.

Early Life

Clara Stephens was born in Long Branch, New Jersey, the daughter of Edward and Annie (née Sutton) Stephens. Her father, a prominent New York attorney, was the son of author Ann S. Stephens

Ann S. Stephens

Ann Sophia Stephens was an American novelist and magazine editor. She was the author of dime novels and is credited as the progenitor of that genre.- Early life :...

. Her mother was one of three sisters once called “the beautiful Sutton girls” by New York’s high society. As a young girl Clara attended St. Johns School in Brighton, England.

At around the age of seventeen Clara attracted the attention of two suitors, William Moller Havemeyer, the son of a wealthy sugar manufacturer and John “Jack” Bloodgood, Jr., whose father made millions in banking over the years following the American Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

. She married Havemeyer in 1887 and divorced him within a year or so. She went on to marry Bloodgood in 1890, only to see him loose his inheritance and health within a very short period. His death in 1897, that left her in a dire financial situation, led Clara to attempt a career in theater. In 1902 she married William Laimbeer , a New York stock broker.

Career

Clara. Bloodgood's stage debut came in January, 1898, at the Empire Theatre in New York playing a minor role in "The Conquerors". The following season, at the same venue, she created the role Beatrice Hipgrave in "Phroso”. She later supported Annie Russell

Annie Russell

Annie Ellen Russell was an English born American stage actress.-Early life:Russell was born on in Liverpool, England, of Irish parents, Joseph Russell and Jane Mount. She moved to Canada when she was a child. She made her first appearance on the stage at eight years old at the Montreal Academy of...

 in "Catherine" and "Miss Hobbs" and toured with Amelia Bingham’s

Amelia Bingham

Amelia Swilley Kingham' was an Australian dancer from Hicksville, Ohio. Her Broadway career extended from ....

 Company in "The Climbers." She next appeared with Arnold Daly

Arnold Daly

Arnold Daly was an American actor, playwright and producer. He was the father of actress and Algonquin Rountable personality Blyth Daly....

 in "How He Lied to Her Husband," and a production of "The Gentleman from India," in Boston. In 1905 at the Hudson Theatre in New York she played Violet Robinson in George Bernard Shaw’s

George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...

 "Man and Superman," with Robert Loraine

Robert Loraine

Robert Loraine was a successful Broadway and London stage actor, actor-manager and soldier who later enjoyed a side career as a pioneer aviator. Born in New Brighton, England his father was Henry Loraine and Robert made his first stage appearance in the English provinces in 1889. He served in the...

. She became the leading exponent of plays by Clyde Fitch

Clyde Fitch

Clyde Fitch was an American dramatist.-Biography:Born William Clyde Fitch at Elmira, New York, he wrote over 60 plays, 36 of them original, which varied from social comedies and farces to melodrama and historical dramas.As the only child to live to adulthood, his father, Captain William G...

 and worked for such Broadway impresarios as Charles Frohman

Charles Frohman

Charles Frohman was an American theatrical producer. Frohman was producing plays by 1889 and acquired his first Broadway theatre by 1892. He discovered and promoted many stars of the American theatre....

, Charles Dillingham and Henry B. Harris

Henry B. Harris

Henry B. Harris ; Henry Birkhardt Harris, born in St. Louis, was a Broadway producer and theatre owner who died in the sinking of the...

. Reportedly her best friend in the acting profession was the actress and later screenwriter Zelda Sears

Zelda Sears

Zelda Sears, née Paldi was an American actress, screenwriter, novelist and businesswoman.-Youth:Sears was born near Brockway Township, St. Clair County, Michigan. Her father, Justin Lewis Paldi, ran a farm more than twenty miles from the closest railroad station. By age 12, she worked for L.A....

, who appeared with her in her last play The Truth.

Death

On the night of December 5, 1907, just prior to that night’s performance of The Truth, Bloodgood disrobed in her Baltimore hotel room and then shot herself in the mouth. Nearby lay a copy of a book titled How to Shoot Straight and a 38-caliber revolver. Anxiety over her career and losses she suffered in a failed business venture of her husband's may have played a factor in Bloodgood taking her own life.

Author Daniel Blum described Bloodgood's death:

Clara Bloodgood was playing the last role of her short but brilliant career in Clyde Fitch's THE TRUTH. The play opened in January (sic 1907) and was not a success, but in the fall she decided to take it on tour. While in Baltimore, she shot herself in a hotel room just before an evening performance. the motives for her suicide were never clearly established.

External links

• Clara Bloodgood at IBDb.com
• portrait Clara Bloodgood 1906
• portrait gallery(NY Public Library, Billy Rose coll.)
• memorial page;photo, findagrave