Clara Morris

Clara Morris
Clara Morris
Born	March 17, 1849(1849-03-17) Toronto, Canada
Died	November 20, 1925(1925-11-20) (aged 76) New Canaan, Connecticut, United States

Clara Morris (March 17, 1849 – November 20, 1925) (her birth date is sometimes given as 1846/48) was an American actress.

Biography

Born in Toronto, Canada, her real name was Morrison. She was reared in Cleveland, Ohio, where at the Academy of Music she became a member of the ballet and afterward leading actress.

She went to New York in 1870 as a member of Daly's company. In 1872, she made a sensation in L'Article 47. Other successes followed and she became known as an actress distinguished for spontaneity and naturalness. She was married to F. C. Harriott in 1874.

For some years after 1885, she devoted herself mainly to literary work, writing: Little Jim Crow, and Other Stories of Children (1899); A Silent Singer (1899); Life on the Stage: My Personal Experiences and Recollections (1901); A Pasteboard Crown (1902); Stage Confidences, (1902); The Trouble Woman, (1904), fiction; The Life of a Star, (1906); Left in Charge, (1907); New East Lynne, (1908); A Strange Surprise, (1910); Dressing Room Receptions, (1911).

In her book Life on the Stage: My Personal Experiences and Recollections she recounts her meeting with John Wilkes Booth the assassin of Abraham Lincoln.

Complete blindness overtook her in 1910, and her old age was embittered by poverty. The house in which she had lived for 37 years was sold in 1914, and Miss Morris moved to Whitestone, Long Island

NYPL Digital Gallery

References

• McKay and Wingate, Famous American Actors of To-Day, (New York, 1896)
• Matthews and Hutton, Actors and Actresses of Great Britain and the United States, (New York, 1886)

External links

• Clara Morris biography at the Joseph Haworth site.
• 19th Century Actor Autobiographies Ms. Morris recounts her meeting with John Wilkes Booth from Life on the Stage.
• Works by Clara Morris at Project Gutenberg
• Clara Morris Papers. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.

Persondata
Name	Morris, Clara
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	March 17, 1849
Place of birth	Toronto, Canada
Date of death	November 20, 1925
Place of death	New Canaan, Connecticut, United States