This blonde, smoky-voiced actress from the New York stage made forays to her native Brooklyn to appear in Vitaphone shorts in the early 1930s before making her feature film debut in 1933. Claire Trevor typically toiled as a hardened, but sympathetic victim or gun moll in a host of B productions until she gained recognition and an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress for her fine performance as gangster Humphrey Bogart's prostitute girlfriend in "Dead End" (1937). She offered a variation on the role as the classic, gold-hearted saloon gal in John Ford's landmark Western "Stagecoach" (1939).
In the 1940s and 50s, Trevor played the female lead in several top-quality works, making an especially memorable femme fatale in films noir, particularly as a killer who convinces Burgess Meredith he is wanted for the crime in "Street of Chance" (1942), as the two-faced, wealthy widow in "Murder, My Sweet" (1944) and as a tart-tongued Broadway leading lady in "The Velvet Touch" (1948). But it was perhaps her Oscar-winning performance as Edward G Robinson's humiliated, alcoholic moll in "Key Largo" (1948) that she will be remembered. In one harrowing scene, Robinson taunts her Gaye Dawn to croon the torch song "Moanin' Low" with the promised reward of a much desired drink. After sobbing through a rendition of the tune, Robinson's character cruelly refuses her, claiming her vocal stylings were "rotten".
Trevor continued to alternate between stage and screen, offering fine turns in later films including "Hard, Fast and Beautiful" (1951) and "The High and the Mighty" (1954), for which she earned a third Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination. She reunited with Robinson, cast as his ranting wife in "Two Weeks in Another Town" (1962) and then segued to more maternal parts as in "The Stripper" (1963) and her final feature, "Kiss Me Goodbye" (1982). Trevor also appeared in a number of TV productions, winning an Emmy as the flighty wife of Fredric March's "Dodsworth" (1956) and made her last appearance in that medium, acting in the 1987 ABC movie "Norman Rockwell's Breaking Home Ties" and appearing as a previous winner at the 1999 telecast of the Academy Awards.
Family
FATHER: Noel Wemlinger. Clothier. French; born in Paris; lost his business during the Depression.
MOTHER: Betty Wemlinger. Irish; born in Belfast.
SON: Charles Cyclos Dunsmoore. Born in 1944; died in a 1978 airline crash; father, Cyclos Dunsmoore.
STEP-SON: Donald L Bren. Developer. Chairman of Irvine Company; reportedly a billionaire; survived her.
STEP-SON: Peter Bren. Discotheque owner, real estate developer. Survived her.
Companion
HUSBAND: Clark Andrews. Writer, radio director. Married in 1938; divorced in 1942; had directed segments of "Big Town".
HUSBAND: Cyclos William Dunsmoore. Navy lieutenant. Married in 1943; divorced in 1947.
HUSBAND: Milton Bren. Producer. Married from 1948 until his death from a brain tumor in 1979.
Milestone
Raised in Larchmont, New York
Began career stage in stock and on Broadway in the late 1920s
First film appearance in Vitaphone shorts filmed in Brooklyn
Signed to a contract by Warner Bros.; acted in a series of short films; then spent 10 weeks in St Louis performing on stage with other contract players
1931: Acted on Broadway in "Whistling in the Dark"
Reportedly declined a contract offer from MGM to concentrate on theater
After failure of "The Party's Over", accepted five-year contract offer from Fox
1933: Feature film debut, "Life in the Raw"
1933: Appeared opposite Spencer Tracy in "The Mad Game"
1934: Cast as Shirley Temple's mother in "Baby Takes a Bow"
1937: Breakthough film role, an Oscar-nominated supporting turn as Humphrey Bogart's girlfriend in "Dead End"
1937 - 1940: Co-starred with Edward G Robinson in the radio drama "Big Town"
Returned to Warner Bros. after Daryl Zanuck's lack of faith in her talent became apparent
1938: Reteamed with Bogart on "The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse"
1939: Was top-billed as a hard-bitten woman of questionable virtue in "Stagecoach"; first of four films with John Wayne John Wayne
1943: Co-starred in "The Desperados"
1944: Appeared with Dick Powell (as private eye Philip Marlowe) in "Murder, My Sweet", adapted from Raymond Chandler's "Farewell My Lovely"
Starred in the Broadway production of "Dark Victory"
1947: Appeared on Broadway in "The Big Two"; show closed after 21 performances
1948: Offered Oscar-winning turn as Edward G Robinson's alcoholic moll in the crime drama "Key Largo"
1954: Received Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress for her spunky turn as a passenger on a troubled airplane in "The High and the Mighty"
Made TV debut in "Alias Nora Hale", aired as part of Ford Television Theater
1956: Starred opposite Fredric March in TV version of "Dodsworth"; earned Emmy Award
1958: Co-starred in "Marjorie Morningstar"
1962: Played Robinson's shrewish wife in "Two Weeks in Another Town"
1963: Cast as Joanne Woodward's mother in "The Stripper"
Returned to stage to star in touring production of "The Killing of Sister George" in the late 1960s
1967: Last film for 15 years, "The Cape Town Affair"
1982: Final film, playing Sally Field's mother in "Kiss Me Goodbye"
1987: Final acting role, in the ABC TV-movie "Norman Rockwell's Breaking Home Ties"
1998: Last TV appearance on the Academy Awards telecast, as part of a salute to previous award winners
Education
American Academy of Dramatic Arts - New York, New York
Columbia University - New York, New York - dropped out to attend American Academy of Dramatic Arts
Some sources list 1910 as the year of Ms. Trevor's birth.
"I don't think female movie stars have particularly happy lives. I rather doubt that Bette Davis or Katharine Hepburn had happy lives. . . . But I am sure about myself: I had a happy life; 90% of my thoughts were not directed to career." --Claire Trevor in a 1982 interview with
Los Angeles Times
In 1999, Trevor donated $500,000 to the University of California at Irvine's School of the Arts. A theater was named in her honor.
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