Burr McIntosh Monthly, 1904
Edna McClure (born c. 1888) was an American actress whose brief career on Broadway was overshadowed by a sensational murder case and later a tragic family dispute.
Edna McClure (born c. 1888) was an American actress whose brief career on Broadway was overshadowed by a sensational murder case and later a tragic family dispute.
McClure was born in California around 1888, the only child of Henry McClure and Amy Hodges. Her father, a building site contractor, was born in Vermont to Scottish immigrants, while her mother was a native Californian whose family originally came from the Carolinas. [1] [2]
She first appeared on Broadway at an early age as Elsie Habbicombe in the 1904 musical comedy The Medal and the Maid [3] and a bit later that year as Monty in The Baroness Fiddlesticks . [4] In January 1905 she appeared in the short-lived comedy The Money Makers, [5] and two months later as the wife of General Butin in a burlesque production of the C. M. S. McLellan melodrama Leah Kleschna . [6] McClure returned to San Francisco not long afterwards to attend classes at Caldwell College of Oratory and Acting. [7] She came back to Broadway in August 1906 to play Eleanor in a successful run of the comedy play The Tourist. [8] At some point during her time in New York, McClure fell into the orbit of friends surrounding the model turned actress Evelyn Nesbit and her millionaire husband, Harry Kendall Thaw.
On the night of June 25, 1906, Thaw shot dead the noted architect Stanford White at the rooftop restaurant atop Madison Square Garden during a performance of the Edgar Allan Woolf musical comedy Mam'zelle Champagne . McClure reportedly told police investigators that over the two years leading up to White’s murder she had frequently witnessed Thaw fly into a rage over the mention of his wife’s former lover, and that she seemed to encourage these outbursts by urging him to do something. During Thaw’s trial the prosecution’s decision not to call McClure to testify prompted the press to name her the 'will ‘o wisp witness' of the trial. [9] Thaw was later sent to the Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, initially for life, but was released in 1913 after only five years confinement. [10] [11]
On December 1, 1906, McClure married John G. Richardson, a young entrepreneur involved at the time with a mining venture in Tonopah, Nevada. The couple, who had only known each other a few weeks before marrying, divorced in December 1910 after separating the year before. [12]
Some months after the White murder, McClure joined the Frank Bacon stock company at the Theatre Jose in San Jose, California, in a dramatization of the Archibald Clavering Gunter novel Mr. Barnes of New York . [13] During this time McClure would attempt suicide twice. The first attempt was with laudanum at the Bristol Hotel in San Jose, and the second, in September 1907, was by ingesting a cocaine solution at her parents’ home in San Francisco. Though McClure was never forthcoming about what had driven her to attempt suicide, the press at the time speculated that family pressure to leave the stage was responsible for her depression. [14]
McClure's last performances on Broadway came in September 1911 at the Bijou Theatre in the short-lived play Modern Marriage by Harrison Rhodes, [15] and thirteen years later (as Edna M. Chamberlain) playing Buria in The Warrior's Husband, a comedy by Julia F. Thompson that closed after a single performance at the Belasco Theatre. [16]
Around this time McClure married Gordon S. Chamberlin, a contractor and business associate of her father. A daughter and two sons were born to this union before Chamberlin was fatally injured while inspecting a San Francisco construction site in June 1931. [18]
In 1934 a dispute arose between McClure and her 24-year-old daughter Amy over an uncle’s $40,000 estate. During a heated exchange McClure shot her daughter several times with a hand gun, wounding her in the mouth, neck and shoulder. Amy survived and McClure was later found guilty of assault with a deadly weapon (reduced from attempted murder) and given one year probation with the proviso that she and her daughter have no further contact with each other. The judge in the case actually chastised her daughter for filing charges, telling her: "A man would not have done it." [19] [20] [21]
From this point on Edna McClure appears to vanish from the public eye.
