Morris, Clara, 1848-1925

Actress Clara Morris was born in Toronto and moved with her mother to Cleveland, Ohio. She became a ballet girl in the resident company of the Cleveland Academy of Music; after nine years of training with that company she played a leading lady at Wood's Theatre in Cincinnati in 1869. She made her New York debut in September in "Man and Wife," directed by Augustin Daly at his Fifth Avenue Theatre. She worked with Daly in a series of highly emotional roles over the next three years in such plays as "No Name," "Delmonico's," "L'Article 47," "Alixe," "Jezebel," and "Madeline Morel."

Over the next few years Morris had great successes in "Camille" in 1874, "The New Leah" in 1875, "Miss Multon," her most popular role, in 1876, "Jane Eyre" in 1877, and "The New Magdalen" in 1882. She also toured extensively, especially in the 1880s, and everywhere mesmerized audiences with her emotional power. Although neither a great beauty nor a great artist, nor trained in elocution or stagecraft, she had an instinctive genius for portraying the impassioned and often suffering heroines of French melodrama.

After her retirement from theater she contributed articles on acting to various magazines, wrote a daily newspaper column for ten years, and published numerous books, including A Silent Singer (1899), Little Jim Crow and Other Stories for Children (1900), Life on the Stage (1901), Stage Confidences (1902), A Pasteboard Crown (1902), The Trouble Woman (1904), The Life of a Star (1906), Left in Charge (1907), New East Lynne (1908), A Strange Surprise (1910), and Dressing-Room Receptions (1911). She died in New Canaan, Connecticut, on November 20, 1925.