In 1904 Burr McIntosh Monthly wrote of McClure’s potential;
Edna McClure is a little girl who is just beginning her theatrical career, and is at present one of the attractive features in "The Baroness Fiddlesticks." That Miss McClure is an attractive photographic subject cannot be denied, and that she has a future as an actress is admitted by all who have seen her on the stage. [22]
Christina Pickles is a British actress. She is known for her role as Nurse Helen Rosenthal in the NBC medical drama St. Elsewhere (1982–1988), for which she received five nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series. She is also known for her recurring role as Judy Geller on the NBC sitcom Friends, for which she was nominated for the 1995 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series.
Amy Beth Dziewiontkowski, known professionally as Amy Ryan, is an American actress of stage and screen. A graduate of New York's High School of Performing Arts, she is an Academy Award nominee and two-time Tony Award nominee.
Rose McClendon was a leading African-American Broadway actress of the 1920s. A founder of the Negro People's Theatre, she guided the creation of the Federal Theatre Project's African American theatre units nationwide and briefly co-directed the New York Negro Theater Unit.
Vivien Oakland, was an American actress best known for her work in comedies in Hollywood in the 1920s and 1930s, most notably with the Hal Roach Studios. Oakland appeared in 157 films between 1915 and 1951.
Edna May Pettie, known on stage as Edna May, was an American actress and singer. A popular postcard beauty, May was famous for her leading roles in Edwardian musical comedies.
Linda Mathews Watkins was an accomplished American stage, radio, film, and television actress.
Edna Goodrich was an American Broadway actress, Florodora girl, author, and media sensation during the early 1900s. At one point, she was known as one of America's wealthiest and best dressed performers. She was married to Edwin Stacey of Cincinnati, Ohio, and later Nat C. Goodwin.
Carlotta Nillson was a Swedish-born American actress who appeared in at least ten Broadway productions over the first decade of the twentieth century. She was probably best remembered for her portrayal of Rhys Macchesney in the play The Three of Us.
Anne Margaret Triola was an American singer, musician, and actress of stage, film, and television. As a comedian and supporting actress, she got her start singing in Hollywood night clubs. Triola made her mark in the well known musical film Lullaby Of Broadway (1951) and received much praise for her effort in the motion picture Without Reservations (1946), which starred Claudette Colbert and John Wayne. She participated in five Hollywood films, assisted with USO tours in the Pacific Theater during World War II, and caused audiences to lose themselves in laughter, but Triola may best be remembered for work as a singer and comedian with the musical theatre that included performances in night clubs all over the country such as the Blue Angel in New York City.
Charles Morton Stewart McLellan (1865–1916) was a London-based American playwright and composer who often wrote under the pseudonym Hugh Morton. McLellan is probably best remembered for the musical The Belle of New York and drama Leah Kleschna.
Leah Kleschna is a drama in five acts by C.M.S. McLellan produced for the first time on Broadway by Minnie Maddern Fiske, Harrison Grey Fiske and the Manhattan Company with set design provided by Frank E. Gates and E. A. Morange.
Clara Lipman was an American musical comedy actress and playwright whose career began in 1885 and continued on until her retirement in 1927. She was the wife of comedian Louis Mann and the sister of popular Lieder singer, Mattie Lipman Marum.
Joseph Rhode Grismer was an American stage actor, playwright, and theatrical director and producer. He was probably best remembered for his play The New South and for his revision of the Charlotte Blair Parker play Way Down East.
Tessa Kay Kosta was an American actress who starred in Broadway musicals and operettas during the early decades of the twentieth century.
George Gaston Bell was an American stage and film actor active over the early decades of the twentieth century.
Izetta JewelKenney was an American stage actress, women's rights activist and politician. She became the first woman to deliver a seconding speech for a presidential nominee at a major American political party convention when she seconded the nomination of John W. Davis at the 1924 Democratic National Convention.
Mabel Hite was a vaudeville comedian and musical comedy actress.
Mary Hay Caldwell was an American dancer, musical comedy and silent screen actress, playwright, and former Ziegfeld girl.
Frank Aloysius Robert Tinney was an American blackface comedian and actor.
Edna Luby was an American actress and comedian. She acted on stage and in silent films and performed in vaudeville as a celebrity impersonator. Luby was the niece of Sigmund Lubin, a pioneer film producer.